Mariel Margaret Hamm-Garciaparra is an American retired professional soccer player, two-time Olympic gold medalist, and two-time FIFA Women’s World Cup champion. Hailed as a soccer icon, she played as a forward for the United States women’s national soccer team from 1987 to 2004. Hamm was the face of the Women’s United Soccer Association (WUSA), the first professional women’s soccer league in the United States, where she played for the Washington Freedom from 2001 to 2003. She played college soccer for the North Carolina Tar Heels women’s soccer team and helped the team win four consecutive NCAA Division I Women’s Soccer Championship titles. These Mia Hamm quotes will motivate you.
Best Mia Hamm Quotes
- “Somewhere behind the athlete you’ve become and the hours of practice and the coaches who have pushed you is a little girl who fell in love with the game and never looked back… play for her.” ~ Mia Hamm
- “I’ve worked too hard and too long to let anything stand in the way of my goals. I will not let my teammates down and I will not let myself down.” ~ Mia Hamm
- “Celebrate what you’ve accomplished, but raise the bar a little higher each time you succeed.” ~ Mia Hamm
- “My coach said I ran like a girl, I said if he could run a little faster he could too” ~ Mia Hamm
- “I am a member of a team, and I rely on the team, I defer to it and sacrifice for it, because the team, not the individual, is the ultimate champion.” ~ Mia Hamm
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“A winner is that person who gets up one more time than she is knocked down.” ~ Mia Hamm
- “The vision of a champion is bent over, drenched in sweat, at the point of exhaustion, when nobody else is looking.” ~ Mia Hamm
- “Failure happens all the time. It happens every day in practice. What makes you better is how you react to it.” ~ Mia Hamm
- “I am building a fire, and everyday I train, I add more fuel. At just the right moment, I light the match.” ~ Mia Hamm
- “The backbone of success is…hard work, determination, good planning, and perseverance.” ~ Mia Hamm
- “I’m a part of a team, and I’m no better or any worse than any single player on this team. That’s the approach I’ve always had and will continue to have. It’s not about me. It has never been all about me. If it had, this would have been a really lonely journey.” ~ Mia Hamm
- “You can’t just beat a team, you have to leave a lasting impression in their minds so they never want to see you again.” ~ Mia Hamm
- “Being a good teammate is when you try to sprint down a ball that everyone thinks is going out of bounds. But you go after it anyways and you get it.” ~ Mia Hamm
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“True champions aren’t always the ones that win, but those with the most guts.” ~ Mia Hamm
- “Focus on what you know you can do. Know what you’re capable of on any given day, and what you can count on. Do the simple things well, and then use the confidence to build up the rest of your game. Learn to differentiate between what is truly important and what can be dealt with at another time.” ~ Mia Hamm
- “Every single day I wake up and commit myself to becoming a better player. Some days it happens, and some days it doesn’t. Sure, there are games I’m going to dominate and there are going to be games when I struggle. But it doesn’t mean I give up.” ~ Mia Hamm
- “Sports can do so much. They’ve given me a framework: meeting new people, confidence, self-esteem, discipline, motivation. All these things I learned, whether I knew I was learning them or not, through sports.” ~ Mia Hamm
- “Good players create opportunities. The great players and the great people seize them” ~ Mia Hamm
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“After each game, I want to be able to say: I gave it all I could, I gave it my best.” ~ Mia Hamm
- “Goals have never defined me as a player. What has defined me is my impact on the team. If that means passing or playing defense to win, I’ll do it.” ~ Mia Hamm
- “Sports are not about awards or world championships, though those are great. They’re about the relationships we have with each other.” ~ Mia Hamm
- “The team, not the individual, is the ultimate champion.” ~ Mia Hamm
- “The most important attribute a player must have is mental toughness.” ~ Mia Hamm
- “Experience means you did a lot of things wrong.” ~ Mia Hamm
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“Follow your heart and make it your decision.” ~ Mia Hamm
- “We play because we love the game, we love each other, and we love to win.” ~ Mia Hamm
- “You’re worth the investment in yourself and what you feel, you can and want to be” ~ Mia Hamm
- “If you don’t love what you do, you won’t do it with much conviction or passion.” ~ Mia Hamm
- “No-one gets an iron-clad guarantee of success. Certainly, factors like opportunity, luck, and timing are important. But the backbone of success is usually found in old-fashioned, basic concepts like hard work, determination, good planning and perseverance.” ~ Mia Hamm
- “Take your victories, whatever they may be, cherish them, use them, but don’t settle for them.” ~ Mia Hamm
- “I learned a long time ago that there is something worse than missing the goal, and that’s not pulling the trigger.” ~ Mia Hamm
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“It is more difficult to stay on top than to get there.” ~ Mia Hamm
- “The person that said winning isn’t everything never won anything.” ~ Mia Hamm
- “Many people say I’m the best women’s soccer player in the world. I don’t think so. And because of that, someday I just might be.” ~ Mia Hamm
- “There are always new, grander challenges to confront, and a true winner will embrace each one.” ~ Mia Hamm
- “When players go out and train on their own, they usually do it at half speed. This kind of training is valuable, but it doesn’t prepare you for competition, where you must perform at full throttle. So the trick is to schedule regular sessions of intense practice, while always leaving time to juggle and generally goof around with the ball” ~ Mia Hamm
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“You may get skinned knees and elbows, but it’s worth it if you score a spectacular goal.” ~ Mia Hamm
- “Learn to differentiate between what is truly important and what can be dealt with at another time.” ~ Mia Hamm
- “Every single day I wake up and commit to myself to becoming a better player.” ~ Mia Hamm
- “I know I wouldn’t be here, and all of us wouldn’t be here, without certain sacrifices and certain stands that people have made — not just women, but men stepping up and supporting what we do and how we do it.” ~ Mia Hamm
- “I was given a tremendous gift in terms of athleticism. Maybe it was because I wasn’t so confident in other areas.” ~ Mia Hamm
- “Every day I look for ways to be inspired, to learn and to grow. And trying to be the best for my kids, my husband and my family. One thing I really wanna do is being there for my kids, be part of my siblings and my parents.” ~ Mia Hamm
- “I play for the intense challenges that the game on the highest levels present. The whole team enjoys playng exciting soccer for the fans and my part in that makes me feel good about myself. The whole concept of teamwork is what keeps us all going. It’s my role to create scoring chances, and to come through for my teammates is extremely satisfying.” ~ Mia Hamm
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“I don’t like to play rough, but I will if I have to.” ~ Mia Hamm
- “Sports can do so much. It’s given me confidence, self-esteem, discipline, and motivation.” ~ Mia Hamm
- “Every morning, I wake up trying to be the best mom and the best role model for my kids in a healthy diet and active lifestyle.” ~ Mia Hamm
- “People ask me, ‘Would you ever want to play professional golf?’ And I’m like, ‘No. No, no, no, no. Just because I can hit a good shot every now and then doesn’t make me a pro.'” ~ Mia Hamm
- “I could just have chips and salsa for dinner every day.” ~ Mia Hamm
- “Success breeds success.” ~ Mia Hamm
- “If a team intimidate you physically and you let them, they’ve won.” ~ Mia Hamm
- “Soccer isn’t very social. Plus, if you don’t like someone on the other team, you can do something about it.” ~ Mia Hamm
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“Sport taught me how to goal set, it really gave me a voice and identity.” ~ Mia Hamm
- “I am happy that the young girls have a lot more choices these days and an opportunity to feel better about themselves.” ~ Mia Hamm
- “I got to experience soccer at the highest level at a young age; I decided I wanted to be part of that for as long as possible.” ~ Mia Hamm
- “I’m not someone who goes around the locker room before a game trying to motivate my teammates. I don’t say a lot before the game. I don’t say a lot in general. It takes too much energy to do that.” ~ Mia Hamm
- “It isn’t sacrifice if you love what you’re doing.” ~ Mia Hamm
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“I will not let my teammates down and I will not let myself down.” ~ Mia Hamm
- “I could sit there and eat pasta all day long and not worry about it when I was younger, and now I really have to focus on making sure I set a good example for my kids.” ~ Mia Hamm
- “I hope all you young girls see yourself up there… we were just like you.” ~ Mia Hamm
- “I hope all you young girls see yourself up there… we were just like you.” ~ Mia Hamm
- “I don’t like to stop. I’m a big person who looks at where the hubs are because I hate changing planes.” ~ Mia Hamm
- “I played basketball and soccer my freshman year in high school.” ~ Mia Hamm
- “Golf is social. It brings a lot of people together.” ~ Mia Hamm
- “If you’ve got hips, you can’t be a gymnast or dancer. That ruled me out.” ~ Mia Hamm
- “I played soccer because my friends did. Besides we got sodas afterwards.” ~ Mia Hamm
