From the highest point of women’s soccer in front of 90,000 at the Rose Bowl to an impact that killed her career and temporarily debilitated her existence, Briana Scurry had been the steady force in Team USA’s net, the Hope Solo without the controversy.
On Wednesday in Midtown, with next month’s Women’s World Cup serving as a talking point, Scurry was doing something her brain wouldn’t allow just two years prior: the 43-year-old was sitting for an interview fully aware, fully recovered from the concussion that rocked her neurons.
“I was in a really bad way there for several years,” she said.
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Believe it or not, Scurry was part of the last U.S. team to win a World Cup in 1999. She saved a penalty kick in the shootout final against China, before teammate Brandi Chastain converted hers and famously celebrated in a sports bra. It’s a three-tournament drought for the Americans, who nonetheless enter Canada 2015 as the betting favorite.
“The rest of the world has caught up to the women just like the USA men have caught up to other teams around the world,” said Scurry, a two-time Olympic gold medalist with 173 international appearances. “Now you can get 15 or 20 teams that might be able to at least get in the semifinal and maybe pull off an upset. A sport like the World Cup, when there’s only seven games, there’s also the element of luck sometimes.”
The successor in the U.S. goal is still Solo, the 33-year-old lightning rod who turned the torch-passing into a spectacle by publicly denouncing a coach’s decision to keep Scurry in net for the 2007 World Cup semis. Eight years later, Scurry is still taking the high road, even as controversy swarms Solo in the form of domestic abuse allegations and a recent suspension for a drunk-driving incident involving her husband.
“Hope has been very outgoing, very opinionated. She had her opinion that she should play, and I had mine that I should play,” Scurry said, “and (coach) Greg Ryan chose me to play in that game and that was my job and that’s what I did.
“(Solo) has her way of about doing things and I have my way. And they’re different. And that’s all I really have to say about it.”
The fact that Scurry is plugging away as a public speaker and concussion awareness activist is a testament to her resolve and medical science. The last game of her career was on April 25, 2010, when an opposing forward barreled into the box and slammed her knee into Scurry’s temple.
“I had a loss of balance, loss of memory, sensitivity to light and sound,” she said of the post-concussion syndrome. “I had serious headaches. Balance issues. Emotional issues. Anxiety. Depression. I had a whole gamut of different things going on.”
Doctors in Washington D.C. took the big step of cutting open the back of Scurry’s neck to “dig my (brain) nerves out to relieve the headaches.” About a year after the 2013 surgery, Scurry was medically cleared.
Still, the Minneapolis native hasn’t built up the confidence to get back on the field. She’s taking it one step at a time, with a trip scheduled next month for Canada as a spectator.