Mia Hamant, UW women’s soccer goalkeeper who died of cancer, lived to help others

Mia Hamant, the University of Washington goalkeeper who was diagnosed with an ultrarare form of kidney cancer, died Nov. 6 after a monthslong ordeal with the disease. She was 21 years old.

“The strength that she showed to be able to show up and to be part of the team is unbelievably inspirational,” Washington women’s soccer coach Nicole Van Dyke said. “We appreciated every moment we got with her because it was just so much joy. And she competed and fought until the end.”

A standout between the goal posts whose heroics at the 2024 Big Ten tournament helped Washington upset Iowa on penalty kicks to reach the semifinals, Hamant was diagnosed with Stage 4 SMARCB1-deficient renal medullary carcinoma in April 2025. She began documenting her treatment on social media, becoming an inspirational pillar for the UW athletics community and the greater sports world.

Washington clinched the Big Ten tournament championship Nov. 9, defeating Michigan State in a penalty shootout, just days after Hamant’s death. UW defeated Arkansas 1-0 in overtime to reach the Sweet 16 of the NCAA tournament for just the fifth time in program history Nov. 20.

“The University of Washington grieves the heartbreaking loss of Mia Hamant,” athletic director Pat Chun said in a statement on Nov. 6, “(her) strength, kindness, and spirit touched everyone around her. Mia embodied everything we hope for in a Husky student-athlete – perseverance, grace, and an unwavering commitment to her teammates and community. Her remarkable courage through adversity and the legacy she leaves behind will forever inspire the UW family.”

On the pitch, Hamant was the steely eyed competitor, who donned No. 00 and her signature double-braided ponytail. The 5-foot-10 goalkeeper was so good with her feet that Van Dyke assumed she was an outfield player when the UW coach first started scouting her. The last line of defense, who emerged as one of the country’s best goalkeepers during her lone season as a starter in 2024.

Hamant made 15 starts for the Huskies, recording seven shutouts. Her 88.2% save percentage ranked third among all Division I goalkeepers. Her 0.66 goals against average was the third-lowest mark by a goalkeeper during a single season in UW history, while her career 0.64 goals against average is a program record.

Her performance against Iowa earned her a spot on the 2024 Big Ten All-Tournament team. Hamant guided Washington through another penalty shootout during the first round of the 2024 NCAA tournament versus Utah State, before making eight saves and allowing just one goal against top-seeded Mississippi State during a 1-0 loss on Nov. 22, 2024. It was Hamant’s last competitive game.

“She was a student of the game,” Van Dyke said. “She watched film. She met with teammates. Even until her final weeks, she wanted to help (sophomore goalkeeper Tanner Ijams). She wanted the team to be successful. She was always willing to give advice. She never wanted to be a distraction. She never was.”

Hamant also earned All-Academic honors from the conference and the College Sports Communicators, and was selected for the Big Ten’s sportsmanship award Nov. 4.

Off the pitch, Hamant was Washington’s high-energy hype woman, whose carefree, lighthearted and unfiltered approach to life left teammates and coaches searching for words to describe her before simply saying “that’s so Mia.”

She was the locker room DJ, who always had her finger on the team’s pulse and had the perfect song queued for any moment. The morale booster, whose self-deprecating sense of humor allowed her to laugh at herself and with her teammates and who doodled cartoons on the team whiteboard. The mental health advocate and psychology major, whose past travails with anxiety made her passionate about encouraging her fellow student-athletes to seek counseling.

“Her personality just stood out, and still stands out,” Van Dyke said. “She just brought us a lot of laughs. A lot of smiles. A lot of love. She loved her teammates. She always brought people with her. And she always wanted the vibes to be high. And I think we’re always going to do that with her.”

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Mia Renee Hamant was born July 30, 2004 , in San Francisco, the eldest child of Kevin and Candice Hamant. She was raised in Corte Madera, California, a suburb in the Bay Area’s Marin County, where she quickly emerged as a prodigious athletic talent. As a child, she played a variety of sports including softball, basketball and volleyball.

She was introduced to soccer in elementary school, and quickly flashed enough potential to join Mill Valley Soccer Club where she started as an outfield player. Mia ended up in goal simply because she was the only 8-year-old who was able to catch the ball, and by the time she was 12 she was exclusively playing goalkeeper.

“She had phenomenal hands, so it kind of came natural to her,” Kevin said.

Jason Werner, Van Dyke’s husband, was one of Mia’s early club coaches, and Van Dyke coincidentally coached Mia for the first time when the current Huskies coach subbed in for a one-game stint. Kevin recalled they “got absolutely destroyed.”

Mia’s skills continued to grow. She joined Marin FC for her final seasons of club soccer and starred at Redwood High in nearby Larkspur, Calif., where she earned first-team all-league honors during her first three seasons. Kevin said Mia began considering college soccer as an option when she was around 15 years old after a successful stint with the US Youth Soccer Olympic Development Program.

UW, which hired Van Dyke in January 2020, called on the first day of Mia’s junior recruiting window. Mia, whose recruiting class was severely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, committed without ever setting foot on Washington’s campus and before Van Dyke had coached a single game in purple and gold. Mia also had interest from Alabama, Indiana, Wisconsin, UC Davis and Sacramento State among others, but UW was one of the only programs willing to offer her a scholarship despite limited film because of canceled games.

So Mia headed to Seattle, where she formed a tight bond with the other girls in her signing class: midfielders Lucy Newlin and Kelsey Branson and defender Kolo Suliafu. But while her friends all played early during their first collegiate season, Mia had to wait. She tore her anterior cruciate ligament at the end of her senior season of high school and was sidelined throughout her first year of college.

The injury and the trials of being a freshman at college weighed on Mia, her father remembered. She struggled after losing soccer for the first time in her life, but poured all her efforts into rehabilitation. Mia also decided she wanted to major in psychology.

“She struggled a little bit in high school with anxiety,” Kevin said. “Some of the counseling she got in high school really helped her, and I think her thing was that she wanted to help others the way people had helped her.”

Mia played 30 minutes and made one save during her only appearance as a sophomore in 2023 before her breakout junior campaign. Her official magnum opus came against Iowa in the quarterfinals of the Big Ten tournament on Nov. 2, 2024. She made 12 saves during regulation before adding three stops during the penalty shootout to help the Huskies complete the upset.

“To see her perform at the level I always thought she was capable of was simply amazing,” Kevin said.

Added Van Dyke: “She was so confident. She would say, ‘You guys, I’ve got your back.’ She was willing to take the team on her shoulders.”

Yet, Van Dyke said Mia’s best performance as a Husky might have been a few weeks later. She made five saves during a 2-0 loss against Seattle Reign FC during an exhibition at Husky Soccer Stadium March 8. Just a few months after Mia had trained with the NWSL club in December 2024, following a strong performance at the Reign’s winter combine, Van Dyke said.

“She made unbelievable saves,” Van Dyke said. “She kept us in the game. And that was the moment where you’re like, ‘Wow, she has such a future at the pro game.’ ”

But Mia’s body was already beginning to show signs of the cancer no one knew she had developed. She was getting fatigued quicker than normal and mentioned to her father she had been dealing with a cough for around a month.

She was still able to join the Huskies on their team trip to Spain at the end of March. But Mia became violently ill while abroad, and a week after they had returned to the United States, she called her father and told him she was not able to breathe.

Mia went to the emergency room, where doctors first brought up the possibility that she might have cancer. A week later on April 11, they gave her the official diagnosis. She had been unable to breath because her pleural cavity – the area around the lungs – was filling up with fluid. When the doctors drained the fluid, they found possible tumors near her organs.

“The doctor came in – and I felt so bad for this guy, like he has a daughter my age,” Mia said during an interview with “The Patient Story,” a YouTube channel devoted to authentically portraying the experience of cancer patients, three weeks before her death. “And he had to break the news to me.”

A biopsy revealed it was cancer. Specifically Stage 4 SMARCB1-deficient RMC, a rare and aggressive type of cancer. Kevin said doctors told the family they normally get just one case per year. It is almost exclusively found in patients with sickle cell trait, which Mia did not have. Doctors told the Hamants only 5% of all SMARCB1-deficient RMC occurs in non-SCT patients.

There is no cure. Treatment options are very limited.

Doctors hoped, Kevin said, they would be able to extend her life by two years.

Support quickly poured in for Mia. A GoFundMe campaign, which had raised more than $134,000 by Oct. 30, surpassed $160,000 as of Nov. 20. Many UW student-athletes have worn orange ribbons – the color for kidney cancer awareness – while competing since her diagnosis, along with many opponents. Several NWSL teams, including the Reign, also paid tribute to her by wearing orange ribbons.

Mia started chemotherapy shortly after getting her diagnosis, and initially responded extremely positively. She was even able to return to the gym and do some very light workouts. After three rounds of chemo, she started immunotherapy. But her condition took a nosedive. Mia returned to chemo, which briefly worked again before becoming ineffective.

Doctors tried different types of chemo. They tried targeted radiation treatments to help relieve pain in her legs. She had nausea and trouble eating.

She was hospitalized for chemo enteritis, an inflammation of the small intestine caused by chemo. Before her hair fell out, she shaved her head , a process she documented on her Instagram account @miakickscancer.

“I think it was therapeutic for her, to some extent,” Kevin said. “And also helped her focus on next steps as opposed to how dire the situation was. But also, that’s just who she is. She tries to help others.”

Despite her physical struggles, Mia attended every women’s soccer home game in 2025 and watched every road game online. She sounded the siren while sporting a purple wig before the UW football game against Illinois Oct. 25, the Huskies for a Cure game. And on Oct. 19, her senior night, Mia got to watch the Huskies, wearing orange ribbons in their hair and on their uniforms, win their first regular-season championship since 2000.

“She loved her friends and teammates,” Kevin said. “It gave her something to look forward to, especially the last months. The last month was really hard. She wasn’t able to walk much at the end, but the games gave her something to look forward to at the end. … It was her team. It was her teammates. It was her friends. It was a distraction. I think it was a good thing for her. It helped her get through some tougher times.”

Mia is survived by her father Kevin, her mother Candice, her younger brother Drew and her longtime boyfriend Jack Maguire, a former Washington men’s soccer player.

“From a dad’s perspective, if you’d asked me what I wanted my daughter to be like before I had kids, she would’ve been exactly that plus more,” Kevin said. “She was kind. Thoughtful. Loving. Caring.

She was all the things I could’ve hoped for.”