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Breakfast of soccer champions

U.S. Women's World Cup players honored by Wheaties

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Posted: Wednesday August 11, 1999 01:20 PM

Brandi Chastain and four teammates will have a tribute on special boxes of Wheaties. Tom Hauck/Allsport

GOLDEN VALLEY, Minn. (AP) -- Five stars of the champion U.S. World Cup women's soccer team will be featured on boxes of Wheaties, cereal-maker General Mills announced Wednesday.

Five special-edition boxes will feature Michelle Akers, Brandi Chastain, Mia Hamm, Kristine Lilly and Briana Scurry. Each player will be on the front cover with selected highlights of her career featured on the back of the box.

This is the first time in Wheaties' 75-year history that a soccer player has been on the orange box.

"Every kid playing sports in America grows up with dreams of one day being on the Wheaties box," Hamm said. "It is an honor to join the other great athletes who have been on the Wheaties box. This is definitely one of the highlights of my celebration this summer."

Akers said the news "should encourage every little girl out there to follow her dreams."

Jim Murphy, Wheaties marketing manager, said General Mills wanted to do something special to honor the women and their achievements.

"A new era of heroes were born," Murphy said.

General Mills spokesman Gregory Zimprich said the company did not feature the whole team because it could not reach an agreement with the U.S. Soccer Federation, which owns the licensing rights to the team. Instead, the company reached individual agreements with the five players.

The first of the 12-ounce boxes will appear in grocery stores later this month. Each box will be released one at a time over the next five months.

U.S. women to play in Louisville

The U.S. women's soccer team will play a nationally televised match in Louisville on Oct. 10 as part of the Nike U.S. Women's Cup, an ESPN spokesman said.

The U.S. team's game against a yet-to-be-determined opponent will be shown on ESPN2, ESPN's Mac Nwulu told The Courier-Journal. The match will be half of an international doubleheader in the four-team U.S. Women's Cup.

The University of Louisville and the U.S. Soccer Federation have been negotiating for the past two weeks, and the school was expected to announce the details Wednesday. The site of the game, Louisville's year-old Papa John's Cardinal Stadium, seats about 43,000 and is home to the school's football team.

Louisville will play host to the last of three dates for the U.S. Women's Cup, which uses a round-robin format. Morehouse said doubleheaders are scheduled Oct. 3 in Columbus, Ohio, and Oct. 7 in Kansas City, Mo.

The U.S. is 15-0 in five years of the U.S. Women's Cup.

 

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