Sports
“It’s always been a great place to play. I always loved playing here. It’s a great sporting city.”
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Recollections and reflections from The Tradition’s 2023 honorees
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Boston reportedly one of three cities awarded an NWSL expansion team
Briana Scurry, who helped lead the United States to gold medals in women’s soccer at the 1996 and 2004 Olympics, said she’s excited to see Boston add a National Women’s Soccer League team.
The team is set to debut in 2026.
“I think it’s awesome because Boston was one of the original teams from the first iteration in 2001 of the WUSA,” Scurry told Boston.com. “And it’s always been a great place to play. I always loved playing here. It’s a great sporting city. “
“I feel like it was a shame to not have a team here for a long time,” Scurry added. “I’m so happy that somebody’s picked up the reins and is going to have the team here again. I think this time it’s going to be here for a much longer period.”
Scurry, who starred at UMass before her Olympic career, is part of an investor group that bought a stake in the NWSL’s Washington Spirit in 2021.
“For me, it’s come full circle,” Scurry said. “I used to be an athlete, one of the players on the team, then I was coaching, and then I came into the front office, and then I came into the ownership group. It’s just been a great journey from being someone who wants to inspire and promote the game, to being someone who is helping people do the same.”
Scurry said she’s seeing owners take women’s soccer more seriously than they have in the past.
“Now it’s truly a sporting business, especially in soccer, where you have owners for the NWSL teams that are next level owners,” Scurry said. “They’re not just in there because their daughters or their granddaughters play soccer.”
“They’re really serious ownership groups that are raising the bar for what’s to be expected to own a women’s professional team,” she continued. “And so I think people are seeing women’s sports as a growth business and not just as either a charity or, you know, something that’s, you know, nuanced or whatnot. I think it’s really starting to come alive.”
Bringing home Olympic gold
Scurry said the memory that stood out the most from her time at the 1996 Olympics was seeing familiar faces in the massive crowd. More than 76,000 people packed into University of Georgia’s Sanford Stadium to witness Team USA win its first gold medal in women’s soccer.
It was the highest attendance at a women’s sporting event at the time. Since then, that mark has been eclipsed several times, including an NCAA women’s volleyball match between Nebraska and Omaha that drew 92,003 people earlier this year.
“After we won, we were walking around with flags, waving the flags and stuff,” Scurry said. “And I saw no less than 12 people that I knew from my high school, from elementary, junior high, like teachers and friends and family. It was so bizarre. And also having my mom and dad, it was just really amazing having them in there in person.”
Memories from UMass
She said her favorite memory from UMass was spending time on campus in the spring time.
“As much as I loved playing in the fall when we’re all, like, basically frozen,” Scurry said. “And the dorms and the drudgery of going to class in the wintertime, there was that first 45 to 50 degree day where everyone basically wears t-shirts and shorts.
“The springtime at UMass was absolutely outstanding,” she added. “I was able to really be more of a college student than a student athlete in the offseason. So, that was really a lot of fun. A lot of good times.”
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