Happy 100th Birthday, US Soccer!

When I was nine years old, I wanted to be Mia Hamm when I grew up. Not just a professional soccer player - I literally wanted to grow up and become Mia, somehow. I'm not sure how I planned on accomplishing this, and obviously it didn't happen, but after the 1999 Women's World Cup, all I wanted was to be just like Mia.

This weekend, US Soccer celebrated its centennial. The team has been the biggest sporting constant in my life other than the Atlanta Braves, who I've been a fan of practically since birth. I was so excited by the US Women's National Team (USWNT) gold medal victory in 1996 that I continued playing soccer, even though my first season of co-ed youth soccer was so unsuccessful that the only time I got the ball, it was taken away from me by my own (male) teammate. I moved over to an all-girls team at the YMCA and began idolizing Mia and the other members of the USWNT.

Mia, Brandi, Michelle, Julie, Tiffany, Kristine, Shannon, Joy... these amazing women helped shape me into who I am today. At some point before the 1999 World Cup, I got a book called All-American Girls, which was essentially a biography of every member of the USWNT. I still have it with me today, and it's possibly the most torn-up, well-loved book I own. I read it constantly, learning as much as I could about these women. How they went from not really even having a national team to winning a World Cup and an Olympic gold medal, how they had to deal with playing with boys and having people tell them they weren't going to succeed as a soccer player and that they should do something else. Reading all their stories from when they were just kids playing in youth leagues like I was at the time gave me something to shoot for in the future.

I still get emotional when I see clips from 1999 (I may have shed tears while writing this post) and it's still probably my most vivid childhood memory. I didn't go on to become a professional soccer player, obviously. But they taught me other valuable lessons about persevering and not letting being a woman stand in the way of your dreams. So thank you, US Soccer, and congratulations on 100 years, but in my opinion, 1999 will always be the best of those years.