Today Hamm is women’s soccer’s most lethal weapon, offensive linchpin of the American team favored to win the Women’s World Cup that kicks off Saturday in New Jersey’s Giants Stadium. At 27, she is the No. 1 goal scorer ever–man or woman–in international soccer and a hero to millions of young, sports-minded girls. “When Mia touches the ball, you just feel great things are going to happen,” says U.S. team co-captain Carla Overbeck. She has scored off the field, too, a photogenic Nike icon who has sold everything from shoes to shampoo.
But though the stakes have changed, for Hamm some things always remain the same. She will never be as impressed with her game–or her hype–as everyone else is. Now America will get a chance to judge for itself. And if all goes well, this ultimate showcase for Mia and the U.S. team won’t end until three weeks later in the Rose Bowl, with 92,000 frenzied fans and a national TV audience cheering America on to the championship. “For us this is the pinnacle,” says Hamm.
Hamm will never bring up this season’s other peak moment, when she set the all-time scoring record. Where the soccer world sees a superstar forward who has scored 109 goals, Mia sees a solid cog in an exceptionally fine machine. Ask about her deft scorer’s touch, and she swears it will never rival that of teammate Michelle Akers. Talk about her versatility, and Mia insists she’s no Kristine Lilly, who plays behind her in the midfield. “I’m no better than a lot of people on this U.S. team,” says Hamm, sitting at a shaded picnic table a corner-kick away from her teammates on the practice field outside Orlando, Fla. “I learn that every day when I go up against [defender] Kate Sobrero in practice. She doesn’t care how many goals I’ve scored or what’s written about me.”
The staff of the U.S. team has dubbed Hamm the “reluctant diva.” Posing for a team picture, she avoids her rightful spot in the center and stands on the flank. Hamm dislikes interviews; her popularity in the country’s suburban soccer enclaves has been built with deeds, not words. Her upbringing as one of five children in a conservative military family helps explain her disdain for trash-talking and self-promotion. “I wasn’t raised that way,” says Hamm, who reupped for military life when she married a Marine pilot in 1995.
At the very least, Hamm, who was named one of People magazine’s 50 most beautiful people after her star turn in the ‘96 Olympics, is uncomfortable with her singular stature and superstar income in a low-profile, low-income sport. (She is estimated to earn $1 million annually, largely from a half-dozen endorsement deals.) Hamm is not, however, totally attention-averse: Nike just named the biggest building on its corporate campus after her; she goes one on one with Michael Jordan in a high-profile Gatorade ad; she has a new book, “Go for the Goal,” and she’s official spokeswoman for the new soccer Barbie. (“I can kick and throw like Mia Hamm,” proclaims Barbie, whose long hair and leggy look bear little resemblance to Hamm, who is a compact 5 feet 5 with short, brown hair.) “When I was little, Barbie rode around in a red Corvette and lived in a mansion,” she told kids at a doll’s unveiling. “I sure didn’t relate to that. Soccer Barbie is a lot more realistic.”
In truth, Hamm wasn’t much for dolls. Mia was more of a tomboy (that’s what they called girl athletes in Texas back then), “playing every sport, whatever was in season.” The challenge was to keep up with her older brother, Garrett. (Garrett died of a blood disease, aplastic anemia, at the age of 28 in 1997; his initials are inscribed on every pair of her Nike signature shoes.) “I knew I was better at soccer than at basketball,” she says, “but I never really had a sense I was especially good until I made the national team.” At 15, she was the youngest player ever to suit up for a U.S. squad.
The early call-up could have been a disaster. Many young players blessed with exceptional speed–and, in Mia’s case, an explosive first burst–depend too much on their natural gifts and never develop the other skills necessary to compete at higher levels. But Hamm has become a masterful dribbler, equally adept with either foot, and she uses her strength and low center of gravity to barrel past defenders. She is also blessed with that rarest of soccer gifts, the ability to boot the ball in the net. “A great finisher can analyze in a split second what the goalie is doing, what surface of the foot to use, and then put the ball in exactly the right spot,” she says. “It’s an ability to slow down time. You don’t actually shoot any faster than other players do, but you process a lot more information in the same time.” Then she adds the obligatory Hamm footnote: “I’m still working on all that.”
The result has been moments of absolute wizardry. More than one defender has found herself literally screwed into the ground by Hamm’s spins and back cuts. “She has that Michael Jordan impact,” says Dorrance, who, after recruiting Hamm to the national squad, coached her at Jordan’s alma mater, the University of North Carolina. “She gets the ball and everyone holds their breath. You might get to see something you’ve never seen before.”
But Hamm is driven less by her successes than by her failures, or at least what she remembers as failures. After her first tryout, she vowed conditioning would never again be a problem. U.S. coach Tony DiCicco remembers a training session a few years ago on a weedy field with ankle-high grass in Brazil’s blistering summer heat. Players were required to finish an obstacle-course drill in a certain time or run it again. Hamm crossed the finish a split second late, and her stature would have assured her a tie-goes-to-the-runner call. “Mia said, ‘Coach, I got to run that last one again’,” remembers DiCicco.
Some teammates concede that, at times, Hamm’s intensity feels overwhelming. She never eases up, barely distinguishing between an Olympic gold-medal game against China and a practice match against a club team. In one recent scrimmage with a boys’ team, a defender stole the ball from Hamm and turned upfield; Mia began yanking on his jersey and didn’t let go till he sprawled on the ground, his shirt half off. “Wow!” he said in disbelief at the foul, as Hamm walked away without a glance back. “Sometimes when she’s too intense I might pinch her butt and say, ‘Lighten up’,” says Julie Foudy, a star midfielder and one of Hamm’s soccer soulmates. “She’ll laugh just to amuse me, though I know she really doesn’t think it’s funny. We give each other balance.”
There is more than just emotional balance on the U.S. team, which has compiled a remarkable record of 145 wins, 21 losses and 8 ties in the ’90s. It is a veteran and very deep squad. (Some starters from the Olympic championship will now start on the bench.) The team boasts an all-out attacking style with more scoring options than just Hamm. If the defense overplays her, Mia is more than willing to dish off or simply serve as a decoy; this year she has more assists than goals. “We love to go for the goal,” says Lilly. “It wears opponents down. Sometimes you can just see them thinking, ‘Oh, God, here comes the U.S. again’.” When DiCicco ran a practice drill on counterattacking, or launching into offense from a defensive posture, defender Brandi Chastain piped up, “When would we ever use this?”
The team’s strength can be its one weakness. It has no aptitude for caution, leaving it vulnerable to swift, counterattacking teams like China. The U.S. women always play with tremendous emotion, despite the many scant crowds in second-rate stadiums. With huge World Cup crowds primed for victory, the United States will need to work hard to maintain discipline in its defensive ranks. “It’s going to be very draining,” says DiCicco. “But every team in this tournament has some kind of pressure to deal with, so I’d just as soon it be the expectation of winning.”
The World Cup whirlwind, coupled with the scoring-record chase, clearly weighed on Hamm earlier this year. She went three months and eight games without scoring and admitted to “a little crisis of confidence.” “The higher you get, the harder it gets,” explains Mia, who has netted goals in her last five games. “People expect you to do it every night. Don’t you think even Michael Jordan struggled at times? You can bet he did.” Unlike the cocky persona in their joint ad–“Anything you can do, I can do better”–the real Mia compares herself to Michael only when contemplating failure. But Hamm, like Jordan, is the real deal. Now’s her big chance to show it.
