Soccer Star Sparks Boomlet In Black America - Briana Scurry's outstanding contribution to the American women's soccer team's victory in the World Cup - Brief Article

Ebony, Jan, 2000 by Joy Bennett Kinnon

IT was the "You, go, girl!" heard around the world. More than 90,000 fans at the Rose Bowl, the largest audience ever to watch a women's sporting event, and countless millions crowded around television sets around the world collectively leapt to their feet and cheered when U.S. goalkeeper Briana Scurry rejected China's shot in the World Cup championship.

And they haven't stopped cheering since, making Scurry possibly the most famous African-American from Minnesota since The Artist Formerly Known as Prince.

With her dramatic World Cup feat last summer and even before that, this soft-spoken Olympic gold medalist boosted soccer's popularity among girls in particular and African-American children in general. "I am proud of my heritage, and I take very seriously my role of showing African-American youth and people in general that we can excel in any sport or anything," she says. She says she knows her own nieces and nephews have tried soccer because she is playing.

Soccer was one of many sports Scurry, the youngest of eight children, played as a child growing up in suburban Minneapolis. "I played softball, basketball, ran some track and didn't start playing soccer until I was 12 years old," she says.

Although "soccer moms" is a code for upwardly mobile White families--who have forgotten that the greatest soccer player of all times was Pele--the sport has not developed a mass following in Black America.

The only African-American starter on the U.S. World Cup team, Scurry is seeking to change that perception. "It's one of my goals and it's a team goal as well to get more young girls and boys involved in soccer in general and it seems to be working," she says, as a large group of young soccer players surround her, chanting her name as if she were Lauryn Hill.

Scurry, who is 28 and single, is on a cross-country tour to promote soccer among Black children. She reportedly has asked the World Cup team sponsors to send her to big cities for clinics. "Soccer is pretty much a suburban elitist sport [in the United States]," she says. "It always has been." On this day, she was conducting a mini-clinic for Black and White American Youth Soccer Organization players on Chicago's South Side. Scurry is visiting AYSO games as a guest of Allstate Insurance Co., an official sponsor of the Toys `R' Us Victory Tour.

"Girls growing up in the inner-city aren't exposed to soccer," she says. "If they play anything, it's basketball. But there's no reason it can't be soccer. They just need to be exposed to it. I want to give them options, and I want to win while doing it."

Winning is Scurry's forte. With more than 50 shutouts in her career, she is considered one of the best women goalkeepers in the world. Her performance in the World Cup semifinals and her key save in the finals against China were considered crucial to the Americans' eventual victory. It prompted one soccer parent to dub her "the Jackie Robinson of soccer."

Like the pioneering Robinson, Scurry has had her share of controversy. Many Blacks, including Robbie Scurry, the goalkeeper's mother, felt Scurry was slighted in television air time during the medal ceremony. In fact, the camera panned to another player while Scurry was being awarded her medal.

Looking back, Scurry downplays the incident, saying the uproar surprised her. "It was interesting because people were saying that and then I actually saw the game on tape and I had a lot of air time on me," she says. "The only time when I didn't was when they were putting a medal on my neck." The career effect was minimal, she says. "I've gotten endorsements," she says, "and I've been one of the busiest people on my team as far as running around, so I don't hold any credence with that."

Scurry was an all-state high-school basketball player, but decided to play soccer at the University of Massachusetts. She was the goalkeeper for the 1996 Olympic gold-medal team, playing every minute of all five games.

After that victory, bearing a tattoo of a Black panther on her shoulder, she made good on her vow to "to run naked through the streets of Athens, Georgia" if the U.S. won the gold medal. Twice named collegiate goalkeeper of the year at the University of Massachusetts, she has a degree in political science.

What's next for the record-breaking goalie? Conquering the land down under in the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Australia. "My future plans are to play at least through the Olympics, and if the [professional] league starts up, maybe play in that for a little bit and see where I go from there."