New York Newsday offers up an early and fond farewell to some of the best of our generation: Kristine Lilly, Joy Fawcett, Brandi Chastain, Julie Foudy, Mia Hamm, Dawn Staley, Sheryl Swoopes, Lisa Leslie, and Lisa Fernandez.

"There is a bond among the women from '96," Fernandez said, "because of what we shared together in that '96 games [and] because of how we were able to take our sports to another level. So to see Julie Foudy and Mia Hamm and those guys potentially looking at retirement, it's a decade almost that we've been together and it is emotional because you feel a piece of you is being left behind."