Fortunately, in 1976 things didn’t go according to Stephanie Hamm’s wishes. Luckily, her four-year-old daughter Mariel-Margaret, who everyone just called Mia, cried when her mother wanted to take her to ballet class.
Otherwise, football history would have lacked a spectacular and important chapter – and life in America in the 1990s would probably have been less exciting and boring for many young girls and teenagers.
A stroke of luck for all women’s sports
Stephanie Hamm had been a ballerina herself – and she would have liked to see her little Mia in this role. But she is enthusiastic about it Soccersince she saw a boy playing with his father in the park. This coincidence turned into a stroke of luck – for football and all women’s sports.
“She changed the face of sport for young girls. It’s accepted now that girls are pretty, smart, athletic and professional. That wasn’t the case then‘ says Lauren Gregg, longtime assistant coach at the U.S-National team facing the early 90s.
Nobody dribbles, spins and hits like Hamm
With a height of 1.65 meters, the rather small striker Hamm, who made her debut in the national team at the age of 15, dribbles, spins and hits like no other of her generation. “She had a presence on the pitch that just exudes success and respecte”, emphasizes Abby Wambach. The striker replaced Hamm as the most successful international goalscorer in 2014. Wambach can never match the hype and hysteria surrounding her compatriot.
Hamm is a pioneer, revolutionizing and establishing her sport with her style of play. Not just in the US, but internationally as well. Although there was no national women’s league in America at that time, her radiance extended to Germany, to Nia Künzer. “As a teenager, she was the ultimate icon for me, a role model and an idol“, says Künzer in an interview with sportschau.de.
Men paint “Mia Hamm” on their torsos
The 42-year-old made football history with her golden goal in extra time at the 2003 World Cup final against Sweden and headed Germany to a 2-1 victory and thus their first global title. Seven years earlier, in 1996, she and her parents had enthusiastically watched the Olympic premiere of women’s soccer in Atlanta. And like many of the up to 76,000 spectators who come to the US team’s games, she looks primarily at the woman with the shirt number nine: Mia Hamm.
“I was super impressed that the whole stadium was calling her name“says today’s ARD-expert. Almost 26 years later, Künzer still remembers girls and boys “in total ecstasy”. In Atlanta and also in 1999, at the home World Cup, numerous men paint “Mia Hamm” on their bare chests – some add a heart.
TV commercial featuring Michael Jordan
18 million Americans watched America’s 1999 penalty shoot-out victory over China in the World Cup final. 90,000 frenetic fans are eyewitnesses in the sold-out Rose Bowl. Numbers never before seen in women’s football. Afterwards, on US television, it is said that “Women’s Soccer“, “played its way into the national consciousness led by Mia Hamm”.
The US team also included other strong players at the time, such as Julie Foudy, Brandi Chastain, Joy Fawcett and Kristine Lilly. Like Hamm between 1991 and 2004, you also win two world titles and two Olympic gold medals.
But only Hamm is omnipresent in American everyday life – on muesli boxes and the covers of many magazines or as the video game “Mia Hamm Soccer 64” from Nintendo. She has numerous sponsorship deals. And she even does television commercials with Michael Jordan – probably the most famous athlete in the world at the time.
“Move it like Mia” instead of “Bend it like Beckham“
When FIFA voted the “World Footballer of the Year” for the first time in 2001, Hamm won just as clearly as in 2002. The British comedy “Bend it like Beckham” in the cinemas. However, there are concerns that the film in the USA cannot be successful. Because namesake David Beckham is not as well known between New York and Los Angeles at that time as he was years later when he moved to the MLS should be.
So it is considered, the strip for the US market in “Move it like Mia” to rename it – in the style of Mia Hamm. The British director Gurinder Chadha, however, rejects this.
Though she’s often been the player with the most attention, Hamm hasn’t wanted the limelight the least. It took years for the rather introverted striker to feel reasonably comfortable in her role as a soccer idol with pop status. “She’s the last to think of herself. For her, her fellow players are always more important than herselfsays husband Nomar Garciaparra. Hamm is the second marriage to the former baseball pro. The couple have three children and live in Los Angeles.
Minority owner at MLS club
When Hamm ended her career in 2004, she says that she “satisfied with their contribution to their sport” may be. That her body needs rest and it’s just time to stop.
Together with her husband, she is among other celebrities, such as actor Will Ferrell or basketball legend Magic Johnson Minority Owners at Los Angeles Football Club from the Major League Soccer. And she’s still famous 18 years after her stellar career ended. That’s why there was an updated version of their commercial with Jordan last year.