Athlete Spotlight: Mia Hamm

For my first *Monday Athlete Spotlight*… how can I NOT start with a spotlight on arguably one of the most important sportswomen of our time, Mia Hamm!

Ohhh where do I start! This sportswoman was… IS… incredible. Do I begin with how she was actually born with a club foot and had to wear corrective braces as a toddler?

Or how she is the youngest player EVER to play for the U.S. National soccer team at just a young 15 years old?

Becoming the youngest American women to win a World Cup championship at the still young age of 19?

Or how about the fact that Mia has scored more international goals in her career than any other player, male or female, in the history of soccer?

Yes, she has done it all. Named the FIFA World Player … TWO times … inducted into the National Soccer Hall of Fame when receiving 137 votes out of the possible 141 … has the largest NIKE building on corporate campus named after her … and was named the 1997 Sportswoman of the Year!

Hamm retired in 2004 at the age of 32 to start a family with her then-Red Sox shortstop husband (later Dodgers), Nomar Garciaparra. (Does it get any better than that??) In 2007 she gave birth to twin girls! With soccer star momma, and baseball daddy, you better believe those little girls are Sport Princesses!

You gotta watch this awing tribute I found to Mia Hamm! Super cool youtube Mia Hamm Tribute

........AAAAND we're back. New format!

Did I forget? Nah. Has a lot happened? Yup. Am I excited to share it all with you? Absolutely!!

I want to first KICK OFF the new Sport Princess blog format, and will quickly be getting into the nitty gritty and exciting updates to the Sport Princess series and where we've been the last half a year! Sooo much to delve into. But first, the official-ness of fun updates:

Every Monday will be a girl/woman power *Athlete Spotlight*..... from super celebrity athletes, to local small town young girls. I will absolutely take submissions for this weekly blog post, and want to hear about your own Sport Princess highlights, or an all star athlete in your town that we need to know about and can be empowered by. Email me the skinny along with a photo or video at sportprincesses@gmail.com!

Every Wednesday we will share a *Sport Princess photo or story of the week*. This is also open to submissions, send me those fun stories and a picture so we can all be in on it together!

Every Friday I will share a fun *Gameday recipe* to give you lots of yummy sporty goodness to go along with watching or playing sports! (Wait now, how many ways can you make nachos and hot dogs? Let's get creative and share loads of hoo-ra food!)

There will be lots of book, merchandise, and series updates all mixed in between these too.

Now here's the fun part: unveiling the rest of the Sport Princesses. Because guess what... there are now 12 OF THEM! So to kick that off, I am going to introduce one character a month, highlighting that specific sport for that entire month. We will go in order of how they will be published in the series. So to start March 1, we will be having a SOCCER MONTH, to go along with the first book to be published in 2011, The Soccer Princess.

Stick around for lots more soon, starting tomorrow with the first Athlete Spotlight.

~Hugs!! Bethany