Books
Trailblazing soccer legend Briana Scurry inspires with new book
‘My Greatest Save’ recounts highs and lows of her remarkable life
Black lesbian soccer icon Briana Scurry knew from the get-go that she would compete in the Olympics.
In February 1980, Scurry, then eight, was in the family room in her home in Dayton, Minn., watching the Winter Olympics, held that year in Lake Placid, N.Y. The United States was playing hockey against Russia. In what became known as “the Miracle on Ice,” the U.S. Olympic team won the gold medal.
Scurry cheered for the U.S. team. But Jim Craig, the team’s goaltender, especially, became a hero for her. “One day I am going to be an Olympian, too,” Scurry decided.
This sounds like a child’s daydream – with as much chance of becoming a reality as a happily-ever-after-Disney movie.
But trailblazing soccer legend Briana Scurry has proved that, with talent, hard work, support from family and friends, along with a sense of humor, dreams can come true.
The child who dreamed of being an Olympian grew up to find herself on the Wheaties box for her winning save as goalkeeper for the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team in the 1999 FIFA World Cup championship game. (FIFA is world soccer’s governing body.)
“I believe I’m the only Black lesbian to be on a Wheaties box,” Scurry, who won the gold medal in the 1996 and 2004 Summer Olympics, said in a recent interview with the Blade.
Scurry’s life has had Olympian highs and hellish lows.
In 2010, her soccer career ended after she sustained a traumatic brain injury during a game. Scurry ran up against an insurance company that wouldn’t pay for the medical care she needed.
At one of her lowest points, she had to pawn her Olympic gold medals to pay for food.
In “My Greatest Save: The Brave, Barrier-Breaking Journey of a World-Champion Goalkeeper,” her revealing, moving, can’t-put-down book, (written with Wayne Coffey), coming out on June 21, Scurry tells her compelling story.
It is “more than the story of an all-time great goalkeeper,” tennis legend and LGBTQ icon Billie Jean King said of “My Greatest Save.” “It’s about a pioneering female athlete who made sure to honor those who came before her even as she worked hard to make things better for those who came after her.”
“It was time,” Scurry said when asked why she wrote the book, “I was in a good place to do it.”
When you’re in a tough situation it’s hard to see how to write about it, she added, “I had to go away from it to go back to it. We started in 2020 right before the pandemic.”
Scurry hopes the book will inspire readers. “I hope it will encourage people to blaze trails in their own lives,” she said.
Scurry wanted readers to see behind the veil of a professional athlete – to see how she overcame obstacles, kept going, and reached her goals.
Throughout her life and career, Scurry has encountered obstacles and barriers from a traumatic brain injury to racism and homophobia.
From early on, Scurry was aware that she was different. There were few people of color when she was in elementary, middle, or high school. The youth soccer teams that she played on were also predominantly white. During her 17 years with the U.S. Women’s Soccer National Team, “it was the same thing — at least among the core players,” she writes in “My Greatest Save.”
In 2017, Scurry became the first Black woman to be elected to the National Soccer Hall of Fame, and she is one of the first out LGBTQ soccer players.
Scurry was so supportive of other queer soccer players that she became known as the “welcome wagon.”
“When I played with the Atlanta Beat we’d compete fearlessly against the opposing team,” Scurry said. “But after the game, [the Atlanta and the opposing team] wanted to hang out.”
Scurry would take the LGBTQ home and opposing players to a fun, safe place — a bar where they could grab something to eat and dance. “Then we’d go back to competing ferociously in the next game,” she said.
Scurry thinks she has been discriminated against because of how she looks. “Because I’m Black and lesbian,” she said.
In 1999, after the World Cup win, Scurry kissed her then girlfriend. “When we kissed the TV cameras cut away because we were lesbians.”
She also believes that she’s received fewer offers for commercial endorsements than white, heterosexual athletes.
Scurry worries about the “Don’t Say Gay” and anti-trans laws that are being passed nationwide. “I worry that these [queer] kids will be bullied. That they might become suicidal,” she said.
“I wrote my book for LGBTQ kids,” Scurry said, “I want them to believe in themselves and to believe that they can be athletes.”
“We’re going backwards,” Scurry added. “It’s frustrating. It’s tiring but we’re going to have to keep fighting for our rights.”
Scurry was forced to engage in one of the toughest fights of her life after she had a traumatic brain injury while playing soccer in 2010. After she was injured, Scurry was labeled “temporarily totally disabled.” That label was a severe understatement.
Scurry’s head injury left her in unbearable pain. It was incredibly hard for her to concentrate on the simplest things — from reading more than a couple of paragraphs to following the plot of a TV show.
Scurry became so depressed that she came close to ending her life. (If you are having suicidal thoughts, contact the Trevor Project and/or the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline).
“The insurance company said I was faking it,” Scurry said. “I told them I was a professional athlete. There was nothing I wanted more in the world than to get back in the game.”
“Why in the world would I have wanted to fake not being able to work?” she said.
Thankfully, in this low period in her life, Scurry was connected, through friends to Chryssa Zizos, who works in public relations.
Zizos publicized Scurry’s struggle with the insurance company. The publicity was effective. The company agreed to pay for the physical therapy and surgery that Scurry needed.
Today, Scurry and Zizos are happily married. Scurry loves being step-mom to Zizos’s children, who call her “bonus mom.”
Scurry, now fully recovered, talks about her traumatic brain injury to educate soccer players, coaches, and parents about concussions.
“There’s more research now about ways to help protect players from concussions,” she said.
Headbands would help protect players against concussions, Scurry said. “Some of the players won’t wear headbands,” she added, “because it would be perceived as weakness.”
Shin guards used to be voluntary, and players didn’t wear them, Scurry said.
“But after FIFA mandated them, players wore them,” she said. “The same thing would happen if FIFA mandated headbands.”
Scurry was thrilled last month when news broke from The New York Times and other outlets that landmark contracts had been signed with the U.S. Soccer Federation. The contracts say that, for the first time, men and women soccer teams will be paid equally in international matches and competitions. The agreement says that in forthcoming World Cup tournaments men and women will be paid equally in money awarded by FIFA in prizes.
“I’m overjoyed about women getting equal pay,” Scurry said.
Fifty years ago this month, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 became law. The legislation, which prohibits discrimination against women in education, has enabled thousands of women and girls to participate in sports in high schools, colleges and professionally.
“Title IX opened the door for millions of girls around the country to be able to participate in sports,” Scurry said.
“Without Title IX … there would have been no path for me to play soccer collegiately and professionally,” she added.
The Blade may receive commissions from qualifying purchases made via this post.
‘La Lucci’
By Susan Lucci with Laura Morton
c.2026, Blackstone Publishing
$29.99/196 pages
They’re among the world’s greatest love stories.
You know them well: Marc Antony and Cleopatra. Abelard and Heloise. Phoebe and Langley. Cliff and Nina. Jesse and Angie, Opal and Palmer, Palmer and Daisy, Tad and Dixie. Now read “La Lucci” by Susan Lucci, with Laura Morton, and you might also think of Susan and Helmut.
When she was a very small girl, Susan Lucci loved to perform. Also when she was young, she learned that words have power. She vowed to use them for good for the rest of her life.
Her parents, she says, were supportive and her family, loving. Because of her Italian heritage, she was “ethnic looking” but Lucci’s mother was careful to point out dark-haired beauties on TV and elsewhere, giving Lucci a foundation of confidence.
That’s just one of the things for which Lucci says she’s grateful. In fact, she says, “Prayers of gratitude are how I begin and end each day.”
She is particularly grateful for becoming a mother to her two adult children, and to the doctors who saved her son’s life when he was a newborn.
Lucci writes about gratitude for her long career. She was a keystone character on TV’s “All My Children,” and she learned a lot from older actors on the show, and from Agnes Nixon, the creator of it. She says she still keeps in touch with many of her former costars.
She is thankful for her mother’s caretakers, who stepped in when dementia struck. Grateful for more doctors, who did heart-saving work when Lucci had a clogged artery. Grateful for friends, opportunities, life, grandchildren, and a career that continues.
And she’s grateful for the love she shared with her husband, Helmut Huber, who died nearly four years ago. Grateful for the chance to grieve, to heal, and to continue.
And yet, she says of her husband: “He was never timid, but I know he was afraid at the end, and that kills me down to my soul.”
“It’s been 15 years since Erica Kane and I parted ways,” says author Susan Lucci (with Laura Morton), and she says that people still approach her to confirm or deny rumors of the show’s resurrection. There’s still no answer to that here (sorry, fans), but what you’ll find inside “La Lucci” is still exceptionally generous.
If this book were just filled with stories, you’d like it just fine. If it was only about Lucci’s faith and her gratitude – words that happen to appear very frequently here – you’d still like reading it. But Lucci tells her stories of family, children and “All My Children,” while also offering help to couples who’ve endured miscarriage, women who’ve had heart problems, and widow(ers) who are spinning and need the kindness of someone who’s lived loss, too.
These are the other things you’ll find in “La Lucci,” in a voice you’ll hear in your head, if you spent your lunch hours glued to the TV back in the day. It’s a comfortable, fun read for fans. It’s a story you’ll love.
The Blade may receive commissions from qualifying purchases made via this post.
Books
Risking it all for love during World War II
New book follows story of Black, gay expat in Paris
‘The Remarkable Life of Reed Peggram’
By Ethelene Whitmire
c.2026, Viking
$30/308 pages
You couldn’t escape it.
When you fell in love, that was it: you were there for good. Leaving your amour’s side was unthinkable, turning away was impossible. You’d do anything for that person you loved – even, as in the new biography, “The Remarkable Life of Reed Peggram” by Ethelene Whitmire, you’d escape toward danger.
On Aug. 28, 1938, Reed Peggram boarded a ship from Hoboken, N.J., hoping to “become a proper gentleman” and fulfill his dreams. A prolific writer and Harvard scholar of comparative literature, he’d recently been awarded the Rosenwald Fellowship, which put him in the company of literary stars like Du Bois, Hurston, and Hughes.
Both Peggram’s mother and grandmother were then domestic workers, and they had big expectations for him. Reed himself was eager to study abroad, for professional and personal reasons; he was “determined to become a French professor and an accomplished linguist” and “He also hoped to find love.”
What better place to do it than in Paris?
Outgoing and confident, Peggram made friends easily and had no trouble moving “through the world of his white male peers.” Where he faltered was in his lack of funds. He relied on the kindness of his many friends – one of whom introduced Peggram to a “man who would become so pivotal in his life,” a Danish man named Arne.
Peggram and Arne had a lot in common, and they began to enmesh their lives and dreams of living in the United States. But there were complications: homosexuality was largely forbidden, World War II was in its early stages, and it quickly became apparent that it was dangerous to stay in Europe.
And yet, Peggram loved Arne. He refused to leave without him and so, while most visiting Black Americans fled the war in Europe, “Reed was trying to stay.”
There’s so much more to the story inside “The Remarkable Life of Reed Peggram,” so much to know about Reed himself. Problem is, it’s a long haul to get to the good stuff.
In her introduction, author Ethelene Whitmire explains how she came to this tale and yes, it needs telling but probably not with the staggering number of inconsequential details here. Peggram moved homes a lot, and many people were involved in keeping him in Europe. That alone can be overwhelming; add the fact that costs and other monetary issues are mentioned in what seems like nearly every page, and you may wonder if you’ll ever find the reason for the book’s subtitle.
It’s there, nearly halfway through the book, which is when the tale takes a tender, urgent turn — albeit one with determination, rashness, and a dash of faux nonchalance. Also, if you’re expecting an unhappily-ever-after because, after all, it’s a World War II tale, don’t assume anything.
Reading this book will take a certain amount of patience, so skip it if you don’t have that fortitude. If you’re OK with minuscule details and want a heart-pounder, though, “The Remarkable Life of Reed Peggram” might be a good escape.
The Blade may receive commissions from qualifying purchases made via this post.
Books
Laverne Cox, Liza Minnelli among authors with new books
A tome for every taste this reading season
Spring is a great time to think about vacations, spring break, lunch on the patio, or an afternoon in the park. You’ll want to bring one (or all!) of these great new books.
So let’s start here: What are you up for? How about a great new novel?
If you’re a mystery fan, you’ll want to make reservations to visit “Disaster Gay Detective Agency” by Lev AC Rosen (Poisoned Pen Press, June 2). It’s a whodunit featuring a group of gay roommates, one of whom is a swoony romantic. Add a mysterious man who disappears and a murder, of course, and you’ve got the novel you need for the beach.
Don’t discount young adult books, if you want something light to read this spring. “What Happened to Those Girls” by Carlyn Greenwald (Sourcebooks Fire, June 30) is a thriller about mean girls and a camping trip that goes terribly, bloodily wrong. Meant for teens ages 14 and up, young adult books are breezier and lighter fare for the busy grown-up reader.
If you loved “Boyfriend Material” and “Husband Material,” you’ll be eager for the next installment from author Alexis Hall. “Father Material” (Sourcebooks Casablanca, June 2) takes Luc and Oliver to the next step. First was dating. Then was marriage. Is it time for the sound of pitter-patter on the kitchen floor?
Maybe something even lighter? Then how about a book of essays – like “The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Gay” bycomedian and writer Eliot Glazer (Gallery Books, Aug. 11). It’s a book of essays on being gay today, the irritations, the joys, and fitting in. Be aware that these essays may contain a bit of spice – but isn’t that what you want for your reading pleasure anyhow, hmmm?
But okay, let’s say you want something with a little more heft to it. How about a biography?
Look for “Transcendant” by Laverne Cox (Gallery Books, June 9), or “Kids, Wait Till You Hear This” by Liza Minnelli (Grand Central Publishing, March 10), and “Every Inch a Lady” by Audrey Smaltz with Alina Mitchell (Amistad, July 14). Keep your eyes open for “Without Prejudice: My Life as a Gay Judge” by Harvey Brownstone (ECW Press, May 26) or “The Double Dutch Fuss” by Phill Branch (Amistad, June 2).
Then again, maybe you want some history, or something different.
So here: look for “Queer Saints: A Radical Guide to Magic, Miracles, and Modern Intercession” by Antonio Pagliarulo (Weiser, June 1) for a little bit of faith-based gay. Music lovers will want “Mighty Real: A History of LGBTQ Music, 1969-2000” by Barry Walters (Viking, May 12). Activists will want “In the Arms of Mountains: A Memoir of Land, Love, and Queer Resistance in Red America” byformer Idaho state Sen. Cole Nicole LeFavour (Beacon Press, May 26).
And if these books aren’t enough, then be sure to check with your favorite bookseller or librarian. They’ll have exactly what you’re in the mood to read. They’ll find what you need for that patio, beach towel, or easy chair.
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