U.S. ladies’s soccer legend Briana Scurry on why Boston was due for an NWSL group

Sports activities

“It is all the time been a terrific place to play. I all the time liked taking part in right here. It is a terrific sporting metropolis.”

Briana Scurry, who helped lead the US to gold medals in ladies’s soccer on the 1996 and 2004 Olympics, stated she’s excited to see Boston add a Nationwide Ladies’s Soccer League group.

The group is about to debut in 2026.

“I feel it’s superior as a result of Boston was one of many authentic groups from the primary iteration in 2001 of the WUSA,” Scurry informed Boston.com. “And it’s all the time been a terrific place to play. I all the time liked taking part in right here. It’s a terrific sporting metropolis. “

“I really feel prefer it was a disgrace to not have a group right here for a very long time,” Scurry added. “I’m so blissful that any individual’s picked up the reins and goes to have the group right here once more. I feel this time it’s going to be right here for a for much longer interval.”

Scurry, who starred at UMass earlier than her Olympic profession, is a part of an investor group that purchased a stake within the NWSL’s Washington Spirit in 2021.

“For me, it’s come full circle,” Scurry stated. “I was an athlete, one of many gamers on the group, then I used to be teaching, after which I got here into the entrance workplace, after which I got here into the possession group. It’s simply been a terrific journey from being somebody who desires to encourage and promote the sport, to being somebody who helps folks do the identical.”

Scurry stated she’s seeing house owners take ladies’s soccer extra significantly than they’ve up to now.

“Now it’s really a sporting enterprise, particularly in soccer, the place you will have house owners for the NWSL groups which might be subsequent degree house owners,” Scurry stated. “They’re not simply in there as a result of their daughters or their granddaughters play soccer.”

“They’re actually severe possession teams which might be elevating the bar for what’s to be anticipated to personal a ladies’s skilled group,” she continued. “And so I feel individuals are seeing ladies’s sports activities as a development enterprise and never simply as both a charity or, you realize, one thing that’s, you realize, nuanced or whatnot. I feel it’s actually beginning to come alive.”

Bringing residence Olympic gold

Scurry stated the reminiscence that stood out probably the most from her time on the 1996 Olympics was seeing acquainted faces within the huge crowd. Greater than 76,000 folks packed into College of Georgia’s Sanford Stadium to witness Staff USA win its first gold medal in ladies’s soccer.

It was the very best attendance at a ladies’s sporting occasion on the time. Since then, that mark has been eclipsed a number of occasions, together with an NCAA ladies’s volleyball match between Nebraska and Omaha that drew 92,003 folks earlier this yr.

“After we gained, we had been strolling round with flags, waving the flags and stuff,” Scurry stated. “And I noticed at least 12 those who I knew from my highschool, from elementary, junior excessive, like lecturers and family and friends. It was so weird. And likewise having my mother and pa, it was simply actually wonderful having them in there in individual.”

Recollections from UMass

She stated her favourite reminiscence from UMass was spending time on campus within the spring time.

“As a lot as I liked taking part in within the fall after we’re all, like, mainly frozen,” Scurry stated. “And the dorms and the drudgery of going to class within the wintertime, there was that first 45 to 50 diploma day the place everybody mainly wears t-shirts and shorts.

“The springtime at UMass was completely excellent,” she added. “I used to be in a position to actually be extra of a faculty scholar than a scholar athlete within the offseason. So, that was actually plenty of enjoyable. A whole lot of good occasions.”