Brush With Greatness

Kacey White is buddies with Lindsay Tarpley, but when she was 11, she met another U.S. forward

U.S. midfielder Kacey White shared a cute story with us the other night. It seems that when she was 11 years old (in 1995), she attended the U.S. Women's National Team match vs. Canada at Lake Highlands High School in Dallas, Texas (Kacey hails from close by Arlington). The U.S. had just administered a 9-1 beating in front of what was at the time the largest crowd ever to watch the U.S. women in the United States (6,145). After the game, there were hundreds of screaming girls begging for Mia Hamm's autograph. Hamm, who spent part of her early years in Texas, was playing in one of her home states for the first time (Alabama and Virginia also count her as a local) and was just starting to become a global icon. We'll let Kacey tell the rest:

"I was pressed up against a fence, screaming like the rest of the girls and it looked like Mia wasn't going to come over to our area. My mom decided to take action and yelled Mia's name and something like 'HEY MIA, I PLAYED WITH YOU IN A TOURNAMENT WICHITA FALLS, TEXAS!' As soon as Mia heard Wichita Falls and saw my mom, she made a bee-line over to where we were standing. It turns out that my mom played with Mia when Mia was 13 years old, my mom was 24 and I was sixth months old. I don't know if Mia remembered my mom, but she definitely remembered playing in the tournament and she signed me and my friend's program and hardly anyone else got something signed because security ushered her away! In that moment, my mom was the ultimate hero. And she still is! I seriously felt so cool. It was so out of character for my mom to do something like that, but to this day I still think it was such a great thing to do for your daughter. To this day, I try to sign as many autographs as I can after games because I just remember how happy that made me."