Ten years ago, in front of the bulging eyes of a nation, a female athlete tore off her shirt, baring her black sports bra and her powerful soul.
Today, the shirt is in a drawer, the bra is in a frame, but the essence of that soul still soars through a woman's sports landscape that was changed forever.
"It was about so much more than soccer," Brandi Chastain says.
You remember, right? Will anybody who witnessed the culture-changing events of that sweltering summer day ever forget?
On July 10, 1999, at the Rose Bowl, Chastain made a penalty kick that gave the U.S. women's soccer team a World Cup finals victory over China in front of more than 90,000 spectators and a television audience of 40 million.
It culminated weeks of sold-out games that marked the largest celebration of female team sports in American history.
The women, led by Mia Hamm and Julie Foudy and Chastain, were lauded as national heroes on the front page of this newspaper, on the cover of magazines, and in countless video clips that still buzz today.
Extolling the same virtues this country once admired only in male athletes -- unselfishness, toughness, smarts -- the champions were hailed as the pioneers of a new era in the long-ignored world of women's team sports.
It was the month, the game, the moment that was supposed to changed everything.
Ten years later, has it?
Some will say no, pointing to a lack of interest in women's team professional sports and college sports. Some will claim the World Cup was an anomaly that generated a spirit that has long since disappeared.
Funny, but I see that spirit alive every day.
I see in it the many women doctors, lawyers, executives, teachers, successful professionals who were empowered by the ethic displayed by that team.
I see it in the many young boys who attend women's sports events, males growing up with the kind of respect for females that years of legislation couldn't enforce.
More than anything, I see it in my two daughters.
My oldest, Tessa, is a 20-year-old who was a shy little girl, when she attended the World Cup finals. Buoyed by the experience, she eventually became a high school soccer player who became empowered with the sort of everyday courage that knows no gender.
Midway through high school,, her skills stopped progressing, and she found herself as the only junior on the junior varsity team. Every day for several months, her classmates and friends and former teammates would walk past her to their varsity games while she sat alone on the junior varsity bench.
