This is Fresh Air. I'm Terry Gross. My guest by Anna Scary is one of the most celebrated

players and one of the top goalkeepers in the history of women's soccer in the US.

She won a World Cup in 1999 and two Olympic gold medals. The first was in 1996, which

was the first time women's soccer teams competed in the Olympics. She's the only African-American

woman in the US soccer hall of fame, a photo of her hangs in the Smithsonian National

Museum of African American History and Culture. And she's pretty sure she's the only

black lesbian goalkeeper who has been on the cover of a Wheaties box.

Her soccer career ended abruptly and painfully in 2010 when she was playing in the new women's

professional soccer league and a player from the opposing team collided with her with her

knee crashing into Scary's right tempo. It left Scary with a traumatic brain injury, resulting

in constant excruciating headaches, blurred vision, cognitive problems, depression, despair,

and poverty. She was unable to work and the league soon collapsed so she had no soccer

medical team or training facility to help her. Her insurance company kept denying her

money for the surgery she needed to repair the nerve that was the source of her pain.

And she was reduced to pointing her two gold medals. How she got them back and ended

up marrying the woman who made that possible? It's just one of the stories she tells in

her new memoir, My Greatest Save.

Brianna Scary, welcome to Fresh Air and I'm so glad you're feeling better and that you're

back in life again. Oh my goodness, Terry is such an honor to be on the show and speaking

with you. Yes, I am doing incredibly well. So thank you for that and her having me.

I want to start by asking you to describe your point of view on the field as a goalkeeper

and how your version of the game is different from the rest of the teams. Yes, so goalkeeping

...