Golden end to magical age for U.S. women

ATHENS — They never did it the easy way.

Not in the 1991 or 1999 World Cups, not in the 1996 Atlanta Games. Not in the intervening years, when they turned the world of women's sports on its head and converted the United States of America into Sports Bra Nation.

And not last night, when the latest Team USA incarnation — led by Mia Hamm, Julie Foudy, Joy Fawcett, Kristine Lilly and Brandi Chastain — found a way, once again, to slip past the world and stand in a place all by themselves, confetti raining, laurel wreaths affixed.

The Olympic record will show the U.S. women's soccer team beating Brazil 2-1 in overtime to claim the gold medal.

It won't show the magic — the United States winning a game in which it was outplayed in the second half and probably should not have won.

It won't show the emotion — Hamm, the game's greatest player, walking off the field, exhausted, for a final time, gold medal in hand, tears in her eyes, her place in soccer history set as solidly as the pillars of the Parthenon.

And it won't show the legacy of a group of ordinary soccer players who got together in 1991 and left, in the eyes of American youngsters, stars that will shoot across the night skies of sport for generations.

Fittingly, three of those sets of young eyes helped usher out the proud, old guard in the only fitting way — as Olympic champions in a land that literally invented competition on a simple field of play.

Heather O'Reilly scored the winning goal in the semifinal game here, putting the United States in the gold-medal match against a younger, more-motivated — and more-talented — Brazil team. She is 19 years old.

Lindsay Tarpley scored the first goal last night, 39 minutes into the game on a hot, stilted night in Athens. She is 20.

And Abby Wambach put away the clincher, stretching muscles honed by high-school basketball to put a header past Brazilian goalkeeper Andreia 22 minutes into a 30-minute overtime. She's 24.

The ages are crucial because they are keepers of a legacy unique in American sport. The Fab Five players left from the 1991 World Cup team are, as of today, out the door, or on their way. This was the last Olympic hurrah, and throats will be sore today from the gusto with which it was shouted across Karaiskaki Stadium.

When it ended, the focus, fittingly, was on Hamm, 32, who wants to leave soccer for motherhood and a life, finally, devoid of gym bags and battered shins. Longtime friend and teammate Foudy embraced her. Teammates mobbed them, forming a moving pile of jumping red jerseys near midfield in a stadium, which, with an announced crowd of 10,400, seemed disturbingly empty for such a grand final scene.

The medal ceremony was poignant, wonderful and odd all at the same time. The 33,000-seat stadium still seemed hauntingly empty, but the bulk of those in attendance were Americans. As the taped version of "The Star-Spangled Banner" hit quiet spots on the public-address system, you could hear several thousand proud Yankees softly singing an a cappella tribute to its soccer team — a thanks for a nearly two-decade-long job well done.

Afterward, in the locker room, Hamm and teammates looked the young players in the eyes and did the only thing that seemed right.

"She came up to me and she said, 'Thank you' for scoring the winning goal," Wambach said. "Then Julie came up to me and said, 'Thank you, I'm not going to be miserable for the next 40 years of my life.'

"And that's what we have to get back to: This is for them. This is the only way it would have been right for them to leave this game."

It almost wasn't. The Brazilian squad, all under 30, all fast, smooth and creative, was befuddled by the U.S. defense in the first half, when Team USA controlled the midfield. Not so in the second, when young Brazilian stars Marta and Cristiane ran past, through, and literally around U.S. defenders on a half-dozen would-be scoring runs, one of which connected at 73 minutes.

Twice, with the score even, they set up teammates with picture-perfect centering passes, with U.S. keeper Briana Scurry scrambling to get in position. Twice, they hit the far post.

"Marta," Hamm said, "is one of the best I've ever seen. She's the real deal. Brazil is young. They're going to be around for a long time."

High praise from a woman whose résumé shows 153 goals in 266 games spanning 17 years.

Last night, in the aftermath, the years all blended together for Hamm in one happy haze.

She hefted the gold medal in her hand.

"There's something about this," she said, feeling its weight. "The medal represents everything we've worked for through this entire time."

The five departing players: "We're best of friends," she said. "I mean, we have so much love and respect for one another. What I love about this group is that they embraced and understood the responsibility that they had. There was never one moment that they didn't want it. Everyone did it in their own, unique way. I didn't have to do the things that Julie did, and vice versa."

Their strategy — take a great game and bring it to the masses, one dramatic win at a time — paid off more famously than they could have dreamed. And with that final medal in hand, the greatest international soccer player in history could heave a sigh of relief and admit it to herself: The last piece of the Mia Hamm role-model puzzle was snapped into place.

"Those younger players, they just get it," she said of tomorrow's stars for an American team that begins, unlike Hamm and her cohorts, with a winning legacy.

"For a long time, as older players, you're ... not reluctant, but you're a little nervous that when you leave, you want to make sure they understand that it's an honor to be on this team. It's not a right.

"These guys understand that, they've embraced it, and they'll continue to build and be the foundation of this team."

That's good news for sports in America, and not just the women's variety. For that reason and a lot of others, last night was a good night to be an American in Greece, under the bright lights, beneath the Olympic flame, with a group of athletes accepting gold with uncommon grace.

The torch for American women's sport was passed. And the kids on the receiving end couldn't be more worthy — or grateful.

Wambach thought hard about the overtime goal that sealed the deal, the magical overtime header that might, in another 17 years, mark the beginning of another sterling career of another legendary U.S. soccer star

"If that was my gift to them," she said, "it doesn't even touch what they've given me, what they've given the game, and the sport."

They never did it the easy way. But for Mia Hamm's generation, U.S. soccer, and perhaps even American women's sports, the hard part, at long last, might be over.

Ron Judd: 206-464-8280 or at rjudd@seattletimes.com