Seventeen national titles.

That's the tradition UNC-CH's women's soccer teams have bred.

Stars like Mia Hamm and Kristine Lilly prove women have a place in pro sports.

But, with the folding of the WUSA Monday, the future of Carolina's current crop of stars beyond college is unclear.

Since the league's beginning four years ago, 32 Tar Heels have graced the fields of the WUSA, with 21 of them serving as the founding players, led by the Washington Freedom's Hamm.

The WUSA never made enough money to cover its expenses; some of the top players even chose to take pay cuts last season in order to keep the league on the field.

Even at last year's WUSA All-Star game in Cary, Hamm knew the cheers from the fans might end one day.

"Well you also know that at one point it's just going to come to an end, and you won't have the opportunities to step out in front of fans," she said.

She probably assumed those cheers would end in her retirement---not the retirement of her league.

As Hamm and her national championship teammates enter their early 30s, the new generation of Carolina soccer stars are just rising to the peak of their careers.

But with the WUSA gone from the picture, there are few ways to continue a professional soccer career beyond the World Cup every four years.

Unfortunately, the graduating Carolina seniors will have little control over when or if there is another league.

Sports Communication professor John Sweeney said the problems of the WUSA could prevent the future of another pro-women's soccer league.

"The problem with getting another opportunity is that now there's a track record that folks didn't show, and it's going to be tougher to restart that way.," Sweeney said.

With the women's league formally calling it quits in the spring, the men's Major League Soccer will be the sport's only top-level professional league in the United States.

The women's U.S. National team starts World Cup action in the nation's capital on Monday versus Sweden.