Month: April 2019

Mia Hamm – American women’s football legend

Mariel Margaret Hamm was recognized as the best female football player in history. She was born in Selma, Alabama, the USA on March 17, 1972. She has played for the American women’s football team for the past 17 years and has the largest fan compared to any American athlete.

Mia Hamm won the Women’s World Cup championship in 1991, 1999 and Olympic gold medal in 1996 and 2004. She was voted FIFA’s “Best Player of the Year” for two consecutive years in 2001 and 2002. Mia Hamm holds the record for most international goals until June 2013, after which her record was broken by teammate Abby Wambach.

As the daughter of an air force pilot, Hamm often had to relocate with her family and her brother who was supposed to encourage her to pursue a career in sports. At age 15, Hamm is the youngest female player to play for the national team. She attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she helped the school’s female football team win four consecutive NCAA championships.

International achievements

In 1991, at the age of 19, Hamm was the youngest female player in history to win the World Cup. Five years later, Hamm and his teammates include Michelle Akers, Brandi Chastain and Kristine Lilly winning the 1996 Summer Olympics gold medal in Atlanta, Georgia. In 1999, Hamm set a new scoring record when scoring the 108th goal for the US team. She holds this record until June 2013 and is broken by another American player, Abby Wambach.

Hamm won American football’s “Best Female Athlete of the Year” for 5 consecutive years (1994-1998), MVP of the Women’s Cup (1995) and 3 ESPY Awards in the category “Female athlete of the year” and ”Player of the year”. In 2004, Hamm and her teammate Michelle Akers were named in the list of “125 Greatest Living Players”. At that time, they were the only female athletes and the only American elected to this list.

Life outside the lawn

In 1994, Hamm married her college lover Christiaan Corry. In 2001, they divorced and Hamm married a second time with baseball player Nomar Garciaparra in 2003. After helping the US team win the 2004 Summer Olympics gold medal, Hamm decided to retire from his career.

In 1999, Mia founded Mia Hamm Foundation to support bone marrow studies after her brother died of a rare blood disease.

U.S. Women’s Soccer Team Sues U.S Federation for Gender Discrimination

United States squad  – The leading women’s soccer team significantly recorded a gender discrimination lawsuit against their home soccer federation over pay equity and discriminated working conditions

On Friday, more than two dozen of United States women’s national team members brought U.S. Soccer to a federal court.

The suit is hold by United States District Court in Los Angeles, just comes three months before the female team will compete for its Women’s World Cup title at this summer’s tournament in France. In their case and a statement released by the team, twenty-eight players described that US soccer give “institutionalized gender discrimination” that has existed for years.

The discrimination, the female players said, affects not only their wages but also the location and the consequences, the training ways, the medical treatment and coaching they receive, and even the travel ways to matches.

The players involved includes prominent stars like Alex Morgan, Megan Rapinoe and Carli Lloyd as well as their teammates who are some of the most accomplished and best-known female players in the world, members of a squad that has been a leading force in female sports for more than a generation.

The  continuing battle between women’s soccer players and U.S. Soccer, which is not only their employer, but also the federation that governs the sport in America, has pushed them to the forefront of an expanding fight for equality in women’s sports. In recent years, the  athletes in other sports genres such as American hockey gold medalists, Canadian soccer pros, W.N.B.A. players — have communicated to the United States players and their union for instruction in their efforts to win similar gains in terms of paychecks and working conditions.

For many years, U.S. Soccer Federation has been a world leader in its support for women’s soccer; its contribution of time and resources which has brought the United States became a three-time world champion and a four-time Olympic gold medalist, the major power in women’s game. But at that time generations of women’s national team players are always complaining that the federation’s financial support and logistical infrastructure for women’s athletes have lagged behind in comparison with the more high-profile men’s team.

The fight of women’s players maximize their value in the same way other athletes have done and provide a roadmap for the next team home or abroad which catches fire and has to follow suits related to the great inequities in resources or a governing body’s discrimination between the men’s soccer and the women’s.