The Interview: Briana Scurry

A memorable conversation with the Hall of Famer about her new memoir, My Greatest Save: The Brave, Barrier-Breaking Journey of a World Champion Goalkeeper

You can order Briana Scurry’s memoir here

It doesn’t seem like 23 years ago. But that’s the amount of time that has passed since Briana Scurry and the USWNT won the 1999 World Cup and became the U.S. cultural story of the summer that year. That tournament made Scurry an American sports star, but there’s still a very real sense that her achievements have been under-covered over the years. Now that’s being rectified. Scurry has a new memoir out, and Paramount+ has a phenomenal documentary film on Scurry that premieres July 12. It was extremely gratifying to reconnect with Scurry last week in New York City.

Attacking Third @AttackingThird

"I feel like I've always been "the only." The only girl. The only Black kid. The only openly gay player." Briana Scurry, one of the pioneers of the women's game, shares her journey to the top. Catch 'The Only,' July 12 on @paramountplus.

May 28th 2022

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The entirety of the written interview below is reserved for paid subscribers. As always, you can still get the entire free audio version of my podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you like to go for your pods.

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Grant Wahl:

Our guest now is a U.S. soccer legend and Hall of Famer. Briana Scurry won the 1999 women's World Cup and two Olympic gold medals. And she has a phenomenal new memoir out, written with Wayne Coffey, called My Greatest Save: The Brave, Barrier-Breaking Journey of a World Champion Goalkeeper. Bri, congratulations on the book, and thanks for coming on the show.

Briana Scurry:

Grant, thanks so much for having me. It's an honor and a pleasure to talk to you, and yeah, it's been a fantastic week so far, and I'm really excited to spread the word about my book and talk with you.

Grant Wahl:

Well I've read the book. It's absolutely terrific, there's so much there. I learned a ton, even though I followed you closely for your entire career and wrote about you back in the '90s. You don't hold back in this book, which is part of what makes a memoir worthwhile. But the decision to write your story and to not hold back, what went into that?

“That was a really dark time, in 2013, when I was so depressed, the insurance company was messing around with me, my finances were depleting. I didn't have anything of value, I was living in a studio apartment, a tiny little place in Little Falls, New Jersey. Just trying to figure out how to go from one day to another, having these debilitating headaches that always started from the left-hand side behind my ear, all the way up into my head, and by the end of the day just booming in my head just like a vice. I couldn't even think, it was just so painful. I was self-medicating with alcohol and Vicodin, which is a horrible combination. Just really struggling and sliding into the abyss, and I was suicidal.” — Briana Scurry

Briana Scurry:

So in 2019, my braintrust, which is my business manager, Chryssa, who's also my wife, and Patrick, my publicist, we sat down and thought about if we should write a book now, and what would that entail, and what would that be like? And asked me if I was ready to tell my story. I felt like I've had a book in me for 20 years, maybe two. So I sat with it and I realized that I had to be more than okay and completely feel good about telling all my story, not just the nice parts. 

I didn't want to sanitize anything, and I really had to be okay with telling the things that weren't so great, including things on the field in my career, and then things in my life also. I realized that I had enough distance away from those things to be able to be a little bit more objective, and to go into those rooms where I may have barricaded the door to never approach in my mind again, and go in there and shed some light. S once I realized I was ready to do that, we started the journey there.

Grant Wahl:

And before we get into details about what is in the book, what do you hope your book achieves?

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