Mia Hamm, Champion Soccer Player

Mia Hamm is the soccer champion widely regarded as the world's best all-around women's soccer player. At 15, she became the youngest woman to ever make the U.S. Women's National Team and went on to win two FIFA World Cups in 1991 and 1999. By her retirement in 2004, Hamm's 158 goals made her the record holder of international goals among both male and female soccer players. At the 1996 Summer Olympics, Hamm and her teammates including Michelle Akers, Brandi Chastain and Kristine Lilly brought home the gold. In 2004, they did it again. Having seen the enormous support she and her teammates received at the World Cup and Olympics Games, Hamm became a founding member of the Women's United Soccer Association, the first professional women's soccer league.

Hamm's other accolades include being elected Soccer USA's female athlete of the year five years in a row (from 1994 to 1998), MVP of the Women's Cup in 1995 and the winner of three ESPY awards, including Soccer Player of the Year and Female Athlete of the Year. In 2004, she and teammate Michelle Akers were put on FIFA’s list of the 125 greatest living soccer players, the only two women and only two Americans to be named.

Following the passing of her brother, Hamm created the Mia Hamm Foundation, dedicated to two causes: raising funds and awareness for families needing marrow or cord blood transplants and continuing the growth in opportunities for young women in sports.