She played in her middle’s school’s football team, at the age of 12. She settled on soccer when she was 14 and finished high school at Lake Braddock Secondary School. She became the youngest player that played for the United States national soccer team at the age of 15. In attending the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, she helped leading the Tar Heels to four NCAA women’s victory. They are held champions in five years. In 1993 and 1994, Hamm won the ACC Female Athlete of the Year. She became the youngest American woman to win a World Cup championship in the 1991 FIFA Women’s World Cup that led to the recognition of Mia Hamm signed Nike soccer ball. She played in the 1993 Summer Universiade and was a member of the U.S. women’s national college team. They won the silver medal and lost to China. She had with her a numerous recognitions and awards in her soccer career.
In 1995, she was named to be the MVP of the women’s cup. In 1996, they won the gold medal together with the team in the 1996 Summer Olympics. Together with Michelle Akers, her former U.S.A teammate, Hamm was named to the FIFA 100 in March 2004 making the Mia Hamm signed Nike soccer ball a favorite item to his fans. At the 2004 Summer Olympics, she helped lead the USA Team to garner the gold medal.
Interview by : Stefan Tesoriero, CEO of Sportsmemorabilia.com
Stefan : Thanks very much. I’ll speak to you a little bit about how you got into sports journalism, etc. and talk about your book and how a lot of the innovation that are happening in our business.
Christine : Yeah
Stefan : And basically, what we could do is to kinda start off with your past. Kind of what lead you to get into the business of sports and your background. Obviously you talked - -
Christine : Sure, sure. While I was, my mom always said that I was born a size 6X and kept on growing. I am 6 feet tall now. So I was always tall, you know, kids growing up and I love sports and that played right into the time where girls are not encouraged to play sports. I was born on May 14th 1958. In the 60s and 70s, girls in this country were being told “ No, you cannot play sports.” And that is why I think title nine is the most significant lost in our culture in the last 30 to 35 years. And yet my mom and my dad, first my dad said “honey, sure! Go ahead and play sports.” So I was the only girl in the neighborhood. I thought I might be the only girl in America. So that was the way how it was. There were other that turns out. I just love sports. I could not get enough of it. Again, I mentioned my size that plays into it. All the boys wanted, you know, to have me on their team even with all the organized sports and not organized at all for boys or girls. No soccer, never played soccer. You know, it was a whole different era, my case in point. So we played baseball and I got all this in my book if you need to check anything or whatever but I just played sports, loving sports and the natural offshoot of that was listening it on the radio and watching them on television. I could not get enough of that either. The clamoring for my father to say my dad was the pied piper with season tickets, clamoring for my dad to take me to the games and he did. We had enough season tickets for Michigan football, you know the Toledo Rockets when they played football and they were 35 in all. From ‘69 to ‘71, talk about cheering for team, throwing your heart into the team and having it come back with victory after victory . Chuck Howley quarterback 35 still the greatest Matt Leinart, Doherty, none of them could come close to Chuck Howley. And I have these in my backyard. And so I just love sports and my father encouraged it and we strive together and you know, and every possible play and that was my childhood and even into my teenage years. So that’s kind of in the nutshell, plays a lot of it and this is what it is all about it. It is really something you know, to be growing up with sports like I was and encouraged by my dad and my mom to play sports when no other girls were being encouraged that way.
Stefan : Sure, sure and it is a tribute to kinda how we have evolved as a society where title nine was huge , and now up there on those soccer fields on Saturday afternoons to see just as many –
Christine : Oh, exactly, it really has yeah, you’re right, it is dramatic
Stefan : And you know the strides of the WNBA and the WUSA and I am sure they will be re-launching and re-organizing. You know, those were really two big breakthrough moments
Christine : It started high school first what it did for me. I did not plan my first organized team until freshmen year in high school. And I would have been one of those girls running between soccer league and whatever but they were none, none, none.
Stefan : wow
Christine : All those fields you drive by, now you see half girls, half boy, all girls or whatever. All boys. Every field in America, all boys all the time. It again shows how amazing my parents were. It was good to see something that did not exist yet. They’ll say “Honey, go for it.” Yeah, I know. I have told this story 500 times. You know it would have sounded more logical for me and I reckon it was in ’76 but it was kind of more logical for me to say I wanted to walk on the moon than to say I wanted to be a sports writer.
Stefan : That really puts it into perspective. It is a great analogy.
Christine : That would have made more sense to people. Oh yeah, Christine wants to walk on the moon! Yeah, sure. You know, than be a woman sports writer. We found no women doing this. Phyllis George was on TV, she has been Ms. America 1971, that could have been my career path and if you have to see Ms. America get on TV, no woman byline because no internet so we never knew that there was anyone out there doing this. Who knew? That’s what that time was. It was really interesting. How different it was from of course what we have now in general.
Stefan : Sure, sure. And then, so how did that develop into a career? What were the events or happenings that led to your current career? You are pretty well established now.
Christine : That’s a great question as well because what I did was I thought I don’t cover politics. I love politics. My dad became a Republican party chairman in Toledo. You know putting food, you know throwing magazines and putting food in the table and then becoming very successful businessman and then getting involved in very moderate Republican politics, liberal Republican politics. The Jury Ford oak not just a brand and today, anyway and so I thought I’d cover politics. I love politics. Love the excitement of it all. And I want to be a journalist. That I knew, I felt very strongly about my love of newspaper and I love sports. But I think I learned early on the power of role model. When I didn’t have any, I mean now I see that probably is one of the reasons I thought I couldn’t write politics is because I never saw women doing that. I said why would I write politics when I love sports this much. But there was just nothing, you know, there was no sense of something that would become a career. But journalism was definitely in my blood. And love of newspapers and love of daily writing, you know, I kept a diary from 1969 onwards so I had everyday. Yes, I had the discipline to write everyday. Though it was just a sentence or two, you know, that kind of thing. And so – Journalism it was then. I went to Midwestern, to the best journalism school in the country. Went there, undergrad and mastered in journalism from Midwestern. And of course, anyway, that led to a career that I have. But yeah, that’s really how it kinda how it happen, just doing the journalism and keep doing it and love of covering things and then one thing led to another, of course. Ended up being I guess the sports part of it kicked in except when I had a couple of internship. First of all I was covering basically general news like my first internship at the Toledo Blade. The next time I was asked if I could be a sports writer. I kept walking back to the sports section and talked to those guys and they never had a woman sports writer at Toledo Blade, my hometown newspaper. So the next summer, in ’79, they hired me to be the first woman sports writer even if it was just a summer internship. I felt like I was home then. It felt so comfortable. So that is what happened.
Stefan : So it started with the politics
Christine : the politics and to sports and yeah, but it was journalism, Following my love of journalism where you are not quite sure where all that was going to lead. First I was thinking I would be covering politics and then finding sports within a couple of years and then realizing that sports clearly was the best
Stefan : That’s great. And you know, kinda bringing this full circle, Should have been kinda delve into this book here. It is funny, our business and the Sports Memorabilia business has evolved
Christine : Yeah, as far as the meaning of the ticket stubs and things like that
Stefan : so how, was there any particular event that you remember with your father, you know the things that stand out the most in terms of developing a relationship that led you to document it essentially and really, create a life and your career for you.
Christine : Right, exactly. Well, I have to say that will be the 1969 in the Ohio state game, in Ann Arbor, my first big ten game in Michigan of course. I was eleven and my dad took an eleven year old, my sister was all of ten, an eleven year old, a ten year old and my brother was seven. And we had four tickets in the end zone and that was a booked title game. Sitting next to my dad was always the best seat in the house even if we were in the end zone. One liner did not matter but it was the best seat in the house sitting next to dad. And in fact I put it in the booked a picture of the ticket stub from that Nov 22nd 1959 game. We got into the gorgeous Michigan stadium which most of the seats were only about twenty rows above ground. I thought well, so what so what, we can’t have everything and this is an amazing place, the Michigan stadium and kind of so I was thinking when we walked up twenty rows above the ground. And if you looked at it this way, your coming in on the 70th row. And all of this takes your breath away when we walked into the Michigan stadium. For the first time the big football is what we called it. So anyway, we went to that game and there were all these other men there with their wives or their buddies and here is our dad there with me, three kids. My dad brought three the little kids. I didn’t see any other kid in the place. There were kids there but we did not see any in our section with all these people coming to the view, you know, women with their men, men with their buddies, and my dad bringing three kids. How wonderful. And so, anyway, that ticket is very valuable to me. I’ve got it. Kept it in the regular cabinet just to make sure. Here it is and I took a picture of it in the photocopier from the original or whatever anyway, and I brought. And the picture of the ticket is on page. Let’s see, hold on one second, just real quick. Have a look. So anyway, yes, just the moment in the stadium where all of that are very important to me. And another thing I have in the book is an autographed – another thing we did as kids my siblings and I since I am the oldest of the four kids, we would send pictures of the baseball cards of players and autograph them. And it was really neat because we would and one of them that I sent was the homeland leaders was that favorite 7 14 number 1 and then Hank Aaron, if I can get that one so you can have a look here. Hank Aaron where he would strut up so to speak so at that point and I got Hank Aaron’s autograph on the baseball card that of course was then still going to show him in the second place.
Stefan : Sure, sure. Wow
Christine : That’s in the page 20 of the book. Yeah, 1973 before Hank Aaron broke the baseball records, I sent a card there and he autographed it. Hank Aaron’s autograph of Babe Ruth at 714, Nick Garren at 673 and Willy May 654. So I’ve got the Hank Aaron signature on the baseball card that shows Babe Ruth as number one and now he is number one in the country
Stefan : Oh, you’ve got yourself a nice little cornerstone of a sports memorabilia collection [ laughs]
Christine : I sure do and I’ve got all my Olympic ceremony opening tickets trained in my office here and I am really into that stuff. I know you love it.
Stefan : Fantastic, fantastic. Well, thank you so much for speaking with me.
Christine : My pleasure!
Stefan : This is absolutely fantastic and like what you have discussed with Jessie, I believe when he had discussed, that we were going to create a resource section of our site where we want to post the interview. Actually, what we were thinking of doing that or putting it on one of our main pages so that it will get more readership and more eyes on it. So I will be following up in the next couple of weeks and let you know “Hey, what’s up. It has been transcribed. Here is the link to it, etc.” And we will follow up from there. And again thanks so much.
Christine : Well, this has been great. Thank you very much. Good bye
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