Briana Scurry - My Greatest Save: The Brave, Barrier-Breaking Journey of a World Champion Goalkeeper

Copyright 2022 Briana Scurry

Cover 2022 Abrams

Published in 2022 by Abrams Press, an imprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022930493

ISBN: 978-1-4197-5767-9
eISBN: 978-1-64700-548-1

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For my parents, Ernest and Robbie Scurry

by Robin Roberts

I can see the spectacle even now, more than two decades later, three thousand miles away in the Good Morning America studio in Manhattan. Its a steamy July day in Pasadena, California. I am with my ABC colleagues, getting ready to broadcast the final game of the 1999 Womens World Cup between the U.S. and China. I am not even supposed to be there, but over the previous six weeks the U.S. Womens National Soccer Team has become one of the biggest stories in the country. Over ninety thousand fans have packed into the Rose Bowl. Millions more are watching on television.

Ive always believed the most iconic sports events transcend the actual competition and become something much more, a sociocultural marker of sorts. Thats exactly how it feels in the Rose Bowl for the World Cup championship. I see mothers and fathers and their daughters tailgating in the parking lot. I see tens of thousands of young girls and boysmany of them wearing their Mia Hamm or Kristine Lilly jerseysin the stands with their families or teams. I look up to the upper reaches of a stadium made famous by football, now filled to the top row because of futbol.

Womens futbol.

What is going on here? I say to myself.

As I watched the drama unfold that day, through ninety minutes of regulation and two extra-time periods and then the penalty-kick shootout, I found myself captivated by one player more than anyone else: Briana Scurry, the U.S. goalkeeper. Id met Bri in the runup to the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta and was impressed with her competitive intensity and strength of character. She is the kind of person you sit down next to and feel determination and power all but pour out of her. Not because she is loud or defiant or swaggering. Bris determination is the best kind. It is quiet. Unyielding. Deep.

And when she got between the goalposts, it doubled.

Its not easy being the only... no matter what club or company or team you are part of. Bri was the only starter of color on the U.S. team. To my knowledge, she was the only player on the team who openly acknowledged that she was gay. She was the only girl on her first soccer team, the only Black kid on every one of her youth teams, the only Black female in her high-school class. It is not an easy way to grow up. I know, and maybe thats one of the reasons we connected so effortlessly. I was a military kid who moved around a lot. I was the only player of color on a lot of my sports teams. I was the only girl who was as tall as, or taller than, a lot of the boys. I was forever the new kid. You know that you are constantly being watched, evaluatedthat you are Different, capital D intended.

Being a goalkeeper, of course, also makes you different. Ten other players are running around, and they are your teammates and you love them, but you are the only one between the posts, the only person with a singular mission: Keep the ball out of your net.

Bri was better at that than anybody in the world. Thats not me talking. Thats what her coachthe late, great Tony DiCiccosaid. She was never better than she was in the shootout against China, making a breathtaking stop of a PK by Chinas Liu Ying. Moments later, Brandi Chastain drilled the World Cup winner into the upper right corner and then whipped off her No. 6 Team USA jersey, falling to the turf and clenching her fists in what instantly became one of the most recognizable images in the annals of sports.

It was a moment for the ages, legitimately so, but as the ensuing exultation rocked the Rose Bowl, I found myself wondering, What about Bris save? This is not meant in any way to diminish Brandi and her clutch kick. The point isnt to parcel out who deserves the most credit. Briana Scurry made a phenomenal save, under massive pressure. Brandi Chastain made a phenomenal kick, under equal pressure. All I am saying is that it seemed to me that Bris heroics were a little bit underplayed. She would never say that. She probably doesnt even want me to write it here. Thats just who she is. Briana Scurry has never been about glory. She has always been about substance, and humanity.

In a Hall of Fame career, Briana Scurry won two Olympic gold medals and that World Cup title, but to me, she is more of a champion now than she has ever been. Bris competitive career ended in 2010 because of a serious brain injury she sustained while playing for the Washington Freedom in Womens Professional

Soccerthe forerunner of todays National Womens Soccer League. She took a hard knee to the head as she came out to play a ball, colliding with an onrushing forward. Under ten minutes remained in the first half. Bri made the save. It took her awhile to get up, but she did. She stayed in the rest of the half, then wobbled off for the locker room. She was never the same. And she never played soccer again.

The years after her concussion were the darkest of Bris life. She suffered through memory loss and pounding headaches and crushing depression, all of it made much worse by bureaucratic obstacles and medical professionals, retained by an insurance company, who told her it wasnt that bad. Though she was close to giving up, she not only powered through and prevailed in the greatest battle of her life, she became a vocal and passionate advocate to raise awareness of the horrors and perils of traumatic brain injury. As great as Bris World Cup title performance was in 1999, I believe this advocacy will be her most enduring legacy.

To me, the measure of a persons accomplishments isnt the number of championships you win or awards you earn. Its what you must overcome to get there. Its the character you show when youve been knocked down and the way you carry yourself, and the way you treat people when nobody is watching. There are more famous athletes in the world than Briana Scurry. There are few who can match her humanity. She is an extraordinary woman. Shes an extraordinary advocate for those of us in the LGBTQ+ community. She is a person who lives her life, and her truth, with uncommon grace. She has a powerful and uplifting story to tell. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Robin Roberts
New York, New York

I am fifty years old and have spent almost half of those years guarding soccer goals, all over the world. It is a job that brought me a measure of fame, if not fortune, along with some of the greatest thrills of my life, and the greatest pain, too. What can I say? I have a thing for extremes. The thrillswatched and celebrated by millionsincluded a World Cup title in the most historic soccer match ever played on U.S. soil, and two Olympic gold medals. The painexperienced only by me, as private as the thrills were publicleft me broke, broken, brain-damaged, and so psychologically battered that when I was living in a studio apartment in Little Falls, New Jersey, a little over ten years ago, I would sometimes stand at the edge of a nearby waterfall and think about jumping.