Brandi Chastain: The Moment That Changed Women's Sports Forever

Type of coach are you? What's on your personal and professional bucket list?

Alright, welcome to another edition of Mac Daddy, everyone. I'm your host, Patrick Macker, alongside the rich Big Daddy Selgada. We are so pumped up for this episode today. She is a legend in U.S. soccer, really in U.S. sports, great moments. She's a two-time World Cup champion. She's a two-time Olympic gold medalist, a Hall of Famer, and now a Hall of Famer mom and coach as well. Let's welcome in Brandy Chastain. Brandy, welcome to the show. Big Daddy tells me that you have a long relationship with Ronnie Lott, and he knows him, of course. They go way back. Tell me how that all transpired, that you know the greatest safety in the history of the NFL.

Well, he's a he's a 49er, and I'm I'm born and raised in the Bay Area and a big fan. And so we actually do a lot of community work together. We do anything that will help any kids in our community.

So I've known Ronnie for 30 years. I learned business, I learned how to keep your word. He's like a mentor to me. I learned a lot from his two years being at the Jets and our relationship. No pun intended. Yeah. Yeah. A lot. Yeah, exactly. Our relationship goes to this day. I mean, he is probably the greatest safety to ever play football.

Brandon, I know you grew up in the Bay Area. I spent a few years on the farm, maybe not your favorite place, Berkeley. I know you had some issues there as well. But did you play other sports growing up or was it just soccer?

Oh no, I I loved all sports. I thought actually I would be in the NFL um doing what Ronnie Lott did. But you know, and I think that's because all I grew up watching was men in professional sports. So I enjoyed playing football. I played flag football in my neighborhood in the early 70s, which I'm so super happy to see flag football come back around, and that there will be flag football in the Olympics, which is very exciting in LA 28. So yeah, I've I I did everything. And if you could add skateboarding, tree climbing, you know, whatever, I would do it. So my my I was very lucky that I fell into soccer because it didn't exist really when I was a young, when I was really young, and it just so happened to come to our neighborhood. And my parents, she's wild, she's crazy, she loves running around, so we'll sign her up.

What age were you, Brandy, when you got into soccer?

Oh, about eight years old. Okay. My mother wanted me to play be a tennis player.

Oh, if only that had happened, we'd have another champion in tennis.

My and my grandfather, my grandfather wanted me to play golf, and my mom wanted me to play tennis, and both of them you had to wear a skirt. And that at that time I was not interested in that. Sports was about getting dirty and being rough, and so yeah.

Brandy, what was it like playing on the boys' team? Were you just too good to be part of the girls' team?

Yeah, I don't know if it was that I was too good to play with the girls, it was that there just wasn't a lot offered to girls. So it's like when you get a menu, you can only choose from what's on the menu. So the menu was playing with the neighborhood boys, um, which was great because I love to be competitive. And I think challenging myself, whether, you know, we used to play street ball, baseball, and I used to hit it over the across the street and over the neighborhood's house. And so I started batting opposite hand, and then I started hitting the ball over the house the opposite way. And so I just I just love competing. I just love sports in general. I I found it very satisfying and and uh engaging, and I could express myself as we saw, you know, as we look into the future for that that celebration.

All right, Brenda, let's go back to your college years at Berkeley. I know you had some issues there, you had some injuries. How did you deal with all that?

Well, my first year in college was at Cal Berkeley, and it was a great soccer season. We made it to, I think, the quarterfinals of the NCAA, which was great. Um, I was freshman player of the year. I think I had 22 or so goals. And so for me, it was really great. But in the spring, I tore my ACL and I realized that I wasn't in the right place from you know academically. And so I came home and I actually had a very up and down and sideways and backwards career throughout my my even my professional career um with another ACL that a year and a half later, I ended up transferring, thankfully, to Santa Clara and ended up going to the Final Four twice. And so, you know, I I missed a penalty in the semifinal of the NCAA. And so I tell young kids all the time that just because you haven't made every kick or haven't been perfect doesn't mean that you can't do good things in the future. So just because you miss once doesn't mean you'll miss again.

So, you know, we all grew up in the 70s, and Brandy, I have to say, being on the cover Sports Illustrated, Newsweek, Time, you are big time, Brandy. Tell us about that. How was how did that all happen? And how did it feel to be on the cover of those three huge publications?

Yeah, you know, I I'm not really sure. I feel like it's still, even still today, it's like an out-of-body experience, you know, just to see those photos. And, you know, right now Netflix is in the process of making a movie for the 99ers, which will come out sometime next season next year, um, hopefully before the the Women's World Cup. But, you know, seeing seeing those photos just remind me of the journey that it took to get there. You know, I was on the team as a player that came off the bench. I got cut from the team, I had to make my way back. I, you know, I was so fortunate to participate in the first ever World Cup, first ever Olympic Games in '96 for women's soccer. So I've been a part of some really spectacular teams with great people. So I guess when I look at those photos, I just think about you know what it took to get there and the people that influenced me and how much I love the game. And it it brings a smile to my face, it brings it gives me a lot of joy. And mostly because I met my best friends and and we had a really great time together.

Well, Brandon, we've got to ask you about the big moment, of course. You have to deal with this in every interview you do, but how about the process? You know, before we get into that, because there was a lot of adversity that you had to deal with being on the team, then being off the team, coming back to it. Tell us about that whole journey.

Yeah, I think there's a lot of things, Patrick. You you understand, you let's say, let's just take a tennis match. You have multiple sets, you won't you, you know, sometimes you'll win a set, you'll lose a set, you win a set, you go to a tiebreaker, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes you hit an unbelievable shot, like a shot you've never made before, and then you hit another one into the net. So you you understand that sports is not just on this upward ascension. And so for me, I just I have a lot of stories about grit and change and gratitude, and you know, sometimes it's patience. You know, I like I said, I was on the national team in 91, and then I was cut from the team. I didn't play in the World Cup in '95. And I came back uh in '96, and and not just to my position. I came back in a completely different position and had to decide was it more about playing the position I wanted to play, or was it about being on the team and having the experiences and trying something different? So, you know, sports affords us all of those things that life is going to throw at us later. So, I mean, honestly, I couldn't be any more grateful for all the experiences I've had. You know, the hard ones, obviously, I think we all talk about how those are where we learn our lessons. But I think even in the good times, we have to stop and evaluate why is it working well? What can I continue to do? You know, what is it that that I'm contributing that allows this to happen? So I've I've had a lot of lessons along the way.

I try to remind parents, Brandy, of this lesson. You know, as a tennis player, you deal with a lot of losses. You get some wins, but mostly losses, if in my case, I only walked away from a tournament once in my career where I won the championship. So it teaches a little bit about resilience, doesn't it?

Yeah, and you know what, Patrick, you you are amongst a very select few who can say they've ever won a tournament at a professional level. Um, and again, to your point about you know, parents and young players, and I mean, it's a such a small percentage of a percentage that get to participate at that level. And so, really, what sports bring us should be the joyful side because, you know, we get to exercise, we get to be healthy, we get to again challenge ourselves, set goals, meet them, figure things out. You know, we we get to travel, we get to meet new friends, we get to have different experiences, you know, all these my life has forever changed because of sports in such a positive way. And I would have hated if my parents were just like, you know, so adamant on me making some team, like as if that was proof of concept that I got to the place I should have been.

Well, Brandy, one of the things that we have to give you huge props. In 2017, you became an HOF, Hall of Famer. Kudos to you.

Yeah, well, thank you. I appreciate that. But you know what? Honestly, I I never set out to have a career so that I could say I made the Hall of Fame or you know, I I won something. Honestly, I love practice so much, and I I just love being in the environment and putting on my cleats and being with teammates. And I think that's why it was really hard for me to step away as a player, and why I think even to this day, being a coach it is so meaningful, like just to be in that environment where change can happen and where growth and you know kind of exploration meet each other. And so, yeah, Hall of Fame is awesome. I'm super happy I got to share that with my family. But the hopefully the journey's not over.

Well, I don't think it is, Brandy. Uh, you know, as we've discussed and you've mentioned a couple of times, you didn't have that many opportunities as a young girl, right, to play sports. I've raised three daughters alongside my wife. They've had lots of opportunities, whether it's tennis, whether it's lacrosse, whether it's soccer, obviously. How does that make you feel? Because that one kick and maybe your reaction to the kick has transformed the lives of a lot of young girls, young women in this country. How does that make you feel?

Yeah, that was a very positive, unintended consequence of making that penalty kick and that celebration. But to your point, Patrick, I think what's been happening recently with the explosion of women's professional sports is that there's just been this awakening to the fact that we have had a blank canvas. We again, Title IX was the big accelerator initially, and then compliance didn't happen all the time at the collegiate level, you know, trying to support young girls in in communities. And, you know, the the argument was always the same thing. Well, they're not interested. Well, they're not interested because you don't give them an opportunity, and so with opportunity and access becomes you know, the people will come. And we're seeing that now with, you know, I'm involved in women's professional soccer with AFC as a co-founder and minority owner. I'm in as a as a minority owner of Love Volleyball, San Francisco. I'm supporting flag football and women's hockey is coming to San Jose soon. And you know, it it's just it's growing up. And the beauty of it is also, I think, from the business side, that there they're now it's like untapped space, untapped potential. You know, it's blowing up, and and so I think people who were probably a little hesitant to get into women's sports before because it wasn't established, now have seen proof of concept.

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Yeah, that's absolutely correct. I mean, we're now seeing that in women's professional basketball with the new collective bargaining agreement, women's sports are hotter than they've ever been. That's gotta make you feel pretty darn good. Not just soccer, but women's basketball, marketability. And how about Billie Jean King? You mentioned Title IX, you gotta mention her. She's an absolute all-star, right?

We I mean, we owe so much to Billie Jean King, not only for her vigilance and her dedication to changing tennis, she just changed the the landscape so much in terms of, you know, we when we were looking for a mentor, we we went to Billie Jean. We said, How how can we change what's happening? And she said, You have to do something. And and she was right. We had to we had to make a dedicated change. We had to say we would give something up, that we would not go to the Olympic Games if U.S. soccer didn't come around to a better contract for the national team. And she she was she has been a catalyst for 70 years, like I mean 65, 65 years. She's incredible. Yes, yeah, 65 years. And the fact that she's now gone from just being a female tennis player to being a sports owner, and you know, her leadership is phenomenal. She she gives back all the time. So I'm Billie Jean is the goat of all the goats because you know, I I have to say that because when you sit on I had a the fortune of sitting on a panel once with some real some people I admire, Venus, uh Serena Williams, Tom Brady, Paul Gasol, all these champions, Marc Messier, you know, and I thought, what am I doing here? And then I was like, okay, Brandy, you you you've been in kind of these championship moments. But what was really what really struck me was I got into sports in a time when there was no structure. You know, all these other leagues that all these other players play in already existed before they came. You know, we had to build something as we were playing, and and so I think that for me maybe is what has its hooks in me and won't let me go because you know the ownership piece of sport is really meaningful for me. And to be able to continue to give access and opportunity to young girls now, especially in under-resourced communities, just is phenomenal and necessary at the same time.

So, Brandy, you've kind of answered this question already, but I'm gonna ask, what type of coach or leader are you? You just answer a word. So Coach Lombardi, right?

Uh yeah. Actually, I have that, I have his book on my on the desk when Pride Mattered. You know what? I think what I am is I'm I'm I'm passionate and I'm determined to get the details right and to instill the an empowerment to the players to be able to master the ball. And when you can master the ball, you can make all the choices you want because you will be in control and you can have your head up and you can see the field. And so I think I'm really big on the details and the technical part of the game. Learning the habits and the and kind of the the way the game ebbs and flows is something that players will learn over time. And sometimes we have to accelerate that, and sometimes we have to let it happen in real time. But I think if if if I would say there's one area that I really love, it's the technical piece. Because, again, you know, and Patrick, I hope you appreciate that because you know, in tennis, if you could, you know, serve an ace down the middle and then put one out wide, like the uh the opponent just never knows what you're going to do. And and I love that kind of mental piece that comes with technical mastery.

All right, I think we've waited long enough. We had another all-timer join us, Brandy, on Mac Daddy, the great Mike Aruzioni. So he sends his best to you. So take us through, give us that two-minute window of when you walked up to take the shot and the celebration after you made the shot. Tell us what was going through Brandi Chastain's mind for those two minutes.

Well, first and foremost, I'm going to say to Micah Rusioni, he gave me this desire to want to do that, which is to be up on the podium to represent my country. When I saw him in 1980 and that team win Miracle on Ice and the way he celebrated and he called his team to the podium, I was like, oh my gosh, that's the most powerful thing I've ever seen. I was 11 years old. I didn't ice skate, I didn't know anything about hockey, but I wanted to, I wanted to find my way to that. So he is a big, he has been an unintended motivator for me. So shout out to Mike Caruzioni. As for me, I had missed a penalty earlier in the year against China. And when I put the ball down and I stood up, the goalkeeper was right in front of me. And the only thing going through my head as I approached that ball in the Rose Bowl, some three and a half months later, was don't look at the goalkeeper. I don't want her to get that chance to get in my head again and to, you know, get me out of my zone, so to speak. And so I kept my head down. I waited for the whistle. And later she was interviewed and asked, you know, how what was going on at the penalty kick? She said nobody would look at me in the eyes. And I was like, Thank God. Because yeah, I just, you know, she she got me on the first one. She wasn't gonna get me on the second. All right. So how about the celebration? Yeah, that that was not in my head, and that was definitely not a part of the plan. There's no way to think that you're, you know, to plan for 90 minutes of scoreless, 30 more minutes of scoreless, and 120-degree heat in the Rose Bowl for the World Cup championship, and you would win by scoring the last penalty kick. So that was just as you know, in sports, the emotions that come out in moments like that are very authentic and organic, and they come because you're full of all the emotions of pride, respect of the game, gratitude to those people who got you there. You're you're excited, obviously, you're out of your mind. Like that was just all the things balled up into one, and that was the outcome.

So when you did hit it, you had that moment, right? When you took the shirt off, you had the jog bra on, you slid, you did the reaction. When did you know, aside from that moment and just winning it all, when did you know that that was going to be one of the most iconic moments in sports history?

Honestly, that was that was also never in my my head. I think actually when we went to New York about a few days after that, and Sports Illustrated presented me with the picture in a frame, and I was like, wow, like I didn't see it coming. I didn't see it coming at all. And and so that was just, and every time I see that picture, I think, how did the kid from South San Jose who had no reason to know anything about soccer, who didn't have any background in that, get to do this and be in this place for that moment? I just think, you know, I'm so fortunate and so grateful for all the people that's been in my life.

You know, Michael Ruzioni said something very interesting and similar in his journey, Brandy, that he played multiple sports. One university didn't want him. He happened to play in a pickup game in the summer. It sort of rung a bell with me. You getting cut from the national team coming back to play a different position because you'd been an attacking player. How was that transition for you? And was it a real gut check?

Oh my gosh, it was well, when when Coach Tony DeCico, who had taken over from Anson Dorrance right after the 91 World Cup, he took the 95 World Cup team to Sweden, which I was not on, and he just decided to keep the same team that Anson left him with. And when he brought me into camp, and I and I promised to my teammates I would do my best to make it back onto that team. And when he said, We want you to come back to camp, but not as Forward as a defender in that split second, of course, we could, you know, we have two paths we could go down. It could have been the this is what I do, this is who I am, this is what I believe in, I want to do this, or I can be on the team and I can get a chance to go to the Olympic Games. And I decided that the path less taken was the one for me because I wanted to be on that team so bad. And what I what I learned is that I have a lot of tools in my tool belt, and they can be used in ways that I never expected them to be used. And that's again another wonderful lesson I've learned in sport that just because you've done something one way forever doesn't mean that that's the only way it can be done. And so I I kind of most people don't like this, but I say change is my jam. I love it, I think it's great. I love to be in the ready position. I love to, you know, take on spontaneous moments and have as much fun as I can because life is way too short.

Well, you said change is your jam. So we've got some things set up for you now, some things you really can't Google. So Big Daddy liked to start off with coffee, but we know you don't drink it already. So Big Daddy, give it a go. All right.

Tell us, who's your favorite musician while you were growing up?

Oh gosh. Well, my dad and mom used to love Fleetwood Mac, so I'm kind of and I love RB, so I'm a I I would say they listen to Fleetwood Mac and the Mac in the house, so that kind of music has resonated with me.

And Fleetwood Mac is huge again. My teenage daughters are listening to it in the car, and they I said, girls, how do you know this? How do you know all these songs? They're like, Dad, TikTok. So I mean, I'm I'm way out of the loop here, but that's obvious. Fleetwood Mac is a good thing. No, no, no.

You're ahead of the you're ahead. You're ahead of the good girls.

All right, Brandy, what about your favorite place in the world? We've been lucky enough, you and I, to travel all over the world with our sports. What's your favorite place?

Gosh, that's a great question. Um, I think two of the places we've gone that I really enjoy Sydney, Australia, and the south of Portugal, the oligarch, is that both places extremely wonderful.

What's on your personal and professional bucket list? I know you've done a lot. Been a lot of places, but I really want to hear this one.

Yeah, I think my professional bucket list is to coach a national team, you know, to give back what was given to me and to help young aspiring professionals become elite national team World Cup champions. That that would be to me, that would just tie the bow on the ribbon that goes on the present. That's been the game of soccer for me. I I really feel that I have to at some point contribute in that way because too much has been given to me. On my personal side is to try to be the best parent I can be and grandparent. I have three grandkids, and wow, you know, I'm trying yet every day to be a better, to be a better parent and supportive grandparent.

All right, I know the answer to this as well, but dog or cat? Dogs.

But I I am in a friskies commercial coming up for the World Cup. So I'm now cats. I'm in both cats.

I got one. Do you sing in the shower, Brandy?

Yes, and not good. And not good.

All right, I'll finish on this, Brandy. This is such a cool story. The ball you once signed for Tobin Heath with the word dream, capitals dream. She kept it on her bedside for years and years. Of course, now she's gone on to win two World Cups, two Olympic gold medals. How does that make you feel?

You know, Tobin just showed me that ball not too long ago when the national team played. We were both there, and and she asked me to sign it again. So I did. That no, that that is, you know, as you can imagine, it's it's really life filling when some young person comes to you and says, You helped me in this way, whether that's intentionally or just by virtue of something they saw. You know, I try to be intentional every time I meet young young people, I look them in the eyes, I ask them their name, I ask them what they're doing, I ask them, I don't ask them, did they win a game? You know, I asked them how how it's going. And I really want to invest in young people. I think they need to know that there's a lot of people out there who care about them and who want them to do well. And so, you know, when Tobin showed me that ball, it it felt pretty good, I will be honest.

It should make you feel good. And I'll leave you with this, Brandy, just so you know. I want to meet you in person, would love to see your tennis game. But my brother and I both both but my brother and I both played soccer for our school, our high school, all the way through high school, even as we were competitive, highly competitive tennis players. So we love soccer and we're loving the World Cup too.

And and I think, and I understand we will play some soccer tennis when we get together. And I am sure that soccer helped the tennis footwork without a doubt.

Brandi Chastain, we so appreciate all the time you've given us. It's been an amazing conversation. We look forward to seeing you down the road. Thanks for being here.

Sounds great. Thanks, guys.

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Confident without trying too hard. Interesting the second they walk into a room. Maybe a little smoky, maybe a little dangerous, you know, effortlessly charismatic. Not everyone has that. Some people build it over time, others just born with it. I wouldn't know anything about that, of course. Go zombre. Strip away the noise.