Minnesota Now and Then: Soccer Olympian Briana Scurry
Tremendous Upside with Briana Scurry.
Jennifer Packard | Courtesy of Briana Scurry
Dayton, Minnesota-born Olympian Briana Scurry was recently honored by the Sports Museum, which awarded her its Soccer Legacy Award at a fundraising gala in Boston. Scurry played for the University of Massachusetts and became a starting goalie for the U.S. national team.
She was one of the first players to compete in a women’s paid professional league. She’s made a big impact since being a star player at Anoka High School. But she has another legacy: as an advocate for treatment of traumatic brain injuries.
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Audio transcript
CATHY WURZER: Dayton, Minnesota-born Olympian Briana Scurry was recently honored by the Sports Museum, which awarded her its Soccer Legacy Award at a fundraising gala in Boston. Scurry played for the University of Massachusetts and became a starting goalie for the US National Team, and she was one of the first players to compete in a women's paid professional league.
She's made a big impact since being a star player at Anoka High School, but she has another legacy as an advocate for treatment of traumatic brain injuries. MPR contributors Robbie Mitchem, Jamal Allen, and Brit Aamodt bring us this latest story in our history series, Minnesota Now and Then. It's voiced by producer Gretchen Brown.
GRETCHEN BROWN: Briana Scurry wanted to drive off at every exit. She wanted to turn around, head back to her studio apartment in New Jersey, hide under the covers, but she was almost out of money. It was three years since the legendary soccer goalie got a knee to the temple that ended her career in 2010.
BRIANA SCURRY: On April 25, 2010, I was playing in the goal with the Washington Freedom. That was my team. We were playing against the Philadelphia Independence. And I came out for a low ball shot from my left side, so I came out like this, and I was a little bit down to the ground.
The Philadelphia forward came running in from my right to try to nick the ball, get in front of it, maybe get the pass, and shoot. Well, we both came through at the same time. So I'm coming through like this, and she came from my right hand side and whacked me right in the side of my head with her knee. And the two of us literally fell over in a bundle.
GRETCHEN BROWN: The concussion left her with jackhammer headaches, memory loss, blurred vision, and depression. And it didn't help that the insurance company wouldn't believe her or chose not to. Why pay for an expensive surgery to relieve the pressure on her occipital nerve and give her back her life when it could give her the runaround instead?
Scurry's destination was a New York pawn shop. She'd seen it advertised on TV, "top dollar for your luxury assets." Scurry scooped her item off the passenger seat and walked inside. The pawn shop staff stood in wonder at what she'd brought, her 1996 Olympic medal. One of two she'd earned, but this one was special.
1996 was the first time women were allowed to compete in the Olympic soccer tournament, and Bri Scurry was the goalie on the US Women's National Team that beat China to take home the gold. That's what she was giving up at the pawn shop. After handing over the medal, she returned to her car, looked at the empty passenger seat, and wept.
Briana Scurry was the youngest of nine children born to a hard working blue collar family in Dayton, Minnesota. She was eight when the US men's hockey team beat the Russians at the 1980 Olympics in Lake Placid, New York, the miracle on ice. Scurry was entranced. She found some paper and wrote a message to herself. When I grow up, I'm going to be an Olympian. She told her parents about her dream. They said, go for it.
At a young age, she became a multi-sport athlete, blazing trails because of what she did and who she was. She was the only girl on her boys football team. She was the only Black girl on her first soccer team. She was the only Black kid in her entire middle school. In 1994, fueled by a talent matched by her ambition, she earned a spot on the US Women's National Soccer team.
Not only was she the starting goalkeeper at the 1996 Olympics, but she was a member of the 99ers, the US National Team that competed in the 1999 World Cup before an arena of 90,000 spectators and untold millions at home.
ANNOUNCER: Briana Scurry waits for Lu Ying. And she saves. Advantage USA.
GRETCHEN BROWN: They came up against China again and won with a nail biting save by Scurry during a penalty kick tiebreaker and a down to the wire score by teammate Brandi Chastain. They were the team that taught America how to love soccer. Scurry earned another Olympic gold in 2004, but she had to pawn that dream, too.
Where was the bottom to this freefall? But at her lowest point, she met the person who would change everything. Chryssa Zizos couldn't believe one of America's sports heroes was being denied surgery for a traumatic brain injury because an insurance company said it was all in her head.
It just so happened Zizos was a PR expert, and she used her connections to bring Scurry's story to the attention of the media. Once the insurance company realized this was going public, it approved the surgery. Scurry woke up from the one hour procedure to her first headache-free day in over three years.
Now, she could pick up the pieces and rebuild her life. As an advocate for concussion awareness, a public speaker, a coach, and a partner to Chryssa Zizos, who became her wife in 2018. Briana Scurry paid the pawn shop to get them back, and she proudly wore her Olympic gold when, at 46, she became the first woman goalkeeper and the first Black woman elected to the National Soccer Hall of Fame.
CATHY WURZER: That story was brought to us by MPR contributors Robbie Mitchem, Jamal Allen, and Brit Aamodt, and voiced by our producer Gretchen Brown. It was made possible in part by the Minnesota Legacy Amendments Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund. By the way, that clip you heard of Briana Scurry was from an interview with Brain Line. That's a project of WETA-TV in Washington, D.C.
She's made a big impact since being a star player at Anoka High School, but she has another legacy as an advocate for treatment of traumatic brain injuries. MPR contributors Robbie Mitchem, Jamal Allen, and Brit Aamodt bring us this latest story in our history series, Minnesota Now and Then. It's voiced by producer Gretchen Brown.
GRETCHEN BROWN: Briana Scurry wanted to drive off at every exit. She wanted to turn around, head back to her studio apartment in New Jersey, hide under the covers, but she was almost out of money. It was three years since the legendary soccer goalie got a knee to the temple that ended her career in 2010.
BRIANA SCURRY: On April 25, 2010, I was playing in the goal with the Washington Freedom. That was my team. We were playing against the Philadelphia Independence. And I came out for a low ball shot from my left side, so I came out like this, and I was a little bit down to the ground.
The Philadelphia forward came running in from my right to try to nick the ball, get in front of it, maybe get the pass, and shoot. Well, we both came through at the same time. So I'm coming through like this, and she came from my right hand side and whacked me right in the side of my head with her knee. And the two of us literally fell over in a bundle.
GRETCHEN BROWN: The concussion left her with jackhammer headaches, memory loss, blurred vision, and depression. And it didn't help that the insurance company wouldn't believe her or chose not to. Why pay for an expensive surgery to relieve the pressure on her occipital nerve and give her back her life when it could give her the runaround instead?
Scurry's destination was a New York pawn shop. She'd seen it advertised on TV, "top dollar for your luxury assets." Scurry scooped her item off the passenger seat and walked inside. The pawn shop staff stood in wonder at what she'd brought, her 1996 Olympic medal. One of two she'd earned, but this one was special.
1996 was the first time women were allowed to compete in the Olympic soccer tournament, and Bri Scurry was the goalie on the US Women's National Team that beat China to take home the gold. That's what she was giving up at the pawn shop. After handing over the medal, she returned to her car, looked at the empty passenger seat, and wept.
Briana Scurry was the youngest of nine children born to a hard working blue collar family in Dayton, Minnesota. She was eight when the US men's hockey team beat the Russians at the 1980 Olympics in Lake Placid, New York, the miracle on ice. Scurry was entranced. She found some paper and wrote a message to herself. When I grow up, I'm going to be an Olympian. She told her parents about her dream. They said, go for it.
At a young age, she became a multi-sport athlete, blazing trails because of what she did and who she was. She was the only girl on her boys football team. She was the only Black girl on her first soccer team. She was the only Black kid in her entire middle school. In 1994, fueled by a talent matched by her ambition, she earned a spot on the US Women's National Soccer team.
Not only was she the starting goalkeeper at the 1996 Olympics, but she was a member of the 99ers, the US National Team that competed in the 1999 World Cup before an arena of 90,000 spectators and untold millions at home.
ANNOUNCER: Briana Scurry waits for Lu Ying. And she saves. Advantage USA.
GRETCHEN BROWN: They came up against China again and won with a nail biting save by Scurry during a penalty kick tiebreaker and a down to the wire score by teammate Brandi Chastain. They were the team that taught America how to love soccer. Scurry earned another Olympic gold in 2004, but she had to pawn that dream, too.
Where was the bottom to this freefall? But at her lowest point, she met the person who would change everything. Chryssa Zizos couldn't believe one of America's sports heroes was being denied surgery for a traumatic brain injury because an insurance company said it was all in her head.
It just so happened Zizos was a PR expert, and she used her connections to bring Scurry's story to the attention of the media. Once the insurance company realized this was going public, it approved the surgery. Scurry woke up from the one hour procedure to her first headache-free day in over three years.
Now, she could pick up the pieces and rebuild her life. As an advocate for concussion awareness, a public speaker, a coach, and a partner to Chryssa Zizos, who became her wife in 2018. Briana Scurry paid the pawn shop to get them back, and she proudly wore her Olympic gold when, at 46, she became the first woman goalkeeper and the first Black woman elected to the National Soccer Hall of Fame.
CATHY WURZER: That story was brought to us by MPR contributors Robbie Mitchem, Jamal Allen, and Brit Aamodt, and voiced by our producer Gretchen Brown. It was made possible in part by the Minnesota Legacy Amendments Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund. By the way, that clip you heard of Briana Scurry was from an interview with Brain Line. That's a project of WETA-TV in Washington, D.C.
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