It was 1992 and I was in soccer heaven -- Chapel Hill, N.C. -- working at a soccer company to pay for journalism school. I had just gotten off the phone with Chad Chastain, who had more notoriety at the time than his sister in our soccer world, because he could score us good discounts on soccer gear from Nike, while his sister Brandi was someone we knew only as “the sister Chad won’t stop talking about.”

Inevitably, Chad, the sales rep at Nike, would introduce himself as “Chad Chastain, Brandi Chastain’s brother. Do you know her? If you don’t, you will. She’s going to be as big as Mia.”

“Big as Mia,” even in 1992, was still a relative statement, and usually applied only to those living in close proximity to soccer heaven.

The women’s soccer team had won the World Cup, but the publicity for women’s soccer was only big enough to carry one name, Mia Hamm, and barely resonated outside of the soccer world.

Even Mia only created a mild ripple when she stopped by, because she had worked along side us, as broke as we were, trying to raise enough money to travel for soccer. I wonder now, if any of those hundreds of thousands of people that had called in to order a new pair of cleats, or a jersey, remembers that at one time someone had answered the phone:

“Thank you for calling Eurosport soccer. This is Mia. Can I take your order?”

Fast forward 10 years. An exhibition match is being played between two of the top women’s professional soccer teams. How is it being billed?

Mia vs. Brandi.

Chad was right, his sister was as big as Mia, and the pair had become the two top stars on the Olympic team and in the WUSA.

The duo’s climb to fame took off when the U.S. won gold at the 1996 Olympics. The women’s soccer game wasn’t completely televised, but fans figured out before the media that these women were amazing, and the game was sold-out. At the 1999 World Cup, the event known for drawing the largest audience to watch a women’s sporting event ever, Brandi scored the overtime kick that would win the game.

I set up interviews with both of them for after the exhibition game, to ask them about how the WUSA had changed the face of the Olympics, and what that will mean for the U.S. team in 2004.

Mia, the person I had stood next to so many times at work and at soccer games, was not available for interviews. Why? Had she turned into some high-maintenance diva, asking for only M&M’s with the all the reds taken out in her dressing room?

Au contraire. Brandi and Mia were both injured – Mia had just come off of ACL surgery, and Brandi’s knee was tweaked. They, as well as other national team members, had set a goal when the women’s league was started two years ago. To be good role models for all the kids watching them play, and to live up to that label. That meant paying attention to the fans first.

Mia, who ended up not being able to play because of her injury, spent the game and hours afterward hobbling around and signing autographs for the estimated 3,000 kids, mostly little girls, stretching their arms out to Mia, holding posters and balls for her to sign, chanting her name over and over, “M-i-a! M-i-a! M-i-a!”

Brandi took time, on her way to sign autographs, to talk to the media for a few minutes. She had played a full game, even staying out on the field during halftime to practice headers and kick the ball around with some of the fans.

This year is a World Cup qualifying year, and then the Olympics in Athens is right around the corner in 2004. I asked Brandi where she saw herself in Athens, and what part she would play on the National and Olympic teams.

Brandi smiled ...

***

The soccer world for women had changed since the inaugural World Cup game 10 years ago. The women back then had to train on their own, the National Team coming together for a few weeks out of the year to train, and even then only playing a couple of games a year.

Most of the players that had graduated from college had to find pick-up games with local men’s college teams, leaving them with a sporadic training regimen. Anson Dorrance, the storied head coach of North Carolina and the National Team coach at the time, told each player that “their biggest training asset was themselves,” since the women had to do everything from physical training and conditioning to soccer skills training on their own when they returned home after a trip, most of them scattered all over the United States, far from other teammates.

That training regimen didn’t change much for the next 10 years, with the team still scattered around the states, still scrounging for training partners in the years leading up to the 1999 World Cup.

***

Brandi, who was cut from the National Team and then earned her spot back, doesn’t take those top-spots on the National and Olympic team for granted.

“Every training session with the National Team is a tryout,” said Brandi, “you have to go out and prove yourself everyday. Wearing that national team uniform is a privilege.”

“The WUSA has changed the face of the Olympics,” said Brandi. “Now you have depth that you didn’t have before.”

Depth because players aren’t hunting for pick-up games in the off-season, and depth in that intangible skill of being okay with the stands filled, as it was on this night, with tens of thousands of fans.

“Coming into places like this, you realize how much every touch and every play matters,” said Brandi, talking about her younger counterparts who now don’t have to wait until the roar of a World Cup crowd to understand pressure. “It’s got to be an inspiration to these players, coming into a place and hearing their name called.”

The big pressure is now on U. S. Women's National Team head coach April Heinrichs. Charged with handpicking the National Team squad, her job has gotten a lot harder. In the inaugural season for the WUSA, she made it to almost every WUSA game possible to scout out the talent for the next World Cup team.

The National Team plays a game on April 27th. For now, most of the veterans of the 2000 Olympic team have been called back. Brandi Chastain, Julie Foudy, Shannon MacMillan, Cindy Parlow, Kristine Lilly, Joy Fawcett, and the star being labeled as the next Brandi or Mia, Tiffeny Milbrett, will all be playing together again.

In the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, the team lost the final game, taking home silver. The world has been catching up to the dominating U.S. team, and the WUSA will only make the competition harder as the international stars benefit from training along side the best in the world.

The U.S. team now competes along side many of the international players that they only played against once or twice a year. These international stars are becoming household names in their own right, as well.

What’s it like for Brandi to play along side rival Sissi of Brazil, a star on that country’s Olympic team that proved lethal to the U.S. team?

“As a league, I try to teach our players that this is a soccer community,” said Brandi. The U.S. team wants to win, of course, but just as badly they want to see the sport they have poured their lives into grow.

After answering questions from the media, standing on one leg with the other wrapped in ice, she moved towards the throngs of little kids waiting for her autograph. She smiled, and talked to every kid she could – talking to everyone there would have taken days – kids peering over the ropes, waiting impatiently in line.

In the end, Brandi was unable to talk to every kid. She signed stacks of autographs and handed them out, but it wasn’t enough. Some kids at the back of the line who didn’t get to see Brandi broke down in tears, and others followed suit. About 20 kids stood around after Brandi had left, tears streaming down their faces because they didn’t get a chance to meet Brandi.

This is a good thing for the sport. No, not making little kids cry, but making them believe in a hero and a sport so passionately with an admiration previously reserved for New Kids on the Block or Brittany Spears or the latest X-Box video game was now being applied to a female sports hero.

What will happen in 2004, or even at the World Cup? As Brandi said in her interview, there are no guarantees that the U.S. will win, or that all of the veterans will not be usurped by the up-and coming players.

What she does know, and what makes her heart sing, is that there will be throngs of fans, shouting out “Mia!” or “Brandi!” or “Tiffeny!”, or someone else’s name, all because they love soccer and the U.S. women’s team.