Soccer superstars Mia Hamm and Julie Foudy have been selected to the National Soccer Hall of Fame, and will be inducted this August. Hamm was selected on 137 of the 141 ballots cast, a new high in votes received.
What on earth were the other four thinking? Hamm’s 158 international career goals blew away the previous record of 108. She also assisted on 144 goals scored by teammates, and helped the Women’s National Team to an 82.5% overall winning percentage in her 275 matches over 18 years. She was a founding player of the Women’s United Soccer Association (WUSA) and led the Washington Freedom to the Founders’ Cup Championship in 2003.
Foudy deserves her new honor as well. She was captain of the Women’s National Team from 2000 through 2004, and led it to the overtime Gold Medal win in the 2004 Olympics. She racked up 45 goals and 59 assists in her 271 international-match career, during which the team had an 85.6% winning record. Foudy was also a founding player for the WUSA and led the San Diego Spirit for its three seasons. She has been President of the Women’s Sports Foundation and served on the President’s Advisory Committee on Title IX. She has also been active in promoting the Century Council’s Girl Talk program.
And yes, they’re soccer moms, too, or about to be. Foudy and her husband had a daughter earlier this year. Hamm is pregnant with twins, and expecting this spring.
This news comes (not by coincidence, I’m sure) at the same time as the announcement of a new women’s professional soccer league. The league takes the place of the defunct Women’s United Soccer Association, which ended in 2003 after a three-year run. Taking a lesson from the WNBA, the new league will enlist the help of men’s Major League Soccer, which is hoping for its own resurgence now that it has world superstar David Beckham on board. The women’s league will launch in April 2008 with teams in Los Angeles, Dallas, St. Louis, Chicago, Washington, and one city to be determined.
It concerns me a little that the women’s season, from April to August, with post-season play into early fall, coincides almost entirely with that of the WNBA, which begins its preseason in May. Still, with only six teams, the number of soccer games will be small, so hopefully fans can attend both sports without much overlap. Let’s hope, too, that the soccer league embraces its lesbian fans more than the WNBA has. Good luck to the new league, and congratulations to Hamm and Foudy. I fully expect them to be coaching in the league, if not this year when they have infants, then certainly in the future.