Hamm, Foudy elected to soccer Hall of Fame
They have done everything else together -- traveled the globe, won world championships and Olympic gold medals, founded a women’s professional soccer league -- so it was only fitting Tuesday that Mia Hamm and Julie Foudy together were elected to the U.S. Soccer Hall of Fame.
The two became the sixth and seventh women to be so honored, following in the footsteps of their 1991 Women’s World Cup-winning teammates April Heinrichs, Carin Gabarra, Shannon Higgins, Michelle Akers and Carla Overbeck.
Hamm, again setting records, was named on 97.16% of the ballots, bettering the previous high of 95.77% set by Akers two years ago. Foudy was named on 83.69% of the ballots.
In winning, they edged out not only teammate Joy Fawcett, who finished third in the voting, but such former Major League Soccer stalwarts as Marco Etcheverry, Carlos Valderrama, Peter Nowak and Mauricio Cienfuegos.
Both women were in rare form for the presentation ceremony at the Home Depot Center. The formal induction takes place Aug. 26 at Oneonta, N.Y.
“Oh, did I elbow you?” Foudy said to Hamm as she stood to receive her Hall of Fame jersey from George Brown, president of the hall.
“I hope you got me an extra-large,” joked Hamm, who is expecting twins in April.
Foudy, who on Jan. 1 gave birth to her first child, a daughter named Isabel, had a little advice for Hamm: “Get some sleep now.”
Isabel, along with Foudy’s husband, Ian Sawyers, attended Tuesday’s ceremony. “She’s of course passed out, slobbering,” Foudy said, the pride obvious behind the wisecrack.
Hamm and her husband, Dodgers infielder Nomar Garciaparra, who is at spring training in Florida, are still looking forward to the slobbering and so on.
“We’re excited,” Hamm said. “We have no idea what we’re in for. We can’t wait.”
Do the twins have names yet?
“It won’t be Mia or Nomar backward or forward, that’s for sure,” Hamm said.
Kidding aside, there was a serious aspect to Tuesday’s announcement. Foudy, 36, and Hamm, 34, are two of the pioneers not only of women’s soccer in the U.S. but of women’s sports in general. They and their former teammates blazed trails.
It wasn’t only about trophies, either, although the world titles they won in 1991 and 1999 and the Olympic gold medals they earned in Atlanta in 1996 and Athens in 2004 were certainly special.
It was about empowerment for women. It was about social responsibility. It was about teamwork, sacrifice, friendship, patriotism, the list goes on and on.
“We spent 18 years playing together with an incredible group of women, and the most important thing we always talked about was, ‘What’s the legacy we’re leaving for the next generation? How are we making this sport better?’ ” Foudy said. “You want to walk away and feel as if you’ve done your part in making the sport better, and I think that’s just what we did.”
Hamm, always the more shy of the two, was eloquent Tuesday.
“I love following Julie,” she deadpanned. “It’s always so humbling.”
Hamm thanked the hall “for recognizing that we’ve made a positive impact in this game because we feel so strongly about it, we love it,” adding that women’s soccer “is something that we need to continue to nurture and grow and build.”
Tuesday was also the day that a new women’s professional league was launched with the announcement that it would begin play in 2008 in at least six U.S. cities, including Los Angeles.
The league will be a revival, of sorts, of the Women’s United Soccer Assn. that was founded by Foudy, Hamm and other U.S. national team veterans in 2000 and that lasted three seasons.
“We’ve always said that there’s a great fan base and product out there and that it was only a matter of time before it gets back,” Foudy said.
The league will work closely in tandem with MLS.
