A group of 11-year-old girls at a park in West Los Angeles gives one answer when asked who their female soccer player is: Mia Hamm.
Granted Hamm is one of the game's greatest players, but the U.S. women's star forward retired back when these girls were toddlers.
Gia Polizzi, Sydney Collyns and JoJo Levey have never seen Hamm play. They only know of her from YouTube, which incidentally didn't exist when Hamm was playing.
So they're ready for some new idols. The current U.S. Women's National Team has plenty; the girls just have to learn some new names.
Having an idol is key for an athlete to succeed in a sport, says Mike Woitalla, executive editor of Soccer America magazine and the coach of his daughter's youth soccer team. "The girls in this country who play soccer are overdue for someone to watch and to emulate and to idolize, in the good sense of the word," he says, "and this could happen at this World Cup."
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