in honor of the excitement of the tournament, i thought i'd share a couple old photos from my serious soccer-playing days, before i busted my knee and had to have ACL reconstruction surgery.
one year my team was lucky enough to go to a week-long training camp at the university of north carolina. throughout the week, various members of the tar heels and the US women's national team spent several training sessions with our team. we spent a whole day playing with, and hanging out with soccer icon mia hamm!! she has scored more international goals in her career than any other US soccer player, male or female.
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| Mia Hamm, me, i cant remember who he was - the assistant coach? |
one of my distinct memories of that day was her excitement at seeing her brother, who visited us on the field. he died a few years later from complications related to aplastic anemia, which is the inspiration behind the mia hamm foundation.
another of the US national team's top all-time scorers is michelle akers. i have no idea really how my coach knew her, but she accepted his invitation to come visit us in ohio and play with us for several training sessions! during one of our scrimmages, i was her mark and i remember thinking she was very tall and incredibly muscular! haha.
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| Michelle Akers and me |
oh man, how much i loved those hot pink shorts and the super cool we are the world t-shirt that i stole from my older sister!
so many of my memories from those times come from playing soccer with these girls and traveling around to tournaments. amazing(ly bad hair cuts!).
not a handball...
7 comments:
Nice post! Those are some great pictures! I have taken my son to the Beckham Academy to improve his soccer playing and he enjoyed meeting some of the professional players there. I am sure he will someday look back at that as a memorable moment just like you did.
Thanks for the post!
Wow, awesome Mia Hamm photo!
V has been watching the women's matches. she's riveted. she doesn't care about men's soccer, just likes watching the ladies.
it's pretty cool and she'll be so excited to share that with you.
Could it be assistant coach Bill Palladino back when he had hair?
http://wsoccer.athletics.unc.edu/contact/contact.htm
sara - that's awesome! does she play at all? i'll have to try to kick a ball around with her when i visit. too bad it will be winter time :(
ToSeek - no, i dont think that is him, but anson dorrance was the head coach at the time. i have a photo of him around somewhere...
V gets that she should kick the ball and stop the ball, but has not actually managed that feat as of yet. maybe by winter she'll be a little more in control. we have a small soccer ball and a full size ball for her. (or for mark...)
It was no longer on ABC like 1999. It was only on ESPN & no-one in the private sector can afford cable channels. The days of heroine sports have given way to the new conservative age.
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