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
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.
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.
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?
GrantWahl.com is a reader-supported soccer newsletter. Quality journalism requires resources. The best way to support me and my work is by taking out a paid subscription now. Free 7-day trials are available.
Briana Scurry:
I've gotten this question a lot, and I've given it some great thought. What I want my book to achieve is for it to be a guiding force for all the people who read it. And knowing that if things sometimes go wrong for them that they can push through. I want it to be a celebration of not only my life, but my mom and dad's life, my family, my teams, and how living and chasing a dream can really be so amazing and exciting.
And I want people to feel the situations and the promise of a better life for themselves. My book is I think so unique in the fact that I have amazing peaks and valleys of my life. I mean, there's really no in-between, I'm either on the mountaintop or I'm in the gutter with my face in it. I think it's a great book of resilience, and I feel like the world really needs an example of resilience right now.
Grant Wahl:
As I mentioned, we'll get into more details about what's in the book. But you and I, we're recording this on Wednesday, and had just a wonderful dinner together on Monday night here in New York that was one of the most fun nights I've had in a really long time, just really special and appreciate that. And we had a wonderful discussion, and afterward I realized I never once asked you: How are you? Because your career ended on a concussion, and it caused years of heartache and so many things you had to deal with, and you had surgeries. How are you right now?
Briana Scurry:
I'm fantastic. And emotionally, spiritually, physically doing fantastically. And also my brain, which is obviously one of the major issues that I had was brain health, mental health, is doing great, it really is. I have Alzheimer's in my hereditary line. My mother had Alzheimer's, my grandmother had dementia. And so I have for the longest time thought I might be destined for some kind of brain disease or issue.
As it turns out, my brain is healthy. I've actually had pictures of it done recently, which will also be in my new documentary The Only on July 12 [on Paramount+]. I'm great, and I feel like emotionally I am in a place of joy and happiness. I've always been an optimist. I wake up in the morning and I feel good about where I am, who I am, what I'm doing. Because I used to take self-assessments every day when I was in a bad place, and it was just more of the same, and it was so saddening, and it really weighed on me. Now I feel a lightness and a joy, and I know for a fact that my physical health is really good.
Grant Wahl:
Fantastic, that is great to hear. We're going to get to some of the difficult things you've gone through, but I want to start with some sports stuff, because as closely as I’ve followed you, I did learn a lot of things reading this book that I didn't know about your career. One was the influence of the 1980 U.S. men's ice hockey team on you, which I didn't know about. What was that influence?
Briana Scurry:
So I remember sitting on the couch with my mom and dad on either side and watching the Lake Placid ice hockey team. I was eight years old, and I understood somehow that I was watching greatness in front of me. The fact that that team had just gotten completely demolished by the USSR a few weeks before 10-3, and here they were somehow making the impossible made possible, and that really had an influence on me. And Jim Craig just spinning around on his head literally making all these saves. I just really was in awe of that.
Then they got the gold medal. They got the gold medal a few days later. I just told my mom and dad, "I want to be an Olympian." The interesting thing was they were on board with this eight-year-old little girl who's like I want to be an Olympian. They were like yes you can, you can do whatever you set your mind to, honey.
I got lucky, and I realize now in my older age that I really did get lucky with the amazing parents that I had. I had that inspiration, that seed of the flame was lit by that game, and they nurtured and watered that flame and really spread it around. And they supported it and they understood it.
At the time, obviously, I wasn't really aware of how I was going to do something like that. But as a kid you don't really worry about it, you're like I want two pools, I want to be an astronaut, I want to be all these different things you're talking about. They seemed so outlandish, but that's how people who do those things get there. Because they have a dream at some point in their lives, they believe in it, they chase it and eventually a lot of the time they grab it and they live it. So that was mine at eight years old.
Grant Wahl:
Another thing I didn't realize was that you came into the U.S. women's national team at a slightly older age than many, but you went basically straight into the starting goalkeeper spot with the world champions. That must have taken an incredible amount of confidence on your part. How would you describe what that process was like for you coming into the U.S. women's national team?
Briana Scurry:
Well, let me tell you about that confidence and where that came from. That came straight from Jim Rudy, who was my head coach at UMass. He sat me down in his office in my sophomore year and said, "Bri I think you're good enough to play on the national team." I said, "Oh, that's great coach, I didn't know we had one." [Laughs] Clueless at the time, right?
I'm just doing my thing, I don't even know about all this other stuff around me and the possibilities. He told me that he thought I was good enough. I took his confidence in me and I made it my own. And so I just kept going, he said just keep learning, keep growing, keep becoming a better goalkeeper, and I was like okay. Sure enough, in the book we learned, we meaning Wayne and I, that Jim and Anson were really good friends and had been for a long time, and actually coached together when they were younger. Apparently Anson and Jim were talking about me way before I obviously knew anything, and he had his eye on me.
I feel now when I go into my senior year and then I play against UNC in the NCAA Final Four and we get completely shellacked 4-1, and I'm like oh no. I had this awesome chance to show him how good I was in person, and I completely flopped on that. 4-1 was like the most goals I gave up my entire career I think to that point. Then I get the invite the next week, I was like what are you talking about? Jim was like no, you're going. So going in to the camp, five on the totem pole of five, in November ‘93 and then by March of ‘94 at number one. The only way I can possibly describe how that happened is because Anson, he had plans. He had plans for me before I knew what the plans were.
Grant Wahl:
We're going to skip a lot of stuff here, I suggest people read the book because there's wonderful details about all of it. You play in the ‘95 World Cup, such high standards for the U.S., disappointment with going out or not going out, but losing in the semi-finals to a Norway-
Briana Scurry:
It's going out, when we don't win it's going out, let's be clear.
Grant Wahl:
Losing in the semis to Norway, which I got a full understanding of how much enmity there was between the two teams, and then beating them, Norway, in the ‘96 Olympics on your way to the gold medal in that Olympics. I think ‘96 was really interesting, that was when I started covering y'all because I was an intern at the Miami newspaper, I covered one of your games in Miami against China in that tournament. But that was really the first time that you got mega crowds, the U.S. women's national team. So that whole ‘96 Olympics, how do you view that now when you look back on it?
Briana Scurry:
Well, obviously I was living my dream that I had since I was eight years old, I was in the Olympic games, I was on a team that could actually win. And here I found myself in a major role on that team. Going into that Olympic games, there was a lot of talk about the possibility of this being the Olympics of the woman. Basically all these women's teams in different sports obviously had fantastic chances at winning gold all at the same time, and we were one of them.
So that was really thrilling going into the Olympic opening ceremonies was holy cow, I mean talking about a dream on fire, my goodness. Coming in around the bend and going into that stadium and all these people just erupting and cameras flashing, it was just wow, it was so cool. To this day it’s one of my most favorite things I've ever experienced in my life, other than my wedding of course. That was just amazing. Going into that game a lot of people were talking about us, and there was a lot of buzz about our team.
The irony of it was not a single live game was shown, if you recall. Back then they just showed clips of segments after the fact, because other sports were shown live over us. Then we did have 76,000 at the Georgia stadium in Athens for the final, and it was glorious. I think I saw no less than 20 of my family and friends in the crowd after the game, and we won it! We were there, it was just so cool. And being on the podium was just my greatest desire times 1,000, that's what it felt like, and to finally have it happen. That Olympics was so pivotal for women's athletics in this country, and I think that really launched a lot of change in women's athletics and obviously of course soccer.
Grant Wahl:
Really cool video out recently on the ‘96 U.S. women's basketball team that I would suggest people see. There's so much great content coming out these days about stuff that should have been told a long time ago, but just finally being told, including your stuff.
Briana Scurry:
We're finally getting there, right, finally.
Grant Wahl:
What's interesting about ‘96, one of the legacies of ‘96 was that the big crowds convinced the organizers of the ‘99 women's World Cup in the U.S. to put it in big NFL stadiums and places like the Rose Bowl. And it was a risk, but it was a risk that paid off because FIFA originally didn't want to do it. And the organizers said we're going to do it, people like Marla Messing. Y'all filled it and became literally the cultural story of the summer of 1999, way beyond just a sports story.
And I still remember just being so lucky to cover it for Sports Illustrated. I remember doing a story, I'm going to find it on the SI Vault, I'll post the link, on you after the semifinal in ‘99, my feature story was on you because you had an amazing game against Brazil. Then you win it and end up on the cover of Sports Illustrated the same week as on the cover of People magazine and Time magazine, which shows how transcendent it was. I'm wondering, when you look back at ‘99, what stands out to you now that maybe didn't as much when you were closer to it?
Briana Scurry:
I think a lot of us on the team, myself included, were so focused on what we were trying to achieve that we really didn't allow ourselves to get caught up in the ground swell that was occurring in the country at the time. Granted, our timing was spectacular, it was the dog days of summer, if you will. We were a hot story, and as everything built up going into that final Robin Roberts popped out to California to interview me, and that's pretty much when it really hit me, I really felt it. I'm like okay, we are doing something special. She was talking to me about how special it was from her point of view as someone who's on the outside looking in. It was really an eye-opener for me.
I think some people would call that maybe a bit naive, but we were totally focused, you know how it is, Grant, you lock down when you're trying to do something like this, and you try to keep everything out, including making too many decisions or too much information or whatnot. There was no social media back then either. We were really focused on what we were trying to do because we realized we had great crowds, but if we don't win this thing it was a problem, you know what I mean?
It's anticlimactic, to say the least. So I was really focused. I realized then that it was going to be big, but now looking back on it I can trace back so many things that started from that summer and that game, including clothing lines for women only. Nike had come into the soccer game in the five years before that with our team. I was one of the original five Nike girls in soccer, period.
Nike didn't have a thing in soccer at all years ago. We were able to really launch their company in the soccer field. And all these different things looking back that can be traced back to that. Equal pay, obviously, was traced back to that. All these other countries looking at their women's teams in a different way can be traced back to that. All these different leagues. Our league started here in the United States directly because of the ‘99 World Cup win and the inspiration that it provided. There's so many different things to look at, and that's not even, there was no thought of that at the time that it would have that kind of impact reverberating in the decades to come.
Grant Wahl:
I'm going to share something with you that I actually forgot to mention the other night when I saw you, which is you had the biggest save in American soccer history in the penalty kick shootout against China. And I had a conversation during the women's World Cup in 2019 in France with Pierluigi Collina, who is one of the most famous referees of all time. He actually runs the referee department, the officiating department, for FIFA now.
Very unique looking guy, bald like me, but a famous ref. He and I were talking in 2019, I was sort of miffed about how ridiculous things had gotten with a goalkeeper being like two inches off the line on penalties, and having them be retaken after they made a save. And he was sort of adamant with me, and in part of the conversation he was like, "Well, you remember the ‘99 women's World Cup final when the American goalkeeper was so far off her line," and he was sort of casting aspersions on you. And I said to him, this is a direct quote, "No referee called it, it wasn't on her."
Briana Scurry:
Exactly, exactly.
Grant Wahl:
And in those days it never got called, ever. I can't remember it being called in those days. And people are looking at it now in terms of like how we view that rule today, and in ‘99 there really wasn't any discussion at the time about it. And by the way, the Chinese goalkeeper was off her line too.
Briana Scurry:
Yes. Thank you. [Laughs]
Grant Wahl:
I just wanted to share that with you, that I had that conversation with him, and I stood up to one of the more intimidating referees of all time, and that's what I would say today. Because I know that comes up somewhat today, doesn't it, with you?
Briana Scurry:
It does. And I appreciate that, Grant, it's almost like you and I are on the same mind, because it's true. People sometimes, not as much anymore, but every once in a while if they're doing a story on me and they watch some video of that save, they're like whoa, she's way out there. You know what I mean? And I'm like well, the referee is standing right there, right there, and not a single warning at any point in time, and I was doing that for every single kick. And guess what, so was Gao, for every single kick, she just didn't get a hand on anything.
That's all it was, it really was not a rule that was enforced at all. You look at the men's leagues back then, goalkeepers were doing the same thing, and so it was one of those things where it was referee’s discretion, and the discretion was to not call it. The game of soccer is like that all the time. You've got situations where a lot of referees decide not to call PKs in a certain time of the game, at the end of the half or end of the game, that's their discretion, and that's the same thing for this.
Grant Wahl:
I'm glad we cleared that up.
Briana Scurry:
Thank you.
Grant Wahl:
It's really the greatest U.S. save of all time like-
Briana Scurry:
Thanks for standing up to that referee for me, I appreciate that.
Grant Wahl:
I'm also wondering, and it's interesting because I covered this event but I didn't think about it much at the time, if at all, to be honest. Were you the only ‘99er who was openly gay at the time?
Briana Scurry:
Yes, I was. It's interesting because several of them are now out, but they were not at the time. And I was the only one on my team that was openly gay. My teammates were absolutely fabulous about it all the time, so supportive and amazing. My girlfriend actually lived with me in the residency at that time, that whole six months before the ‘99 World Cup. And so yes, I was the only one. A lot of people I've talked to since then about that, they were nervous about doing that, fearing missing out on some opportunities maybe with sponsors or partners or perceptions and whatnot, but I obviously didn't have any issue with it.
Grant Wahl:
It's really interesting to me, because Megan Rapinoe is about as out as you can be at this point, and yet people forget Megan didn't come out publicly until 2011, I think after the 2011 World Cup. At any point in time, it's probably maybe somewhat easier to do now, but it's never easy.
Briana Scurry:
Right. It's never easy, and the interesting thing is in her situation she probably had a sense of okay, maybe it's okay for me now, and then guess what happened, her career just took off from there. She's had great World Cups, 2015 obviously, and 2019, fantastic huge wins, and been a leader and probably the most well known player on the team in both of those instances. I don't think coming out has hurt her in the least, if anything it's probably helped.
Grant Wahl:
You're also the only Black starter on the ‘99 U.S. team. And I'm wondering how regularly were you aware of that?
Briana Scurry:
That's a great question, how was I aware? I think my whole life I always knew I was “the only” because I was on so many teams, on every team in my youth, with every sport I played in, just because in part because of where we lived. And I just felt like I was meant to do the things I was doing, it was just destined for me to do these things. I just always felt like if I'm going to go and try to play on this team and play this sport, I'm just going to do it with all my heart and all my spirit, and I'm just going to go for it. And if I look different than everybody else, I feel like it's almost like something that everybody notices and I don't really notice it.
It doesn't hinder me, it doesn't hurt me. I think people might say well, Bri, do you feel like you ever had to be twice as good because you were the only Black girl, or twice as good because you were the only gay girl? I don't think so, I never felt that way. It's interesting because I have a lot more interesting perspective on that, and now that I'm older, in part because I think I'm wiser now, and I'm just looking at these things from different angles because people ask me about it. But at the time, which is what I tried to do with my book, write how I was at the time, no. No hindrances, no feeling of being lonely or anything like that, or feeling like I was just by myself, I never felt that way at all.
Grant Wahl:
It is a different time now, and we were talking earlier about how there's more cool content, more video stories, books about things that happened with women's sports in the '90s and at other occasions. And I do wonder if ‘99 had happened today, how many more endorsements do you think you would get than you did then?
Briana Scurry:
I think I'd be worldwide, internationale as the Black Eyed Peas say. I would be just embraced, partnered with, I would have a social media following like Sydney Leroux or Venus Williams or Serena Williams. I would probably be like a rockstar because of the way things went, how unique I am and how I would be perceived. And social media, we didn't have that, and I think it would be a very different outcome than I had back then.
I was just before my time, I truly believe that. But the cool thing about that is, is I feel what I didn't get in maybe financial windfall, I have this very powerful feeling of accomplishment, and this humbleness and this generosity and graciousness because I did plow the field for people to come behind me. And I think if I hadn't done that and felt that way about it, that maybe I might feel like I was shorted or maybe wondering where's mine, that kind of thing. But I don't feel that way at all. I'm grateful that I was the one to plow the field for other people to come behind me.
Grant Wahl:
That's a great way of putting it. A few more questions here with Bri, I appreciate you taking this much time to talk. You also write about because you get into everything in this book. You write about the weight gain that you had after ‘99. And I had never seen it put in such stark terms as like the two lines where you say on the ‘99 final day you weigh 145 pounds, and just a few months later you were at 175. You lost your starting job. What happened, and how did you come back from it?
Briana Scurry:
What happened was I was drinking my own Kool-Aid, if you will. I basically had this amazing breakthrough on July 10, 1999. The next day I was world famous, basically. All these people knew who I was, and my team was America's sweethearts. And I remember being in Pasadena two days later and I was walking down the street with my girlfriend at the time, and this guy was driving down the road. He slams on his brakes, puts his car in parked, opens the door, runs over to me, Scurry you're awesome! High fives me and runs back into his car. The guy was standing in the middle of the road, running, parked, and people were like hey buddy let's go. That's when I knew I was like wow, that was crazy. All these different things happened, and all of a sudden I was in high demand.
The beauty of that is I was all over the place. I was in New York, I did Rosie O'Donnell, I went to the Broadway show Rent, I was doing Regis and Kathie Lee, Jay Leno. All these things all over the place like people do when they break through. And I was traveling all over, and I lost sight of what was important. As this was happening, it was a couple of things. I lost track of what I was supposed to be doing. I was eating different foods and all this food, not training, not focusing on proper sleep. And I think also I was in my late 20s, and I think my metabolism was starting to change at the exact same time. So before I knew it, I had gained some weight and I noticed my pants were fitting a little snug and whatnot, and I wasn't really too worried about it.
But then it got to a point where I saw the weight gain but I didn't see the weight gain. Then when we went back into camp for the 2000 Olympic Games, there was also a coaching change, if you recall, and April Heinrichs was now the coach. She brought in new people, and every new coach wants to make their mark on the team, so they basically come in with guns blazing.
This is how it is, it's still that way by the way. All these different demands, fitness wise and whatnot. Goalkeepers were required to be a lot more fit, and I was overweight and had too much weight on my frame and ended up with shin splints after a couple weeks of training. The injury was hot and painful. I missed the camp, I missed the tour in Brazil, and before you knew it, I was on the wrong side of things.
And April was offended by the whole thing. I was angry because she was choosing Siri Mullinix over me for all these games, and I thought I deserved at least a little bit of runway to get back in shape. And I finally did, but it was too late. I got back in shape I'd say by April, May of that year, but by then April had made her choice.
And to her credit, it took me a long time to understand that I was the one that was wrong. That I had self-sabotaged, that I betrayed and let my teammates down and April. She told me later, she said, "Bri, the goalkeeper position was the one position I didn't think I had to make a decision on." She was like, "I thought I had that locked down."
I lost my spot, didn't play a single minute in the Olympic Games. Then I was angry and there was a cloud of emotion. And in my state of mind, and this is so important, my state of mind was completely anger, almost like a storm all the time. So everything I was in and everything I did you could get this energy coming from me that wasn't inviting and wasn't me at all. It wasn't powerful, it wasn't peaceful, it wasn't Bri. I was living that way for that whole year, and that year was absolutely miserable, to the point where I really don't recall a lot of the other parts of that year because I was just such a storm. What happened in order for me to change everything was I was at home, got an envelope in the mail from a reporter from somewhere that wanted my autograph.
The picture they wanted autographed was me in that first camp in Chula Vista, and I could not believe my eyes. People talk about how they don't see things because it's gradual with you or whatever. But this picture, I was huge. My face was bloated and my body was huge, and I was like, that's what they saw.
No wonder, no wonder, Bri, that she couldn't trust you and she was upset and your teammates, and you let everybody down. I realized I had self-sabotaged, and that finally clicked in my brain and then off I went. I started researching nutrition, training, sleep, getting fitter, I started lifting like a crazy person, expanding my explosiveness and my muscle mass and all these things. Then I was basically like a rocket ship. I got so fit and I was way better than I was in ‘99. So I was up here and then I was down here, then I just went past my previous peak in terms of how good I was. I wanted to be the best Briana Scurry at that point, not just better than the next closest goalkeeper competing for the spot. And off I went.
Grant Wahl:
It's really interesting how 2000 Olympics U.S. doesn't win, 2003 women's World Cup, U.S. doesn't win. 2004 Olympics, and the U.S. does win, and you just play amazingly well, I saw highlights recently of you in that tournament and was just like, oh wow.
Briana Scurry:
Oh wow, yes. [Laughs]
Grant Wahl:
I know you had lost your father, Ernest, in 2004 not long before the Olympics. Then you played so well in the Olympics, won the gold medal, performed amazingly. How hard was that year for you when you look back on it?
Briana Scurry:
It was just emotional toil. I was training for the Olympics. April and I had reconciled and saw eye to eye. I asked her earlier that year when we were going for qualifying in Costa Rica, I asked her for a meeting, and we sat down and I said, "April I just want you to know my dad is ill. It's really touch and go with him." I said, "He's in the ICU right now, he had a heart attack recently. I may need to go home literally on a moment's notice. Is that okay?" She said, "Bri, you do what you’ve got to do. It's more than okay. No worries, go ahead if you’ve got to go." Fortunately at that time I didn't have to go during that tournament, but every break after every camp or tournament we had that year, I'd go home every single time.
Before that, I would go home multiple times a year, but I was going home every single time at this point. Just being with him, and I could see it. I could see his deterioration each time I'd go home. It'd be a few weeks, and I would see him, and he's just getting smaller and smaller and smaller. He had amputated his leg below the knee because he was diabetic and had kidney failure and was on dialysis, and all these things were happening, and he had had strokes before. But his spirit was so good still, and he fought his way as best he could. I was so torn because my dad was sick, and my mom was caring for him, and I was training for the Olympics, which meant that they couldn't come to see the games in person.
Also, that meant that he was dying, and I knew it, I knew it. I'd say about three weeks before he died I was on a walk with my dogs, I lived in Atlanta at the time. I just felt something as I was walking my dogs, like it's coming, it's coming soon. I said dad I'm okay, I'm going to be okay. I'm going to take care of mom, don't worry. Literally three weeks later I found myself in Minnesota, we were doing a tour, and I got the call. I had seen him earlier that day. I asked my coaches if I could stay at my mom's house for the couple days we were there instead of the team hotel, they were great, April was fantastic.
I was with my mom after I had seen my dad earlier, and the phone rings at 11:30, 11:45, and you know what that means. Why else would the phone ring? Answer the phone, get to the hospital now, Ernie has essentially coded. He died and we revived him, get here as fast as you can. So we go, get into the hospital. I'd seen him earlier that day, and I believe to this day that he waited, he waited for me that day to come. Then he saw me and then he was ready, and so he passed. And this entire time I'm training for the Olympic Games, so I'm in so many minds. On one side, I'm training for this amazing experience that I've wanted my whole life, and I have a great opportunity to go again.
And on the other hand my father's slipping away, he's the first parent that I would lose and I lost him and now I'm dealing with grief and I don't understand it. I have these two conflicting things basically tearing me apart. In some moments I'm crying. I stayed home for that whole week and just took care of everything for my mom and spoke at my dad's funeral, the eulogy, and paid for everything for that to happen. Then I knew I had to go back to the team, and my mom said to go, and I knew my dad would want me to. So I went back, and everybody was fantastic. The more I talk about this stuff and think about it, my teammates were amazing. I'd be crying in the locker room, they would just put their hand on my shoulder and just comfort me and I would just be bawling and I'd get through it and then go and do this thing. I just cried through.
So I was really struggling back and forth. Then I went back to camp like I said, and I started to really feel depressed. And Naomi González, who was our massage therapist, she could feel the emotion. She knew what had happened, but she could feel it in my muscles. It was resonating into my muscles and manifesting in that way. I was having these different places in your body where pain and stress collect, and she could see and feel it in my body. She felt really sad because she could feel my energy.
We started seeing each other in a different way, and she started to feel empathy for me. I wasn't really thinking about it at the time, but that we were starting to have emotions and feelings for each other. So here you have me, I am thrilled about the Olympic Games on this side, I'm grieving my dad on this side, and I'm starting to have a little bit of a ground swell of a love and kind of emotional, I really like her kind of being in the middle. I was just like all over the place, all the emotions at the same time. [Laughs] It was crazy. But you know what, it was powerful. I figured out because the thing that happened that allowed me to harness all of this literal on the razor's edge of all these emotions, was now that my father had passed, my mom could come to the Olympics in person if she was ready.
And I think that's what really helped me be able to just go like this with all these things and bring them together, and really just put them in a ball and use it. Like you said, I had the most amazing tournament of my life. I felt my dad's presence the entire time. Then my mom got there in the quarterfinals and boy, there was no way you were going to beat us at that point, I feel. I still feel that to this day, it was just meant to be, we were going to do that thing, and we did it.
Grant Wahl:
Thank you for sharing all of this. I realize also I've kept you longer than I had told you I would and you have other interviews. Do you have time for a couple more questions?
Briana Scurry:
Of course, yeah, totally.
Grant Wahl:
It also reminds me too a little bit, that 2004 Olympics, I remember it was Brazil in the final and Marta's first big tournament. And I came away thinking oh, they're going to win everything in the coming years. And they never have by the way, Brazil has never won a major title still. It also reminds me how hard it is to win the major titles that you all won, and to actually make it happen. So every single one that you've won has a struggle that goes with it.
Now, in the book, one thing you don't hold back on are your feelings about what happened in 2007 at that World Cup. Feelings toward Hope Solo and how she responded to Greg Ryan's decision to change things and start you in the semifinal instead of her against Brazil, which the U.S. lost. When you look back at it 15 years later, what are your thoughts?
Briana Scurry:
So I have a few things that I feel about that. In my interviewing with the book with different people, they have the same thoughts about it. For one, it was never guaranteed that if she had played we would win. But just the way she perceived it was that she was going to win that game if she played, and that's not correct.
Also, I felt, and I talk about this in the book, that like you said, it's so hard to win these games, especially at that point of a tournament. Greg Ryan made a decision, and I said in the book I appreciate that some people think it's an unorthodox decision, I don't disagree that it was. But coaches make decisions all the time, and sometimes they make unorthodox decisions according to other people's perceptions. But obviously, Greg had a confidence in me and a faith in me in that game, and he trusted me to be able to do the job.
And unfortunately, the way she handled it was basically with a very emotional and not a very controlled way. She was throwing furniture around, and all this stuff, essentially exploded. Unfortunately, by doing that and feeling like she was wronged, that she deserved that opportunity, she didn't see it as a privilege to be on a team that could win, and so she poisoned the well, essentially. She sowed discord with the team as soon as she found out, and because of that and the fact that it was so hard to win games anyway, you can't have all this tumult in the ranks with the team in order to win a game. She had disrupted the team so much in that few hours before that game that it was just like a swirling of a hurricane she was like.
It made it really, really hard for everybody to give their all and pull together and move forward. I feel that she, and this is sad to say, was okay with burning it all down. She essentially torpedoed the ship before the ship even set sail on that day. My situation, it would've been a Herculean effort and attempt for me anyway without her being disruptive.
Iif she had pulled together with me, if she had believed in me and supported me and said okay, I don't agree with the decision, I don't like it, but this is what it is and I'm going to support you anyway, like I had been all along. I think it could have been a different outcome. I was so sad because I had supported her that entire time and leading up to that. And also with her father who passed away a few months before, just like mine.
I was just like wow, this is so bizarre and so similar, and I'm so sorry. I remember sitting at her bedside when we found out, we were at camp. I was holding her hand and crying with her. And I just felt like she just poisoned the well, and no one should feel like they have the right to do that, because it's a team sport. Essentially, she by doing that didn't give us all a fair chance to perform at our best. When you play a team like Brazil, holy cow, you’d better be on. I played them I think 10 times and won 10 times up until that point. Even at my best it's hard to beat them. The semifinal against them in ‘99 was a Herculean effort to beat them. They were in a pole position, and they had been playing well, and we came out there, we were flat and then we were torn to shreds by them. It's interesting because it was all of us, not just me. Unfortunately, all of us were affected by the way she handled it, and that's really the unfortunate thing in my opinion.
Grant Wahl:
In 2010, in the WPS, you suffered a debilitating concussion in a game. What happened and what was the impact for you of that?
Briana Scurry:
So I was thinking about the game earlier in the day like I always do when I'm going to start. I had a weird feeling, actually, and it took me a long time to be able to even talk about that. I had a weird feeling about the game that day, and I would never truly understand what the feelings were. I would have these weird feelings every once in a while, kind of like I did in the ‘99 World Cup, where I had a feeling that this was going to be the one I was going to save, so that was a good thing.
But in this case it didn't feel good, and so I went into that game, and we were playing Philadelphia. I was with the Washington Freedom at the time, and we were in Philly, and there was a low ball shot by Lori Lindsey on my left hand side. The ball came in, I bent down to get it. Routine, done it a million times. To my right side I didn't see Sanderson coming in to try to nip in front. She collided with me on the side of my head with her knee. We both bundled over, and my first thought is did I make the save? Of course, that’s what goalkeepers do.
I had the ball in my hands, and I just remember just feeling off, like all of a sudden I was tilty, I just felt woozy, and something was wrong. I had pain in the right side of my head, but I also had pain behind my left ear, and I thought that was weird at the time. I stood up, and the referee's like let's go, keep, let's go, no foul called by the way. I kicked the ball out, and I remember seeing the names on the back of my teammate's jerseys were blurry, I remember feeling a little tilty to my left hand side as I was walking.
The ball was like frames of the ball flying at me because my vision was off. I just felt sick, I felt woozy. The light was like it wasn't super bright out, but I just felt a sensitivity thing. There were a few more minutes in the half left, and so I played the rest of the half, and then halftime blew and I was walking over to my trainer, tilting to the left as I was walking over there, and she's coming to me. She takes my hands and she says, "Bri, are you okay?" And I said no, I'm not. And that was the last game I played.
Grant Wahl:
I said this to you the other night, I'll say it publicly now. I remember seeing you in 2011 during the women's World Cup in Germany, and you were doing stuff for ESPN. I know I'm not the only one who feels this now, but still I feel like I wish I had asked you more about how you were doing, just the basic how are you question. I'm sorry I didn't. What happened in those years that you were dealing with that you didn't really share much with folks?
Briana Scurry:
So many things. This happened in April of 2010. So all of the protocols and the usual procedures for concussion, baseline testing, all these things, I failed miserably. The only reason I passed the baseline test was because I did so many of them and I finally came back to what I had already done, and was able to get there and get over the threshold to be released from doing that part.
But I never could be declared okay. It was season-ending that year, then it was career-ending in my mind, because I knew I wasn't okay. I had the basket of concussion symptoms. I had the headaches from one side and then also this side which this was the mystery side, and that took a long time to figure out what that was about. And sensitivities to sound, movement and light.
I had cognitive issues, I had trouble memorizing things, trouble receiving, reclaiming the files and learning and emotional issues. The emotional part was the heaviest part of it, and that's the piece that a lot of people don't talk about. I slid into a depression, and a lot of people are like well, Bri, your career was over, so maybe that's why you were depressed. I was like no. I could have dealt with that because I was getting ready. I knew my time was nigh, if you will.
So I wasn't that devastated about not playing soccer anymore, because I was on my way, I had a leg out already into retirement. But I didn't have the most powerful weapon in my arsenal, which is my mind. That has always been the one thing that I've been able to use and to get me anywhere I needed to go.
If I had to learn something I could learn it, if I had to understand something I could do that. But my brain was a thing that was broken, and my mind was broken. So instead of being able to move on and transition, I was stuck. I became the general manager, back then the team was sold to MagicJack, owner was Dan Borislow at the time.
He bought the team, he moved it from DC to West Palm Beach, complete disaster, as you know. For me, that summer I became the GM for the team, and I was also already going to be with ESPN doing the broadcasting for the women's World Cup that summer, and my boss Dan knew that, that I was leaving. So I left for that nightmare. Cried every day after the broadcast because I couldn't keep the thoughts in my mind, I couldn't find the things I wanted to say. I'm trying to study all this paperwork and all these different teams and styles and formations and the goalkeepers and all this stuff. I couldn't do it. I couldn't learn it, and then I couldn't find it because I learned it.
Your brain is like a filing system, and so even in speech you remember the words you want to say, you put the sentences together in your mind and you speak them. I couldn't understand if I was saying stuff properly. I would write emails and look at them the next day, and there were tenses and there were words mixed up and missing, and all this stuff was happening, and it was just a real conundrum I was going through.
You could see it in my eyes actually, if you saw me back then, you could see there was a dimness in my eyes, and I wasn't my normal self at all. I wasn't that person who could essentially rip just whatever she wanted out of the world and claim it. I wasn't that person anymore, because my light was out essentially. Disconnected, sliding just into an abyss, all this tumult.
Dan wasn't the best boss in the world either. He's passed on since then, so bless his soul, but he just wasn't the best boss in the world as you know, there were so many problems with him, including all these different things that are of debate now with leaders of teams and coaches and whatnot.
So I got fired basically when I was in Germany. I came back and I moved to New Jersey, and that was the beginning of the real hard time for me. Came into financial issues, on unemployment, then fighting the insurance company to get treatment for my concussion. They didn't want to do anything, they didn't want to pay for anything. Battling them with my lawyers. And all the time, all along, I'm trying to climb up that wall to get out of that hole. The entire time just sinking lower and lower, a step up and then two steps back, and before you know it there's no light at all.
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, 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. I tell you what, the thing that stopped it, stopped me from doing it, was the thought of a law enforcement officer knocking on my mom's door to inform her that her baby was gone. I could not bear it, I could not bear it. And so I didn't do it.
Then shortly after that, my lawyers were working on it, we got a procedure that we thought would work for me, it was experimental. The insurance company would not pay. I didn't have the money, and before I knew it something was happening that I had no control over. My ex Naomi and her partner Fran started this company called Tomboy X. They started a Kickstarter campaign, which is the platform that helps you get things moving in business.
My current wife, Chryssa, she got on that Kickstarter campaign at the time and invested in Tomboy. They had a conversation, they had dinner. At that dinner that I knew nothing about, my friend Naomi told Chryssa about my plight with the insurance company. That the insurance company wasn't doing the right thing, and I needed this surgery, and they weren't going to pay. And Chryssa owned a PR firm.
Naomi thought maybe she can put some pressure on the insurance company to pay for this procedure for Bri, so she told her about me. Sure enough, as soon as we got to talking, I told her my story, I laid it all out there completely like in my book, I just laid it out there for her, warts and all, as they say.
She got together with my lawyers, and they came up with a plan. The lawyers called the insurance company and said, look, you need to do this right thing for Bri. If you don't do it, you're going to get some press and you're not going to like it. Sure enough, ever since then, bam, everything turned around, they said yes to the procedure. Before you knew it, I was off to the races. Lifeline of my great friend Naomi and Chryssa basically taking my arm and pulling me out of that hole, and finally able to get the procedure done. And a year later of therapy, Grant,, a year, and I was on my way.
Grant Wahl:
Wow, it's such an amazing story. I know at one point you sold your Olympic gold medals, you have them back now.
Briana Scurry:
Yes. I pawned them, let's be clear, pawned.
Grant Wahl:
You're so much into the getting everything out there, no euphemisms.
Briana Scurry:
It's important, the definition of pawned and sold, they were still potentially mine, but just loaned to the company until I paid off that loan.
Grant Wahl:
Got it. I'm glad you have your medals still. I'm glad that things have turned around in such a profound way. I'm glad that your story is out there in the world, and you've told it so, so well in your book. You have a film coming out about you on July 12 you mentioned on Paramount+ called The Only. It just gives me such, I don't know, I'm so thankful that you're doing this, that you've done it so well and with such dignity. Thank you for all of that, and for coming on the show.
Briana Scurry:
Well thank you for having me, Grant. As you said, you and I go way back. I've always appreciated you and respected you, and thank you for truly helping spread soccer in this country and to tell the stories of people who play the beautiful game. So thank you for that.
Grant Wahl:
The book is called My Greatest Save: The Brave, Barrier-Breaking Journey of a World Champion Goalkeeper. Briana Scurry's doing all sorts of stuff these days. She does speaking engagements, which you should hire her for. You're on CBS doing studio work, you're going to be doing that coming up with the CONCACAF women's World Cup qualifying and Olympic tournament. You're everywhere, Bri, and I'm very happy about that, thank you.
Briana Scurry:
Thank you, Grant, I appreciate it. My book is available everywhere too. My next goal is hopefully New York Times best-selling author, and you know about that.
This was a wonderful interview. It seemed full of a deep sense of wisdom and joy. Thank you.
Great story, Grant! Learned a lot I didn't know about Scurry, plus you touched on the famous incidents with the Big Save and the Solo incident. I look forward to the TV special and reading the book!