Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Go for the Gold by Mia Hamm Mia Hamm. Mariel Margaret Hamm-Garciapara was born on 17 March 1972, in Selma, Alabama USA, into a US Air Force family. She is a well-known retired soccer player, noted for being one of the best female soccer players of all time at both club (Washington Freedom) and international level with the US team. Some of her achievements include “Sportswoman of the Year”, “Soccer Female Athlete of the Year”, “Female Athlete of the Year” among others. What is more, Mia has been inducted into the Texas Sports Hall of Fame, National Soccer Hall of Fame and Alabama Sports Hall of Fame, and is one of only two females listed in the 150 Best Soccer Players of All-Time. Despite the fact that Mia has retired from her career as a soccer player, she is now involved in many other projects. So how rich is Mia Hamm? It is estimated that Mia’s net worth is $10 million. The main source of this sum of money is Mia’s former career as a successful soccer player. Although she does not play soccer anymore, her net worth is still growing as she is now known as an author and is involved in other activities. Mia started playing soccer from a very young age. When Mia studied at the Lake Braddock Secondary School she played for school’s soccer team and even helped them to win state championships in 1989. Later Mia continued her studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and she became a part of the university’s team, called “Tar Heels”. Mia continued improving her skills and contributed a lot to team’s wins. In 1987 Mia became the youngest ever to play for the United States women’s national soccer team, and had an opportunity to play at the FIFA Women’s World Cup in 1991, which the US won, and it had a huge impact on the growth of Mia’s net worth. In 1993 and in 1994 she was able to win the ACC Female Athlete of the Year Award, and her name became even better known among other players and coaches. In 1996 Hamm was again a part of the United States women’s national team which won gold at the Summer Olympic Games on home soil in Atlanta. In 2004 they won gold again at the Summer Olympics in Athens, and it added a lot to Mia’s net worth. Meantime, in 2001 Mia started playing for the team called “Washington Freedom”, in the year that the first professional women’s soccer league was created in the US called “Women’s United Soccer Association”. Undoubtedly, Mia and her talent had a huge impact on this change in women’s soccer. Despite her success, in 2004 Hamm decided to retire from her career as a professional soccer player, after appearing in an incredible 275 international matches. In addition to playing, Mia has also collaborated with such companies as “Nike”, “Fleet Bank”, “Gatorade”, “Powerbar”, “Mattel” and others. These activities also added considerably to her net worth. Now Hamm is known for releasing her books, “Go for the Goal: A Champion’s Guide to Winning in Soccer and Life” and “Winners Never Quit”, which gained a lot of acclaim and contributed to Hamm’s wealth. It is clear that Mia is one of the most influential people when talking about women’s soccer, and she remains a very hardworking and determined person. If to talk about Mia Hamm’s personal life, it can be said that she married Christian Corry, in 1994, but heir marriage ended in 2001. In 2003 she married Norman Garciaparra with whom she has three children. Finally, Mia Hamm is one of the most famous and successful female soccer players of all time. She has achieved a lot during her career as a soccer player and now, even though she is retired, Mia has other activities to take care of. That is why she remains very popular and influential. IMDB Wikipedia $10 million 125 lbs (56.699 kg) 1972 5 ft 4 in (1.65 m) ACC Athlete of the Year Alabama Association football Ava Caroline Garciaparra Bill Hamm Christian Corry Christian Corry (m. 1994–2001) FC Dallas FIFA 100 Football player Garrett Garciaparra Garrett Hamm Gender Glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor Grace Isabella Garciaparra Islam Lake Braddock Secondary School March 17 Mariel Margaret Hamm Messenger RNA Mia Mia Hamm Mia Hamm Net Worth National Soccer Hall of Fame Neuron Nomar Garciaparra Nomar Garciaparra (m. 2003) Parkinson’s disease Player Selma September 11 attacks Soccer in the United States Soccer Players Sports Stephanie Hamm Toyota Stadium United States United States of America United States women’s national soccer team University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Washington Freedom Women’s Professional Soccer. Go for the Gold by Mia Hamm. No Me in Mia By Lisette Hilton Special to ESPN.com. "A lot of players have trouble with confidence. It's not just Mia. But it surprises people when a great player struggles with confidence. That's been her life work to deal with her own lack of self-confidence on the soccer field," says former U.S. national team coach Tony DiCicco on ESPN Classic's SportsCentury's series. Some called it "Mia Mania," when Mia Hamm carried the torch for women's soccer. The 1990s marked an era when Hamm's outstanding ability, good-natured way, clean looks and undeniable passion made young girls around the U.S. take notice of a sport that was a blip on the radar screen. Dominant and intense under the spotlight, she also was modest, self-critical and shy. There's "no 'Me' in Mia," and no ham in Hamm, she wrote in her book Go for the Goal: A Champion's Guide to Winning in Soccer and Life. Because of those qualities, she would never say what so many others have: Mia Hamm was the greatest female soccer player of all-time. Hamm is not only an all-American hero but an icon in women's sports. She was instrumental in the U.S. winning two Women's World Cup titles and two Olympic gold medals. In 2004, after competing in the Olympics and participating in a 10-game "Fan Celebration Tour," she retired from international competition at 32. Hamm, who joined the U.S. team at 15, is the world's all-time leading goal scorer with 158 and was named the Player of the Year in the first two years that FIFA gave the award (2000 and 2001). Her popularity has led to endorsement deals with Pepsi and Nike, which named the largest building on its Oregon campus for her. Her most popular commercial was for Gatorade, in which she competed against Michael Jordan. Born March 17, 1972 in Selma, Ala., Mia was the third of Bill and Stephanie Hamm's four daughters. She grew up a military brat, living around the world as her father rose to the rank of Air Force colonel. Hamm was barely a year old when the family moved to Florence, Italy. She also lived in Virginia and California before she was five. She became a soccer fan as a toddler, watching matches on television and kicking the ball around in the backyard. The family moved to Wichita Falls, Texas, in 1977, and that year, the Hamms adopted Martin, a newborn, and Garrett, eight years old. One of Garrett's gifts to Mia was the sharing of his passion for sports. She tagged along for whatever sport her brother was playing. She went with him to touch football games, and he picked her for his team knowing his little sister had terrific hands and speed. Hamm's mother Stephanie said Mia was Garrett's "secret weapon." Hamm's world was shattered when Garrett, at 16, was diagnosed with aplastic anemia, a rare disease marked by insufficient platelets in the blood. Twelve years later, he received a bone-marrow transplant, but he died two months after that, in April 1997, because of a fungal infection. As youngsters, Garrett had helped Mia develop into a soccer standout in Wichita Falls. Still, when Anson Dorrance, the national team coach from 1986 to 1994, went to watch the 14-year-old play in a tournament in Louisiana in 1986, he was skeptical. "I didn't ask who she was; I wanted to let her emerge," Dorrance said. "This skinny brunette accelerated to the ball like she'd been shot out of a cannon. I'd never seen athleticism like that. I ran around screaming, 'Is that Mia Hamm?' " In 1987, Hamm - at 15 - was the youngest player to compete for the U.S. women's national team. The next year, she moved to Burke, Va., and she was named an All-American at Lake Braddock Secondary School. In 1989, after graduating a year early from high school, Hamm was playing for North Carolina, where Dorrance coached. He became her legal guardian during her freshman year as her parents moved to Rome. Scoring 103 goals and emerging as a three-time All-America, Hamm led North Carolina to four NCAA championships between 1989 and 1993, in the midst of the school's nine consecutive titles from 1986-94. Named to Soccer America's College Team of the Decade for the 1990s, the 5- foot-4, 125-pound forward completed her collegiate career as the Atlantic Coast Conference's all-time leading scorer in goals, assists (72) and points (278). Hamm was known for her relentless pursuit of excellence. In the summer before her senior season, Dorrance caught a glimpse of her tirelessly running cones and sprints in a park. Impressed by her work ethic, he wrote her a note: "The vision of a champion is someone who is bent over, drenched in sweat, at the point of exhaustion, when nobody else is watching." Hamm had taken a year off from college sports to help the U.S. win the Women's World Cup in 1991 in China. Once again, Hamm - at 19 - was the youngest player on the team. She started five of six games and scored two goals. At the 1996 Olympics, Hamm was hindered by an ankle sprain in the first round and scored only one goal. However, she continued to play and led the U.S. to a 2-1 victory over China in the final by setting up both goals. In 1997, Hamm was named the U.S. Soccer Federation Female of the Year for the fourth consecutive year and led the U.S. team in scoring for the third straight season. The next year she reached highs with 20 goals and 20 assists. She refused to pose for a cover of Newsweek in 1999, during the World Cup competition, because she didn't want the tournament to turn into the Mia Hamm show. In the tournament's opening game, before 78,972 fans at Giants Stadium, Hamm scored the first goal against Denmark. She went on to help the team win the championship, scoring in the fourth goal in a shootout as the U.S. defeated China on penalty kicks 5-4 in the final before a record women's crowd of 90,185 at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. In her 26 international matches in 1999, Hamm led the U.S. with 13 goals with 16 assists. Her biggest individual moment came when she scored her 108th goal in a 3-0 victory over Brazil in Orlando, Fla. At 27, she was the world record-holder for goals, breaking her tie with Italy's Elisabetta Vignotto. (Pele is the men's leader with 77.) At the 2000 Olympics, Hamm played all 462 minutes. In the semifinals, she scored the game's only goal in a victory over Brazil. Despite orchestrating two goals in the final, the U.S. lost 3-2 to Norway and settled for the silver medal. Capitalizing on the newfound popularity of the sport, the first women's pro soccer league - the Women's United Soccer Association - was formed in 2001. Hamm was the league's top attraction and she scored six goals and four assists for the Washington Freedom. Despite missing the Freedom's first 10 games in 2002 because of off-season knee surgery, she continued to star, scoring eight goals and six assists in just 11 games. In 2003, Hamm led the U.S. in scoring with eight goals and nine assists. She also led the Freedom to the league title, but three weeks after the championship game a lack of funds forced the WUSA to fold in September, five days before the Women's World Cup opened. In the tournament, Hamm was the top U.S. scorer. However, the Americans finished a disappointing third after losing to Germany in the semifinals. In November 2003, Hamm married baseball star Nomar Garciaparra. It was her second marriage. Her first was to a Navy ROTC midshipman named Christiaan Corry whom she met while both attended North Carolina. They wed in 1994. However, her career in soccer and his as a Marine helicopter pilot often kept them from living together and they divorced in 2001. Go for the Gold by Mia Hamm. The Mia Hamm Foundation is a non-profit, national organization dedicated to raising funds and awareness for families in need of a marrow or cord blood transplant and to the development of more opportunities for young women in sports. I want to begin by thanking you all for your continued support throughout the past 20 years. We have received many wonderful messages and ideas from faithful fans and supporters. We are fortunate to have such a tremendous group helping our cause. 2004 was an incredible bookend to my soccer journey. The gold medal in Athens and our special farewell game was an unforgettable way for me to wrap up my career. The sport of soccer has been so good to me, and I only hope that I have left it in a better place than when I started playing years ago. I am truly enjoying this stage of life with my family. I am inspired to help causes that are near and dear to me. We are excited that the Mia Hamm Foundation continues to promote opportunities. for young women in sports, and we remain committed to helping marrow and cord blood transplant patients and their families cope with the difficult challenges they face each day. Without the support and kindness of our friends and partner organizations, we could not continue to raise awareness and much-needed funds. I am very grateful for your hard work in helping our hopes and dreams become a reality. Thanks for being a part of the Mia Hamm Foundation, and we look forward to more exciting times ahead. Mia Hamm: A pioneer for female sporting empowerment who inspired a generation. Football Trailblazers: With soccer taking off, the US women’s national team needed a poster girl and a leader. In Hamm it found both. Nike founder and chairman Phil Knight was once asked to pick three athletes that he believed had played sport to such a high level that they added a new dimension to their craft. His trio: Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods and Mia Hamm. Even excusing Knight’s loyalty bias (all three were Nike-sponsored athletes), it’s difficult to argue strongly with his sentiment. These are the stars whose first names are enough to bring immediate familiarity to their many millions of disciples. You may be able to add a few of your own – Roger, Lionel, Ronnie, Muhammad, Sachin – but the principle remains the same. If Knight’s third name might seem a little leftfield to a UK audience, others agreed. In 2004, Washington Post columnist Michael Wibon labelled Hamm ‘perhaps the most important athlete of the last 15 years’, while ESPN named her as the greatest female athlete of the last 40 years. Again we must allow for pro-American bias. Again the cap still fits. No player in football’s history has measurably done more to inspire a generation of their nation’s young people to take up the sport, and no player in women’s football comes anywhere close. Get expert FPL tips, delivered straight to your inbox. Without the blanket ban that applied in the UK, and assisted by the Title IX mandate passed in 1972 that required equal funding for men’s and women’s US college athletic programmes, women’s football had already established a foothold within American sporting culture. Girls who had been put off by the physicality and the male isolationism of other US sports found solace in soccer. In 1972, 700 girls played soccer at high-school level. By 1991, that number had increased to 121,722. The USA’s talent pool became so deep that it would allow the national team to remain dominant 30 years on. But, as so often is the case with great cultural awakenings, the US women’s national team needed a poster girl and a leader. In Hamm it found both. At 15 she became the youngest ever senior international to represent the USWNT. Hamm scored 158 international goals, was selected for the FIFA100 in 2000 and won a litany of individual and team honours despite playing almost all of her career at amateur level due to the lack of professional club system. Much more than that, Hamm was a pioneer for female sporting empowerment. For a while, she was women’s football, at least in the eyes of some sections of the international mainstream media. Her book Go For the Goal: A Champion’s Guide to Winning in Soccer and Life, aimed to inspire young girls, became a national bestseller in the US. Girls grew up wanting to be professional sportswomen – and had a chance to make that dream reality – because of her. Former US soccer coach April Heinrichs remembers the exact date when Hamm-mania hit home. On 19 May, 1995, the USWNT were playing Canada in Dallas. She recalls a bumper crowd present pre-match as the two XIs were announced over the tannoy. When Hamm’s name was uttered, a communal shriek uttered by thousands of excited young girls stopped the players and coaches in their warm-ups: “They’re here for us.” Even so, women’s football was not placed front and centre of America’s busy sporting landscape until 1999. Held in the US, the 1999 World Cup became a cornerstone of the country’s modern sporting culture with the perfect Hollywood ending, Brandi Chastain’s winning penalty and subsequent celebration a lasting iconic image for the celebration of women’s sport. Average attendances at the matches were the highest of any Women’s World Cup and the final drew in 90,000 live spectators. The “99ers” – the nickname afforded to the winning squad – appeared on Letterman and other major talk shows. Boys across the country were photographed wearing “Hamm 9” replica shirts. Without the suffocating, strangling hype of an uber-dominant men’s game, the women stood tallest. Two days before the final, the formation of an organised women’s league was announced. Hamm was neither comfortable being cast as the poster girl of any movement nor as a sporting celebrity. She continuously insisted that she had no greater right to fame and adoration than any of her team-mates, and stressed that, to her, the beauty of football lay in team ethic being prioritised above individual glory. In the build-up to the final against China, Hamm was approached to do a magazine cover shoot. She accepted the invitation, but only on the proviso that several team-mates could join her and be part of the story. Julie Foudy, one of Hamm’s team-mates, remembered the gesture years later as an example of her typical humility: “She embarked on an insatiable quest solely for the greater good of the game.” But if Hamm was distinctly uneasy with the trappings of fame, she proved herself expertly capable of detaching her reticence from her unique position of authority. If she was going to be deemed an icon, the least she could do was create a pathway for those icons who might follow her. If fame is worth anything at all, it is a vehicle to popularise the bricks that have constructed it: hard work, perseverance, respect, prowess. Hamm helped girls believe that getting sweaty and dirty was acceptable, but more than that she made it cool. She taught a generation of US girls (and US boys) that playing hard to win wasn’t an inherently masculine trait, but an integral and pure part of human nature. That she did so not by manufactured design but out of love made her example so powerful. “I hope all you young girls see yourself up there too,” so her famous quote goes. “Once we were just like you”. Mia Hamm Net Worth. Mia Hamm was born into a family of Bill Hamm, Stephanie Hamm Garrett Hamm. Earning the Mariel Margaret Hamm , Mia along his career, Mia Hamm is a Football player. As a professional athlete, this person has one numerous awards and trophies, including: FIFA World Player of the Year, Best Female Athlete ESPY Award, Best Female Soccer Player ESPY Award, Kids’ Choice Award for Favorite Female Athlete, Best Soccer Player ESPY Award, Glamour Award for The Game Changer. A decorated career started in school Lake Braddock Secondary School, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and later progressed, launching Mia Hamm into stardom. Born on unknown in unknown, this Football player stood out from the rest of the crowd as early as in their child years. Making them a globally known and cheered superstar, their career earnings through winnings and sponsored deals have guaranteed Mia Hamm a lot of money. Want to know how much exactly? Well it is estimated that the net worth of Mia Hamm is around $10 Million. Read more about Mia Hamm Biography. Mia started playing soccer from a very young age. When Mia studied at the Lake Braddock Secondary School she played for school’s soccer team and even helped them to win state championships in 1989. Later Mia continued her studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and she became a part of the university’s team, called “Tar Heels”. Mia continued improving her skills and contributed a lot to team’s wins. In 1987 Mia became the youngest ever to play for the United States women’s national soccer team, and had an opportunity to play at the FIFA Women’s World Cup in 1991, which the US won, and it had a huge impact on the growth of Mia’s net worth. In 1993 and in 1994 she was able to win the ACC Female Athlete of the Year Award, and her name became even better known among other players and coaches. In 1996 Hamm was again a part of the United States women’s national team which won gold at the Summer Olympic Games on home soil in Atlanta. In 2004 they won gold again at the Summer Olympics in Athens, and it added a lot to Mia’s net worth. Meantime, in 2001 Mia started playing for the team called “Washington Freedom”, in the year that the first professional women’s soccer league was created in the US called “Women’s United Soccer Association”. Undoubtedly, Mia and her talent had a huge impact on this change in women’s soccer. Despite her success, in 2004 Hamm decided to retire from her career as a professional soccer player, after appearing in an incredible 275 international matches. In addition to playing, Mia has also collaborated with such companies as “Nike”, “Fleet Bank”, “Gatorade”, “Powerbar”, “Mattel” and others. These activities also added considerably to her net worth. Now Hamm is known for releasing her books, “Go for the Goal: A Champion’s Guide to Winning in Soccer and Life” and “Winners Never Quit”, which gained a lot of acclaim and contributed to Hamm’s wealth. It is clear that Mia is one of the most influential people when talking about women’s soccer, and she remains a very hardworking and determined person. If to talk about Mia Hamm’s personal life, it can be said that she married Christian Corry, in 1994, but heir marriage ended in 2001. In 2003 she married Norman Garciaparra with whom she has three children. Finally, Mia Hamm is one of the most famous and successful female soccer players of all time. She has achieved a lot during her career as a soccer player and now, even though she is retired, Mia has other activities to take care of. That is why she remains very popular and influential.