Noah Godwin
Assistant Editor
“It’s not over. This whole thing was about a group of people being friends and having fun together. Nothing about that is going to end,” said Mia Hamm to NBC reporters when asked about the end of a magical run into soccer history.
No, for the five retiring players, Hamm, Kristine Lilly, Julie Foudy, Brandi Chastain and Joy Fawcett, who led U.S. women’s soccer to worldwide dominance over the past decade, it is certainly not over.
Sports participation almost always precedes social, political and economic participation in a society, meaning that perhaps the responses to American success in women’s soccer could help lead to the empowerment of women wherever soccer matters, which is almost every corner of the globe.
The immediate influence they have had, though, can be seen in the explosion of women’s sports in America.
The changing perceptions of women’s sports, led by this group of soccer players, has given breeding ground for numerous other advancements.
During this group’s span of dominance, Venus and Serena have become household names, Title IX has challenged college football’s dominance, Annika has teed it up against the men and a women’s professional basketball league has formed.
But those opportunities for women in sports weren’t always this plentiful.
Julie Rousseau, Pepperdine’s new women’s basketball head coach, told me a story about wanting to play baseball as a child. She said the all-boys leagues refused to have her, so she frizzed out her hair, pulled a cap over her head and became J.R.
The climate in which women’s soccer rose to prominence was not so far removed from the days of Julie Rousseau becoming J.R. just so she could play.
Their influence, though, stretches far beyond America’s borders. Soccer is the world’s game. But the United States has never achieved dominance in this sport.
But with the rise of the US national team, other countries began to take exception with American dominance in their sport, even if the players were women.
Soccer leagues and schools have sprung up in record numbers in the last five years around the world. According to espn.com, women’s participation in soccer worldwide has increased tenfold.
Women who were previously treated as second-class citizens suddenly found themselves with the support of a nation. In many cases, it marked the first time some of these countries had ever given any support to women whatsoever.
The most obvious example of how sports can help break down barriers is black baseball player Jackie Robinson, but the greatest influence within that example among the white community came when Pee Wee Reese openly accepted him as a teammate.
This scenario of the dominating group accepting the oppressed group as teammates is, of course, impossible in all-women’s sports.
But that setback is only seen as impossible to overcome by those who fail to realize how important soccer is to the world. Female soccer players in the U.S. began by beating the world at its own game.
The first World Cup in 1991 for women demonstrated that the U.S. team, led by these five marvelous players, could compete and win against the world’s best at the biggest stage playing somebody else’s game.
During the 1999 World Cup, though, these players gained an edge in a struggle most of the world didn’t even realize was taking place: they weren’t just trying to beat the world at its game, they were trying to prove that this was their game.
At least for a few magical moments and penalty kicks that afternoon, soccer was America’s game.
The entire world of women’s sports got a huge dose of legitimacy when Brandi Chastain took off her shirt in front of the world after the final match of the 1999 World Cup for something other than sex appeal.
Following the gold medal performance in Athens, these five players—Hamm, Lilly, Foudy, Chastain and Fawcett—have exhausted the last of what has been a truly breath-taking career.
It was clear in the gold medal game against Brazil, although they showed flashes of brilliance, that their playing days were over.
As Hamm said, it’s not completely over for them because they’ll always remember these exciting times, and they’ll always stay friends.
It’s also not over for the girls all over America who no longer have being good enough to play with the boys as a prerequisite.
It’s not over for the generations of girls and women around the globe now playing soccer who have were never allowed to play even if they were as good as the boys.
Sports, at their best, are blind to all of the nasty little prejudices we allow into our lives. They may come screaming back after the final whistle blows, but during those precious moments of competition, all that matters is the desire to play hard.
The next time we see a great female athlete let her hair down and perform brilliantly, not ashamed but uncontrollably proud to be both a female and an athlete, we can smile knowing that we are remembering what this group of soccer players forced us to see.
09-16-04
