Briana Scurry knows the kids she inspired as a player are now U.S. team stars

HARRISON, N.J. — Over the last few days, the U.S. women’s soccer team hasn’t just prepared to set sail for the Olympics. It has also celebrated the 25th anniversary of the Americans’ landmark 1999 World Cup triumph, a moment that launched women’s sports into mainstream culture like nothing had before.

All 20 players from the 1999 squad came to Saturday’s U.S.-Mexico game in North Jersey along with some other festivities over the weekend. The cheers from the sellout crowd at the game were as loud as they were for the current squad, even though a lot of those fans weren’t alive yet when Brandi Chastain scored her penalty kick for the ages.

It was a moment to consider how far the sport and the team have come in the last quarter century, in ways on and off the field. And perhaps none of the 99ers, as they’re still called, felt that more than Briana Scurry.

Back then, American women’s soccer was far less diverse than it is now, from participants to spectators. Scurry, the star goalkeeper, was one of just two Black players on the 1999 squad. (The other, Saskia Webber, was also a goalkeeper, and later played for the old Philadelphia Charge.)

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How many young Black kids looked at that U.S. team, with all its fame, and found a role model in Scurry? We might never know the full total from her 16-year pro career from 1994 to 2010. It included 175 U.S. games, 1996 and 2004 Olympic gold medals, and stints in two American pro leagues.

Now look at this year’s Olympic team, on which eight of the 18 active players (plus alternate Croix Bethune) are Black — including the first all-Black forward unit at a major tournament in U.S. women’s team history.

The old saying goes: If you can see it, you can be it. This is a sure example.

“I feel like I’m a little bit of a mother hen,” Scurry said. “Representation is always important, and you always know that in your mind, but actually seeing it now really come to fruition — because it takes time — these kids saw the 2015 [team] play, and then 2019, and saw us play, and now they’re doing it themselves. … It’s just really cool to see that happen.”

Scurry knows one of those “kids” especially well: current U.S. forward Trinity Rodman. When the 22-year-old turned pro as a teen in 2021 and was drafted by the Washington Spirit, the club enlisted Scurry (who lives in the D.C. suburbs) to be a mentor.

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Rodman’s talent was already known back then, but it’s never a given that a young prospect will make it. Scurry calls it “an honor” to have helped Rodman down the right track.

“I just wanted to be there for Trin if she needed me,” Scurry said, “I saw the talent in her early on. You can tell raw talent when you see it, just by [how] a player moves in space. You never know if the popcorn’s going to pop or not, and she’s clearly that poppin’ popcorn.”

She popped fast, too: a big role in Washington’s 2021 NWSL title, a senior U.S. debut in February 2022, a first U.S. goal that April (at Subaru Park, coincidentally), and a place on last year’s World Cup team. Rodman is likely to be a starter at the Olympics, on the right flank of a trio with Sophia Smith and Mallory Swanson.

“She’s got an opportunity now not only to really show her skill set, but to go to a level that’s never been seen before,” Scurry said. “I think she’s got the skills to be the best striker ever, and that’s saying something because we’ve had some incredible strikers [on the U.S. team]. But she has incredible talent, she’s got great speed, she’s a great header of the ball, she shoots with both feet, and she’s got great vision.”

If this U.S. team succeeds in France, with the big stage the Olympics provide, the impact could be huge all over again.

“This could be really an amazing opportunity for her,” Scurry said, “and for the representation piece as well — for young girls to see her play and really get inspired by her.”

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Scurry isn’t the only 99er who believes that. Mia Hamm, the most famous of them all, does too. She has seen it not just from watching the national team, but as an investor in the NWSL’s Angel City FC, whose players include Sydney Leroux, Christen Press, and Alyssa Thompson.

“I love it,” Hamm said. “We want our sport to continue to grow and bring more people in, and this is an exciting time.”

Crystal Dunn has been the most prominent name among the current U.S. team’s Black players for a while now. Along with her many talents, she fought for years to be seen as an attacking player after being moved to left back by former coach Jill Ellis before the 2019 World Cup. Only this year did she finally return to the front line.

“I’m so incredibly proud of the young women of color because I didn’t have that when I first came up,” Dunn said. “And I think they’re authentically themselves. They’re stepping into to this sport, showcasing culture, showcasing who they are, and I think it’s incredible to see. I just feel almost like a proud auntie.”

Back in the day, the 1999 team knew it might have an impact. But Scurry said the players couldn’t have imagined it would be as big as it became.

“I think in my wildest dreams, yes,” she said, “but I think when you’re in the middle of a thing, you’re not thinking so much about the impact you’re going to have, or a ripple effect — although some of us were thinking about that. I just was so excited to be a part of the team, and living my dream, which was to be an Olympian, since I was 8 years old.”

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Soon enough, she knew.

“It’s a bigger honor in my opinion, actually, to have that kind of impact on people that I’ll never meet — millions of people all over the world,” Scurry said. “It’s bigger than just my own dream, so it’s really cool to have that effect on people.”

She called it “the harvest from those seeds that were planted,” and said “it wasn’t just in our country or just young girls” who let her know.

“It was boys, men, people coming up to me and saying, 10 years later: ‘Oh my gosh, I saw your game,’ ” Scurry said. “Fifty-year-old men, they started getting emotional about it. That’s when you know what you did really had an impact.”

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