Hamm Play In The Women Soccer Team example essay topic

Women Experience in Sport Every single life always has a story to tell. As I interview my classmate's grandma, I found out some interesting inside story about her life. Every single life always has a story to tell. On October 15th 1940 was a lucky day for the Lien family when Luu Thi Bitch Lien was born in Tan Mai, Vietnam.

Her grandfather, who had been in a wheelchair for several years, was able to walk again. While his steps where small and his movements were slow, it was still a miracle in the Lien family's lives. The family Business become more successful and brought in more money than ever since she was born. Luu Lien's childhood was cut short by many factors and she had to grow up quickly in life. She attended school up until the seventh grade due to the Vietnam War. In that period of time, she was married at the age of fifteen before the Vietnam War started.

She was married to Tin Tran and had a child. Back in Vietnam, girls get marry early in their teens year. They had to marry early because the country was really poor. The women had to go to work at an early age to help around the house and to put the food in the table for the family. Luu Lien met her husband in her intermediate school while he was playing soccer. Tin was one of the top players at that high school.

From the first day she met him, she fell in love with him and not only him but the sport as well. They started to play and practice with each other at home and fall in love. They have to play at home because during her time, she was not allowed to play soccer as a sport in school and played with men. At school, the rules were really strict because guys and girls are like in two different worlds. For the girls in P.E., they can only play certain sports like: badminton, or jump robe. But for men, the main sport for them is soccer.

When she goes to P.E., the women were separated from men. Even the coaches were divided too. For example, only women can coach for women and men apply as well. She had always dreamed of one day she will play soccer and make a girl soccer team of her own. But it was harder then what she had thought. It was tough for her because there are not a lot of women going to school in order to support her and the women had little power over anything.

Over the years, Luu Lien and her friends had competed against the stereotype of being too fragile to play strenuous sports. She failed trying to fight for her right because many people were hard headed. During the time, many people believed that girls couldn't handle the stress of interscholastic competition. As for sport, many people believed that high-stress sports might harm a woman's reproductive system. They also believe that women should be more feminine and not be aggressive like man playing soccer.

Luu Lien had a lot of will and will not gives up her dreams but Vietnam was about to go to war. With the baby she had and the war was going on, she had to drop everything she believed in and stayed home to take care of the baby. She had to suffer losing her biggest dreams and her husband as well because he had to join the army. Eventually the war was over in 1968 and her husband was returned to her safely. Now that the communist has taken over Vietnam, the laws are stricter against the non-communist. Luu Lien and many of other's life under the communist ruling of the government was very rough and harsh.

They faced with many challenges such as little or no freedom at all and small amount of money. In order to escape the communism and harsh ruling, Luu Lien with her family crept on board of a tug boat along with 160 other refugees to quietly sail from Saigon to who knew where. This was dangerous for the obvious reasons of getting caught by the government, or being sent back home, but also because there were pirates, who robbed, raped, killed and kidnapped anyone. The boat sailed for five days, and for five days the refugees on board lived in fear. Luu Lien recalls being "chased by pirates on a number of occasions". Although my children were only eight or nine during that time, they instinctively knew it was a life or death matter.

When the pirate was spotted, the men would stand up and the women would crouch down, making the pirates think the people on board were mere fishermen. When there weren't pirates, there were dangerous storms. This all lasted until an American tanker spotted the refugees and rescued them. She and the other were taken to a refugee camp in Malaysia, where they stayed for four months. The conditions were very tough as Luu Lien explains that there were rats as big as cats waited to bite them when we fell asleep. Luckily for Luu Lien and her family because America let them come here in 1985.

They arrived with nothing and knew no one as all her relatives decided to stay in Vietnam. Once she stayed in America, she started to feel free and happy again. She like to stay in America because she heard that women can played sports like man and no more discriminates on the basis of sex. According to what she heard, a turning point for women's sports occurred when President Richard Nixon signed Title IX of the Educational Amendment sometime in 1970's.

This Educational Amendment which stated that any educational program receiving Federal assistance can lose its funding if it discriminates on the basis of sex. This Amendment was a great opportunity for women because it gave female athletes access to better equipment, coaches, playing fields, and travel budgets. Because of this Amendment, more women have had the opportunity of higher education through athletic scholarships. In addition, the salaries of coaches for women's teams have increased.

With this Educational Amendment, she knows that her dreams had come true. Even though Luu Lien was old, in her late thirty's, she can still enjoy the sport of soccer. She doesn't need to play it to enjoy it; she and her husband usually watch soccer games in television. For many years, she had watch soccer and one of her favorite soccer player was Mia Hamm. She had watched most of Mia Hamm games and Hamm gives her the excitement of the real game every time she played. Luu Lien looked up to Hamm and made her the best role model in all of professional sports.

"Hamm is the one, I feel, because of what she does and who she is as a player and a person. Although she has been given the title of "best female soccer player in the world", by many, Hamm rarely talks about her own play in the way that might be expected. When she does speak of it, it is always either within a self-critique or, at most, a positive comment that is secondary to what a teammate was able to do" said Luu Lien. The list of Mia Hamm's accomplishments in the sport of soccer is very long and could only be called astounding. Here are a few highlights that Luu Lien can recall: the youngest woman ever to play for the national team (age 15); the NCAA career assists leader (definitely an extremely unselfish player); scoring a goal every 4.1 shots in college; and selected as a three-time first team All-American. "Off the soccer field, Hamm takes her role as a public sports figure very seriously" said Luu Lien. U.S. Women's National Team practices and matches are almost always overflowing with young girls and women seeking autographs.

Even after hours of practicing, team members always stop to sign including Luu Lien herself. During one of these sessions, she remembered that Hamm said something that related to her dreams. Something about as soccer players growing up, they didn't have female soccer role models to look up to. Also, one of the reasons they have been so successful is because our youth programs are strong. "This statement is not just an indication concerning the state of the sport.

It shows that Hamm recognizes what she means to the millions of female soccer players around the United States. From her, and from all the members of the national team, the sense of being the ones that lay the foundation for the future of women's soccer in the USA is very great" said Luu Lien. She thinks that the women soccer team truly feels a responsibility to the next generation of female soccer players. Outside of athletics, Mia has also done well. She graduated from the University of North Carolina with a degree in Political Science. In addition, while at UNC, she was inducted into the university's highest honorary society.

Since such a small percentage of all athletes make it to the pros, the importance of doing well, academically, and finishing one's education cannot be oversold. Mia did both of these things. So far, Luu Lien had seen all the changes in her life and one of the changes made her dreams come true. By watching Hamm play in the women soccer team made her feel that she is playing the in the games too. She was glad that she had brought her child to America where the discrimination does not take place. Now looking back in Vietnam, she is really happy for those women who can play any sport they want.

From what saw on her visited to Vietnam occasionally, the women in school can participate in many sports they want such as: swimming, soccer, basketball and many more. If they played well, they can even join a girl's team to play against other girl's team.