Bad Sign Came Early for Women’s Team

I watched with interest while Mia Hamm reacted to the U.S. women’s loss to Germany in the Women’s World Cup on Sunday.

I was with my 12-year-old niece in Redondo Beach a few weeks ago when we saw Hamm outside her hotel. My niece, wearing a soccer T-shirt and soccer shorts, asked Mia Hamm for her autograph. She responded that autographs are “against team policy.”

I wondered that day and I wonder the same today. What happened to our American women’s soccer team? That women’s team that inspired our young girls to believe that their sport and their dream had somewhere magical to take them? There was no magic the day the great Mia Hamm wouldn’t sign a young girl’s T-shirt and there was no magic on the day the American women lost to the German women.

Stephanie Sauter

Redondo Beach