Mia Hamm - Early Years

Early Years

Hamm was born in Selma, Alabama. She was born with a club foot and had to wear corrective shoes as a toddler. Hamm spent her childhood on Air Force bases with her parents, Bill and Stephanie Hamm, and her five siblings. The family moved many times and resided in several places including San Antonio, Texas, and Italy. Hamm played organized sports from a very young age, and at age fifteen she joined the U.S. women's national team, becoming the youngest ever to play for them. She played for Notre Dame Catholic High School, Wichita Falls, Texas, as a freshman and a sophomore. The following year, when she was just fifteen, Hamm joined the national women’s team. As a new player in 1987, and the youngest by over a year, she often started as a forward but never made a goal. Hamm then attended Lake Braddock Secondary School in Burke, Virginia for one year, and helped the Lake Braddock soccer team win the 1989 state championships. Mia Hamm's brother played sports, inspiring her to do so as well.

She attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she helped the Tar Heels to four National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) women's championships in five years (she sat out the season of 1991 to concentrate on the 1991 FIFA Women's World Cup in China). North Carolina only lost one game in the ninety five she played on the team. She was an All-American and Atlantic Coast Conference player of the year for her last three years. She also won ACC Female Athlete of the Year in 1993 and 1994.