Interview: Briana Scurry, Legendary USWNT Goalkeeper, on My Greatest Save: The Brave, Barrier-Breaking Journey of a World Champion Goalkeeper
In this episode, Amira Rose Davis interviews the one and only Briana Scurry about her new book, My Greatest Save: The Brave, Barrier-Breaking Journey of a World Champion Goalkeeper. They discuss how Briana's family history influenced this book, the ways being an out athlete has changed since Briana played, and they ways we remember, misremember and block out the past. They also discuss Briana's career-ending traumatic brain injury, her long road to recovery, and the work she does to promote awareness around traumatic brain injuries.
*CONTENT WARNING* This episode contains mentions of suicide and mental health struggles. If you or someone you know is struggling, please call the National Suicide Hotline at 1-800-273-8255 in the U.S. and 1-833-456-4566 in Canada. Please take care while listening.
This episode was produced by Tressa Versteeg. Shelby Weldon is our social media and website specialist. Burn It All Down is part of the Blue Wire podcast network.
Transcript
Amira: Before we get into this episode, a content warning. We talk about mental health and suicide. If you or someone you know is struggling, please call the national suicide hotline at 800-273-8255 in the United States or 1-833-456-4566 in Canada. Please take care while listening.
Welcome to Burn It All Down. Amira here, and I am beyond excited today because we have the one and only Bri…No, look, I can't even say it.
Briana: Briana. [laughs]
Amira: I know. And it was like one of those things where it's like, now I'm gonna get so happy. Okay. I have the one and only Briana Scurry, who barely needs an introduction, because if you don't know, you should know. And also her accomplishments are too long to list, but you have to know the extreme successful goalkeeper of the US women's national team, multiple time Olympic medalist, got some World Cup hardware as well, has had such an illustrious career. And it is the best time to be talking because we're also celebrating Title IX. Has been an overlooked trailblazer both within the sport of soccer, but also in women's sports. And we are very excited because she has written a book along with Wayne Coffey, called My Greatest Save: The Brave, Barrier-Breaking Journey of a World Champion Goalkeeper. I am so, so, so happy to have you join Burn It All Down.
Briana: Thank you.
Amira: You really threw your pen at this book. [Briana laughs] You did not hold back. And you said from the start you weren't gonna hold back. And I am for one speaking on behalf of all the little girls, but especially little Black girls who you meant so much for, to see your story, to be able to hold your story in your words, on your terms, is amazing. And so I wanted to just start by asking you, how does it feel to have your story out now?
Briana: It feels fantastic. And thanks so much for having me. It's an honor to be talking with you. I decided a long time ago that I needed to be able to be authentic and real and true to not only the amazing of my life, but also the devastating things. So, before we even got started writing this book and I met with Wayne, am I ready? Am I ready to tell the stories and tell my journey in the proper way? Because I didn't want to candy coat anything. I felt like it was important for me to go into those dark rooms that maybe I had padlocked and put up barriers, that I haven't been in for years, to go in there, because you gotta talk about all of it if you're gonna talk about any of it. And so I was finally ready in 2019 and we were on our way, and I met with Wayne and he was fantastic. And of course he's very accomplished, a five time New York Times by selling author. Fantastic writer, great advocate for women's sports in general. And so we got underway, and here it is.
Amira: And it's absolutely phenomenal. I really encourage everybody to read it. And right off the bat, you're hit in the face with the strength of a Michelle Akers kick, right?
Briana: [laughs] Yes.
Amira: With how real and authentic it feels. I really appreciate that. And I think that sometimes when people come to your story, they might know you as, oh, the Black goalkeeper, right? They might think of ’99. They might think of, you know, Brazil. Like, I feel like people have their own touchstone moments. But part of what you're saying is like, it's all bundled up together actually, right? It's not just about being the only openly gay person on your soccer team, or the only Black girl on your soccer team growing up playing the sport. But there's all these spaces in which you're finding yourself both everywhere and nowhere, and making these connections. So, what was the most challenging part of your story to write?
Briana: So, I made that pledge to myself to be authentic, and there were days when I knew that Wayne and I were gonna talk about really hard things, in particular the deaths of both of my parents, especially my dad, since he was the first one. And I had already decided that I was gonna go there, but in order to tell it and give it the honor it deserved, I had to literally put myself in the space, the feeling space of that, and go into that room and sit in there. And so what would happen sometimes for me was Wayne and I would talk about something really heavy, and half the book is heavy, you know, basically. And it would stick to me, you know? And so we'd talk about it and then we'd be done, and I would still dwell in that space. And I noticed that I would have a bit of a heaviness on me. And it took me a little while to realize why that was happening, and actually was a good thing, because that meant that I was being true and honoring those different times, especially, you know, losing my mom and my dad in particular. The depths of my despair during my head injury. You know, just how I felt about the Hope Solo situation. All those different things required absolute authenticity about it.
Amira: Yeah. And then it was out there, but you're also doing this book tour, and I know that we're coming up on the anniversary of your father's passing and it's Father's Day, and I wanted to acknowledge and hold space for that as well. I so enjoyed getting a glimpse into your family and the history you embedded it in. We don't pop up from nowhere, and you brought us through the impact of the transatlantic slave trade and up through the Gulf Coast. Talked about football, touchdown was my first word. [Briana laughs] I found a lot of resonance in that. Why was it important to embed your family history within a project of Black history in order to like ground your story and a foundation beyond yourself?
Briana: I think that was really relevant and important to do because my mom and dad were so vital in me becoming who I became. And so it made sense to literally pay homage to them and actually to really, you know, dive deeper into who they were before me. And so that was important to me. My brother, my biggest brother, Ronnie, he was vital in helping with that, because I obviously wouldn't know. Also, I thought it was important to understand my family history because when you think about your family history, a lot of the times, unless you're like in the business of understanding history, you know your perspective of your parents. And I wanted to be able to tell the tale of my mom and dad, for example, how they met. I didn't know. And so my brother knew different things like that. Different reasons. Maybe the story I knew wasn't the story he knew, and it could bring texture to it. And somehow between the two of us, we could make the story true. And so it was so important to me because this book is also about honoring both of them. And they saw a lot of my success, but unfortunately not all of it. And so it was important to me to have them written in a way that they deserved.
Amira: And it's beautiful.
Briana: Thank you.
Amira: And then we also kind of get to see you before soccer, right? Like, we get to see you playing football and the deal you made with your mom about…Whew, I felt your pain when you said, oh, I was 102 on that scale and I couldn't play football anymore. [Briana laughs] And so your family are from the Gulf Coast, the Galveston area, but then you move and you end up in lily white Minnesota.
Briana: Yes. [laughs]
Amira: Which is...A change.
Briana: Yes.
Amira: And you talk about navigating that, and it coincides with, you know, you getting into soccer. I didn't know you started out in goal immediately, but I'm a biased striker. You'd have to trick me to be in goal. [Briana laughs] It would be a whole long story about some force of hand. So, when you first were introduced to the game, can you just talk a little bit about what drew you? What was it like going into that space, into these new environments? Were you cognizant of being the only Black girl, or it was just kind of like, yeah, but I'm still gonna rock out? Did it give you an extra drive? Like, what was your mentality when you moved into those spaces?
Briana: Yeah, I think the initial framework that I was thinking about was I just wanna play the sport, whatever it was. So, my teachers and my classroom used to have these flyers that they handed out, letting us know that certain sports were gonna have sign up time, and I would run home and show my mom and dad the piece of paper. And I remember the soccer CDAA, Champion Dayton Athletic Association, soccer paper. And I brought it home and they were like, sure, you can play. And so I decided, okay, great. This is awesome. I'm gonna do it. Didn't know – not that I cared – that it was a boys' team that I was signing up for. And I was the only girl on the boys' team. And so that's A) how I ended up there, B) I ended up in the goal because my coach, in his infinite wisdom, [laughter] thought it was a good idea to put the only girl on the goal. To “protect” me. [laughter] We all know that's backwards! Rather dangerous in the goal, actually, comparatively. Think about it for a second!
Amira: Well, you know, sexism doesn't make sense. [laughter]
Briana: I'm like, what? What was he thinking? And so, yeah, I ended up playing in the goal and, to be like completely fair to the coach and the boys on the team, they were great. They were wonderful. And Iknew I was the only girl on the boys’ team. There really wasn't anything that happened that I recall that was derogatory or meant to make fun of me in any way, or, you know, put me down. And the next season I played soccer again and then more girls teams had evolved by then, and so I played on the girls team from there. And then I actually ventured into the field away from the goal, and the siren call of the goal brought me back a couple years later. And so I don't know how to explain that other than I figured I could prevent the other team from winning if I was in there. [laughs] So you can score all you want, but if they score just as many, then you can't win. So that made a lot of sense.
Amira: You're like, I can control…
Briana: I am a control freak!
Amira: Which is wild to me, because I'm just like, that goal is so big.
Briana: So big.
Amira: Like, there's balls flying at you. And I still am baffled by the ilks of y'all who are willingly, like, yes, I'm going to play goal. But I get the control aspect. That's something I can kind of understand. But it just feels to me like, wow. The spotlight is on you in just like a different way. Do you have saves that you think about, that you replay, that still haunt you? Or that still like makes you feel good? Do you do that still?
Briana: Yeah, I have one save…Okay, so, that's a bit of a loaded question. So, one game, one save that I didn't make that I regretted for the longest time was against Norway in the '95 World Cup semifinal, and they had a corner kick and their 6’1" forward nipped right in front of me. And I missed it by literally an inch. She scored and we couldn't score to save our lives. That game, we hit all the posts and the crossbar and everything, and we couldn't score. We lost 1-0. However, that particular game, because we lost it, they did this train thing that I talk about in the book.
Amira: Oh yeah.
Briana: And it was humiliating. And if not for that, that instance, that game became the fodder for an incredible run of success for the next literally like five years. And so if not for that loss, then do we have as great a success afterwards is the question, right? So, bad in the moment, but maybe ending up like a silver lining and a fantastic thing later.
Amira: It lit a fire.
Briana: Yeah, exactly. And so the other game that I can say about, in terms of one of my greatest saves, is not the one you might think. Just like my book. [laughs] It's not what you think. A save I made in the 2004 Olympic final, when Cristiane ripped one from I'd say 18 yards out in the first 10 minutes of the game. And I literally think my dad, you know, floated me over there to save it, because I don't remember seeing it. I just went. And got it literally like middle finger, fingertip glove thing, and barely, barely saved it. And went on. And so I always feel great about that one. [laughs] That was a brilliant save, but I don't remember seeing it. Which is interesting. So instinctively I saw it, but I don't recall. So that was pretty cool.
Amira: So interesting. So, I got to see your co-author Wayne Coffey's daughter, Sam, play last night versus the Houston Dash. She plays for the Thorns, and it was pride night in the stadium. And so everybody was passing out hats. There was like a really dope Black lesbian band who played during halftime. It was joyful and it was celebratory. It was also the six year anniversary of the Pulse nightclub, you know, so there's a somberness to it. And I'm wondering what it feels like now to watch pride celebrations across the league, or to watch like where we are, in terms of thinking about out athletes or in thinking about conversations we're having when you think about your career and navigating sexuality in the locker room, in the media, and being openly gay. We get like all these wonderful glimpses of various relationships. I wanna fight the first girl who broke your heart. [Briana laughs] I’m just like, how do you ghost? How do you ghost her?! [laughter]
Briana: She totally ghosted me.
Amira: She ghosted you! It's rude! But you know, I'm wondering, you know, I was adopted and I was raised by lesbians, and one of the conversations we have sometimes generationally is that this generation, it's almost hard for them to believe, right? It's almost hard to grasp certain things about it. And so I was thinking, you know, when you're at UMass and you're going to Northampton, you're going to Diva's. I spent high school sneaking into Diva's. They just had pride this past weekend, and it looked very different even from when I was in high school. So do you feel like there's been a shift? Do you see a lot of continuity? Like, there's still obviously things to work towards. How do you feel when you're watching this and thinking about and reflecting your own career and how you navigated sexuality through it?
Briana: Well, I feel like there's been an incredible shift. And one of the things that I've noticed is in my own neighborhood where I live – I live in Alexandria, Virginia, which is a rather, you know, wealthy area. And I see, you know, just our gay flag out front, and then when June ticked over, then all of a sudden I'm seeing flags everywhere, and it's really cool. And it's not something I would've even thought to see 10 years ago, for example, like you were saying. And also, in 1999 Women's World Cup, I don't know if you've seen this footage lately, but if you recall, I went up to my partner at the time, Brandy, to give her a hug after we had won. And the camera follows me up the stands, and then as soon as they realize it's a girl, pans away. But in 2015 World Cup, when Abby went up to Sarah after the game, that was an iconic shot and video and audio of that moment, of the World Cup.
And so right then I knew things had started to change. And bless her heart, and this is something I didn't know and it's kind of part of the beauty of my life now. Abby did an interview for my upcoming documentary called The Only, and she said that I helped pave the way for her and Megan Rapinoe to Rapinoe it, as she put it. [Amira laughs] And I didn't know. I didn't know that they felt that way about what I had done to help them be authentically themselves and play at the same time. And so that's kind of stuff that I'm just like, wow. But I think it's so much better now. Obviously we have work to do, because there's still a lot of young people who struggle and families who struggle with it. But it's much better. It's getting there.
Amira: Yeah. And we still, you know, I think at this time when you see, you know, we're celebrating Marta and Tony's wedding vows or Ali and Ashlyn and their baby, and like, we're thinking about this. Then you also have media looking at Sam Kerr and Kristie Mewis and being like, they are good friends! [laughter] It’s like, are they?
Briana: Are they really? Have you looked at her Instagram? [laughs]
Amira: Exactly. Exactly. So I think it's, you know, there's always work to be done, but I think that it's really interesting. And I wanna get into one of those hard periods, which was about memory and about your brain injury and about memory in general. You shared in your book that your mom had Alzheimer’s. We've dealt with Alzheimer's and when my moms has dementia. You know, somebody described it recently is like the long goodbye, like, it's really something that I don't think we talk enough about. But I was thinking about all the ways that memory shows up in your book – memory, legacy, you know, the brain, the mind. And one of the things that has been most infuriating to me has been how I felt like at times you were erased because celebrations of Title IX or celebrations of the 99ers get very whitewashed. It almost replicates what you endured when you played. And we're trying very hard now this anniversary of Title IX to…I mean, I'm booked and busy. So I know I'm personally trying very hard to talk about the racial disparities in Title IX and to talk about this.
But it seems like. One of the themes that is hanging over and all through the pages of this book is about how we remember, what we remember, and who writes the stories that we remember, whether it's family history, right? Whether it's just your personal reckoning with what your own brain and memory has done, or what we collectively, culturally remember when we think of soccer, when we think about women's sports, when we think about trailblazers and why did it take until 2017 to have you in the Hall of Fame, right? And so this is a bounded question about memory, and you can take it in whatever direction you want, but how we remember, generally.
Briana: Yeah. I mean, it's a great question. I would say it's interesting with regards to when we read things that are referring to something we did written by someone else. And sometimes my name is mentioned in discussion about the 99ers, and sometimes it's not mentioned in discussion about the 99ers, but there are certain names that are always mentioned in that discussion. And it took me a long time to get to the point where I wasn't thinking to myself, well, where's my name in there? You know, I made the save. No one else did that. It was just me. Everybody else made a kick, but I was the only one that made a save! And so, that's something that I've come to the point where I could deal with it and be at peace with it. With regards to Title IX and women's soccer in general, at the highest levels, it’s still, you know, four, five players on the national team when it comes down to the final rosters of color. And it's baffling to me because I played a long time ago, and you would think we'd be a little bit further along.
And when I talk about myself in terms of who I was, I was a starter. I had played in the big games. If there was a big game that was going to be played, I was gonna be playing in it. I was gonna be starting, most likely. Now that's Crystal Dunn, essentially, basically replacing me as that person. But no one else. Maybe Christen Press – apparently not anymore – was that other player that was playing with consistency. So it's not just enough to just have a few Black players on the team and not having them make a real impact on the pitch, right? It can be auxiliary or, you know, support players, but they're not factoring in, into the big game at the big moments. And I mean, there's a lot of things to unbake there.
Amira: Well, and then also you have like Crystal playing out a position.
Briana: Yep.
Amira: They move Midge around. And then the thing that's so frustrating about it is like at the beginning of the summer, last summer, when summer squad was announced, we at Burn It All Down made a Black girl magic summer squad tee. And I was amazed because it was actually like nine names long. And I was like, wow, who would've thought this shirt went all the way down? [Briana laughs] And you know, within a month, when it got time to whittle down the roster, it was a fraction of those names. You had Cat left off, you had Midge left off, you had all these people brought in for racist ass “pace and power,” but like you said, auxiliary positions or reserve, are not actually seeing any playing time, or not even being like…There’s no reason that Crystal's not the face of the program.
Briana: Right. Right.
Amira: And so these are the things that we're still kind of running up against, at a time where the draft class – not this pandemic year, the year before – 6 out of 10 of the first draftees were Black girls from college. And so there's a way in which I think there has been clear and measurable proof that the game has grown and diversified at the youth level, but it's like, they're going into an old framework where people still don't know what to do with us. They're still like, oh, Black girls play soccer? And it's like, yeah, we told you this. Years ago! [laughs]
Briana: Right. It's like, oh, I'm sure they're probably fast and physical, but it's like, well, when you say, you're actually saying to me that I may be fast and physical, but I don't have skill.
Amira: Exactly. Exactly. I think that's why it's so important too that you are a goalkeeper, right? And like, so often I think sometimes commentary about you is like, oh, she's aggressive and she…Which is qualities you need, you got the tattoo, you know, the panther.
Briana: Right. [laughs]
Amira: There’s qualities you need to be aggressive as a goalkeeper, for sure. But at the same time, there's also technique, right? There's also skill there. And, you know, waiting for that person who's gonna captain the midfield. Waiting for that person who's gonna be playing from behind and quarterbacking it, where it's not just pace and power and physicality that's just reproducing these kind of notions of what Black girls can and cannot do. And I feel like that's kind of where we are still stuck in
Briana: And that's a great point you make, because a lot of that has to do with the mindset of the mentality of the people calling the game, broadcasting the game or whatnot. If you listen to the words that are used, with reference to say a Christen Press or Crystal Dunn or Midge, you hear somewhat different words than you hear in reference to Alex Morgan, Lindsey Horan, or Julie Ertz. Like, it's different words. And that's important to note that. And for me, I was a goalkeeper, but I was in the top five of the team that did media whenever there was some media duties doled out. I usually got some. And I often had reporters telling me how articulate I was, and I thought to myself, well, they think it's a compliment. But I disagree with that compliment.
Amira: Why are you shocked?
Briana: I can put two sentences together. You know?
Amira: Exactly. Exactly. [laughter] So you, like you said, do not shy away from anything in this book. In fact, right away, you talk about that you're absolutely gonna address Brazil. You're absolutely gonna address Hope. You're gonna talk about what you have termed “one of the hardest, most challenging 48 hours.” Not only was the game not favorable, there was a fracture in the team. There was selfish actions. And I wonder if you could talk a little bit about having the balls to do it in a time where so many people are like so media trained that they wouldn't.
Briana: Yeah. I mean, if I don't do it in my book, when would I do it, you know? And I feel like I finally got to a point, I mentioned earlier, if I'm gonna write this book, I have to write all of it, including that, because that is something that I personally have actually never gone into great depth with. I, for a long time, just avoided it altogether and just tried to keep it, you know, PC, good teammate kind of thing. And I figured my book is the one time for the last time to have to say exactly how I felt about it and how it actually was. And I was willing to do that. And Wayne and I, we went after it, and it was written exactly how I feel. There was a literal coup that she did on the team. I mean, the sad thing is, is she put herself before, and the truth is we were all in the same boat. And rather than have me at that time on that game steer the helm of the boat, she decided to blow it up instead. And it's really a sad thing that happened.
Amira: Do you find that there's still repercussions of that? You talk about how it wasn't just a blow to you or the team, but really to the stability of women's soccer in this country. Were there pieces of blow back that weren't visible to the public in terms of the fractures that maintained after that moment? It feels like a really pivotal moment in the kind of emerging generation that came after that moment.
Briana: I feel that it was it. I can only speak to my feeling and my remembering and my point of view. I'm sure that there were other repercussions for a lot of other people to this day who do not wanna talk about it. And that's okay. If they wanna choose that, that's totally fine and that's up to them. But I chose to make my stand and speak my truth in this book. And I meant for that to be done with everything in it.
Amira: So, one of the most important things I wanted to talk to you about is an injury you sustained in what you didn't know at the time would be your last game, which is wild to just go in and not know that it's the last time you're stepping foot on the pitch in that capacity. And I think some people might be aware, but I still think it's an underreported story, and it was one that took you to certain depths. And so I wanna know if you could talk a little bit about your injury and what it was like in the years following that?
Briana: So, for the longest time, when I talked about my head injury, I would start essentially with the game and the hit. Earlier that day, in the afternoon at the hotel, I had a weird feeling about that day. And I just didn't know…You know how you can't really put your finger on it, you might realize it after the fact.
Amira: Yeah. You're like, oh, that was it.
Briana: Yeah. Clearly that was it. And it was almost like, you know, something was trying to steer me away from going there, going through that, going to that place to unfortunately have that happen to me. And I mean, for the longest time I was very mad at Sanderson, who’s the one that came in with her toe, trying to get in front, and clattering into me. And then it took me a long time to get over that, to not blame her anymore. Because I was in such a dark place from there. It just was so heavy. All the symptoms, when she hit me in the side of my head with her knee…And if you look on online, you can find it. You can find it on YouTube, and it doesn't really look like much at all.
But the problem was is where she hit me, and the fact that I didn't get a chance to brace at all, because I didn't see it coming. And it was a hit like I had never felt before. I've had my bell rung a few times as a goalkeeper. I mean, I had Abby fall in my head for crying out loud, right? More than once. But this time was different, and I just knew it. I knew it right off the bat. And when I came off the pitch after playing for a few more minutes, you know, seven, eight minutes after I got hit, I was teetering to the left as I went to meet my trainer who was coming out to meet me, and she looked me in the eye and took my hands and said, are you okay? And I said, no. And normally, as an athlete, you're like, oh, I'm fine. You know, shake it off. I was like, I knew it right then that was something really wrong. I didn't know how wrong, but I knew it was different than any other time that I had a head injury before.
And you know, one day led into a week, into several weeks, then months, then season ending and career ending and on and on. And I just eventually, after, you know, three years of being in the wilderness, is what I called it. And being detached. So, it's hard to explain to someone who's never had a head injury what it's like, but I like to use the word detached from everything – not just the game of soccer, but detached from myself and everyone around me. And that's why so many people with head injury end up isolating and withdrawing into themselves, because it could go from a clear sky to a cloudy sky, all day, every day. And it's just a really difficult situation to deal with.
Amira: You know, there's a conversation that...There’s been a lot of attention paid on CT and head injury in American football, in hockey, in men's sports. Women's football is right there, hella dangerous. One of my earliest memories was a girl who caught a cleat to the neck, you know, I just remember seeing it in slow motion. And yet it feels like there's such a gap between the funding and the research and like what we know about traumatic brain injury when it comes to women's soccer, when it comes to the susceptibility of it, when it comes to what technology we need or what do we need to protect athletes? I understand that withdrawal, that detachment, as you say…What was it like reattaching? And it seems like that's another space you have seized your platform to talk about all these things. It seems like there's that opportunity to also be a leading voice on traumatic brain injury. But it's like a lot.
Briana: It’s a lot, yeah.
Amira: Because I can't imagine reattaching and then also being like, “And now I will talk about it!”
Briana: “For my next act, I will do this!” [laughter]
Amira: Yeah, exactly. Like, it's a lot. I think it requires a lot of you to even go back to that place, to revisit the wilderness that you were in for three years. What was it like revisiting that for this story, and how are you feeling now about everything that your brain has been through?
Briana: So, yeah, that's a lot there, right? I am an advocate for a lot of things, but everything I advocate for are things I've been through personally. So, I became an advocate for TBIs because after I got the surgery, which was experimental at the time, with the occipital nerves, the two nerves in the back of my neck, which is with the major issue in terms of my headaches. Once I had that procedure done, I read an article that said 50% of women's soccer players will suffer from a concussion. And I thought to myself, wow, that's a lot. And how did I not know that? And I've got to do something. Now that I'm in that pool, let me try to help other people, and also help myself. It was therapeutic to become an advocate because A) my sport needed it, and B) the face at the time of TBI, like you said, was, you know, big burly men's football players. And also, big burly men's football players don't talk about the emotional part.
And the emotional part is what ends up happening to them when they drive their car off the cliff or they shoot themselves in the chest because they want their brain researched once they're passed. To go and kill a doctor in his family because they didn't help him and then kill himself after. These things are the emotional part of it. And so I wanted to make a real push to talk about that in depth and get people to understand how deep that darkness can feel. And almost with no light, like a black hole, literally, where no light enters, or escapes, for that matter. And so I really wanted to do that, and I couldn't write this book unless I was okay with going back into that space again. And for truly being honest about where my life is now.
So, recently I went to Massachusetts and Boston and Mass General and worked with a doctor who's in Spaulding rehab center there. And he did a bunch of scans on my brain just to see, because for the longest time I was concerned about having issues, that we may be able to see now with advanced radiology and whatnot. And also because my mom had Alzheimer’s, so I thought I may be hereditary, going down that route. And I wasn't feeling quite myself lately, but he said my scans show that my brain is normal. That I had an issue with this area of my neck though, and that's what was cutting off some areas there. And that's what was causing my headaches. Different from before, but to return a little bit here and there. So, that was probably more scary for my wife than for me, because you know, she was concerned about it. And obviously that testing was after the book was already done. So I wasn't able to write that in there, but TBI is a long term thing. It can be, if your outcome was bad, and you're still feeling the effects of it.
Just the other day, I was at an event in person, and a young woman came up to me talking to me about her brother who had a TBI six years ago and still doesn't feel right. I looked at her and I said, is it because people tell him he's not gonna get better? Or does he believe that? And she said, I think it's both. I think he just doesn't feel like he can do anything. And I said, have him reach out to me. I will direct him in the right way. Because it's just, he doesn't have to live like that. And I think that's part of what this is about. I made this book, I created it in all its glory, because I wanted people to be able to be inspired by it and see that success isn’t a straight line. And sometimes you're gonna have times where you're just, you know, down and out, but you just gotta keep going. You just gotta keep going, because in the depths of my darkness, my best friend Naomi was talking and doing, you know, an event and created a company and somehow talked to Chrissa who helped me get through that. I didn't even have anything to do with it. You know, and so you just don't know where that lifeline might be coming from.
Amira: And also, your injury coincided with the abrupt end of your soccer career, which in and of itself is already something that is hard for people to deal with, when you've been playing and putting all these years and years and years, you talk about half your life. And it’s abrupt that you're not just dealing with this fog, in this wilderness, but you're also adjusting to the after part of your career, and both was happening at the same time. I also wanna ask about mental health, because part of the way that this book doesn't allow even its readers to be comfortable, right? We don't get to just kind of gawk and think we know things and feel all nice and warm, but like actually are required to travel with you. And you start right away by talking about how, in what ways you contemplating ending your own life. And it comes at a time when we're talking that we’ve…Obviously Katie Meyer took her own life in Stanford, followed by a number of other collegiate athletes in particular. The pandemic has only exasperated the mental health crisis in this country. How important is it for you, you know, intentionally starting the book off with that and talking upfront about mental health challenges and the path you've had navigating it?
Briana: I wanted to be straightforward with the mental health piece because so many times we see in the news or online about a famous person who seemed to have it all committing suicide or overdosing or something, and people don't understand it. They don't believe it. How could this happen? He had it all, she had it all. Well, I often say, what they didn't have was a will to live and to continue, a reason. They didn't have a reason to live anymore. And you can have all the trappings of the world, riches and success, but if you don't have a reason to live, if you don't feel like you have purpose, then you are more susceptible to overdosing, to committing suicide, to just not caring about life anymore. So, that's part of the reason why I talk about that so deeply, to try to put someone who's never been suicidal into the mind of someone who has been, and hopefully you can understand and see how that might come about. And maybe you can see some signs if you have someone in your life who might be sliding down that way.
And also, I mean, mental health, mentality in general is something that I've always used to get me to where I win. I mean, without my determination, resilience, my mind, my belief, my parents telling me you can do anything you set your mind to. That is me, all day, every day. Has been my whole life. The mental game, if you will. And this is just another way to think about that, but it's a little bit different because it's almost like my brain was no longer working in the way that I was used to it working. It was broken. So now, how do I navigate my life? How do I do that? And as much as I am grateful and lucky, honestly, to be someone who's recovered from a TBI, I know there's a lot of people out there who have them and won't recover and can't get a surgery and have it be better in a year of therapy after that and on and on.
And so I wanna say, with my mental health piece, in this day and age, there are options, you know, different apps you can use, different ways to connect to someone who is a professional and can help you. And I would say, reach out. Reach out and make an effort to try and talk to that person and give them a chance to help you, at least get you going in the right direction. Not making all your issues disappear. That's not what this is about. It's about making a step in the right direction to better health, to more happiness. Because if you don't have that desire to live, that will to live, that purpose in your life, then every day will be black like the depths of the hell I was in.
Amira: Well, I am so moved and thankful that you were so vulnerable and open with your story, because I think it has an impact. And just personally, as somebody obviously who's finishing up a book called Can't Eat a Medal, your story was part of a long history of Black women athletes who have been chewed up, disposed of, left or forgotten, who have taken their stories into their own hands. I'm sitting literally in front Althea Gibson's memoir. I have yours here. Wilma’s is over there on the floor. And a quote from one of them said, like, I'm gonna write myself whole. Because you have been bifurcated, or the only in this one area, or, you know, forgotten about, the “unnamed hero” of a game or X, Y, and Z. But you have been able to return to write yourself whole in this work. And it's just really important to see. I wanna ask you right now, what are you doing now to find joy? What are your favorite things to binge? Do you watch women's soccer? Like, what are the things that make Briana like, okay, Friday night, this is what I'm doing to spark joy in my life?
Briana: One of the greatest joys of my life is my wife, Chrissa. She is truly amazing. She literally was the person that reached down into that hole and offered me a lifeline and pulled me out of it. My best friend in the world, Naomi Gonzalez, who told Chrissa about my plight at the time. And I mean, I never would've thought that I could have amazing love and amazing joy in my life to the degree that I have it now. And I think because of all the things I've gone through, I have a level of appreciation and gratitude towards it that is above and beyond anything I would've had had I not been, you know, in the gutter with my face in it multiple times in my life. My hobbies…We have a fantastic pool in the backyard, and a great garden area, and believe it or not, I like to garden. I mean, I didn't know that about myself before [laughter] until I had one to take care of. And so I love doing that.
Also, we do binge, we binge watch things. We were binge watching The Offer, the series about The Godfather movie. I just love seeing how things begin, understanding and wanting to know how something starts, not coming in the middle. I wanna know how this started. And so I like shows like that, that tell you the history of things. And then every once in a while, you know, Breaking Bad is not horrible, so. [laughter] I'm a fan. But my life is fantastic now. I'm obviously starting my book tour at the end of the month. And next month I'll be broadcasting with CBS Paramount+ at the Women's World Cup qualifying. And then during that my documentary drops on July 12th, The Only, that CBS Paramount+ is also producing. A lot of great things. Busy, very busy. Yeah. Yeah. It's been 20 years in the making, but it's here now. Better late than never.
Amira: You know, seize it. [laughter] Absolutely. Well, we cannot wait to look out for your documentary, to see you in the booth for the qualifying. And of course, for everybody to grab this fantastic book, My Greatest Save: The Brave, Barrier-Breaking Journey of a World Champion Goalkeeper. It was beyond amazing to have you on Burn It All Down. It has been such a pleasure to bear witness to your journey and to read your story and to receive it. And I just will speak for myself to say you have had such an impact on me when I was the only Black girl on my soccer team, and I packed into Foxboro in ’99 to see that run up, to see that game you were in. And I just remember feeling like there is possibilities in the world that I didn't know before. And I think your expanded storytelling here about your life and your entire life is just doing that once again, tenfold. So, thank you for everything you are and what you've done. And for joining us to talk about it today.
Briana: Thank you so much for having me. And I just wanna say that you are now part of my journey, and I appreciate you for taking the time to have me on, and hopefully to inspire others throughout the world that hear this. And thank you so much for being part of my journey.
Amira: Thank you. That's it for this episode of Burn It All Down. This episode was produced by Tressa Versteeg. Shelby Walden of course is on our webs and socials. Burn It All Down is part of the Blue Wire podcast network. You can follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. Listen and subscribe, rate the show wherever you listen to podcasts. For show links and transcripts, please check out our website, burnitalldownpod.com. You'll also find a link there to our merch at our Bonfire store. And thank you to our Patreons. You continue to mean the world to us. If you wanna become a donor to our show, visit patreon.com/burnitalldown. Burn on, but not out.