Brandi Chastain

Guy Kawasaki:
I'm Guy Kawasaki and this is Remarkable People. Today's remarkable guest is Brandi Chastain. She represents the highest level of achievement in sports. Her accomplishments are truly remarkable. She won a gold medal in the 1996 Olympics for women's soccer. She won the Women's World Cup Championships in 1991 and 1999. She was inducted into the National Soccer Hall of Fame and the Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame. She may be best remembered for her remarkable moment in the 1999 World Cup.
First, she inadvertently scored against her own goalkeeper in the game against Germany. This was the mistake. Later in the game, she tied the score. This was the redemption. Then in overtime, she won the game with the penalty kick, but wait. The best and most visually memorable part happened right after. She whipped off her jersey and waved it around her head in celebration. This was one of the greatest displays of joy in the history of sports, not just for her team, but for her country, women's soccer, and women's empowerment in general. The iconic image was on the cover of News Week and Sports Illustrated.
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I'm Guy Kawasaki and this is Remarkable People and now, here is the remarkable Brandi Chastain. What is it like to coach soccer at an all boys school?
Brandi Chastain:
I absolutely am delighted by the opportunity to coach an all-boys team in an all-boys school. I'm a mom of two boys. I should say one man and one young man, and I really get a good balance between all of the female coaching I get to do. It really keeps me in check with, am I thinking about things in the right space? What works over here? What doesn't work over here? Can I bridge the gap between the two entities and what communication style seems to work best? And you know what? They're fun. They're so fun. They're as wonderful and as sensitive and personable as my girls team, so I really enjoy coaching the boys a lot.
Guy Kawasaki:
Are there any key differences in coaching that is necessary for boys versus girls?
Brandi Chastain:
One thing I will say is that, what I noticed right away is that, the majority, and this, of course, I don't want to generalize because they're all very unique, special people in their own right, but the majority have this wonderful confidence that I wish my girls had. They come to the field with this bravado and this, "I've got this," mentality, which is spectacular, but then they sometimes hold the ball too long and then they lose the ball, and it's like, well, just share. Share. And my girls, of course, they overshare, and they don't want to step on anybody's toes. They don't want to make anybody feel like they don't fit in. They are kind of polar opposites in the general sense, but then there's people who blur the line. They fit in the middle. What I love about coaching boys or girls, men or women, is that I've come to the realization that they're all unique, and they all need special attention in their own way, and as the coach, that's my job is to figure it out.
Guy Kawasaki:
I've interviewed many female CEOs for this podcast, and almost every one of them brings up that they had to overcome the imposter syndrome, where they didn't feel like they deserved it or something like that. I think it's related to what you just said. I guarantee you, no man ever said, "I don't really deserve this raise. I don't deserve this five million dollar investment. I don't deserve this honor." Those words never passed through the lips of any man in Silicon Valley, I guarantee.
Brandi Chastain:
That's either a big burden or a wonderful gift because if you accept those moments, you have to then, live up to them, and if you don't, then you're looked upon like you don't belong, so it's interesting. I think it's a valuable piece of why sports and team sports specifically, are crucial for young girls. Having that experience of being the team leader or being the follower or being the support system, learning how to manipulate your style versus someone else's. How do you communicate on the regular? How do you resolve conflict? These are all things that, I think, because of sports, young men have culturally been able to experience, and then it's assumed. It's assumed that they understand those things and so, they're given the benefit of the doubt. We are in the process, Guy, of changing this culture, positively disrupting the space and showcasing women's sports in a light that I think, will be held parallel to our counterparts.
Guy Kawasaki:
I work for the Macintosh division. I work for Steve Jobs. I have had to explain what it's like working for Steve Jobs. Probably equal to what I'm going to ask you to do next. I want you to know that I empathize with the pain I'm going to put you through next.
Brandi Chastain:
No, it's not painful at all, to be honest with you. I'm only assuming I know what you're going to be saying but-
Guy Kawasaki:
Well, guess what? I would like you to relive three moments in the 1999 World Cup, which of course is, the mistake, the redemption, and the penalty kick.
Brandi Chastain:
Oh, these are all amazing moments, and all so different. They absolutely are connected, right?
Guy Kawasaki:
Yes.
Brandi Chastain:
They're all connected and they're necessary, and these are again, this goes to the lessons of life and why sports is so valuable. I tell my players all the time that there's not a player on this planet who is flawless, so the mistake is going to happen at some point. We'll all make them and my career leading up to that point had a lot of them. I had a lot of practice in resiliency, but I will say that... I just want to say, you didn't ask me this, but I'm going to say, of the three, the mistake was the most impactful. The mistake was the most impactful because-
Guy Kawasaki:
Why?
Brandi Chastain:
Because of what happened directly after it. If I can put you in the headspace of where I was, we're in the quarter final of the World Cup, 65 to 70,000 people screaming their heads off in a brand new stadium, no one's ever played here. Now the Washington football team plays there, and it was so exciting. It's the knockout round of the World Cup. Now, we know that the essence of the quarter final is, you win and you move on, you lose and you go home. Now, the underlying current of the whole women's World Cup was, the U.S. Women's National Team must win the World Cup to save the future of Women's soccer and girls' future. That's heavy.
Guy Kawasaki:
No pressure.
Brandi Chastain:
Yeah, no pressure. We had done a lot of practice. Honestly, the mental space, the sports psychology exercises that we had been going through since the '96 World Cup into the 1999 World Cup was absolutely paying off. This team was rock solid. We could handle moments that didn't go our way, unforeseen turns or twists. This was our wheelhouse. If we weren't already the best physically, we had exponentially jumped into this new mental mind space that I think made us even that much more difficult to play against. When this mistake happened, the ball comes over my head as the last defender on the left side, and I checked my shoulder to see where the nearest attacker was, and I saw that the German attacker was probably about 10 yards away. I said, "No problem." In my head, I'm thinking, I got it. I'm going to make a simple play. She's never going to beat me to the ball. As a defender, my job is not to be fancy in the defensive portion of the field. I'm just going to make a play back to Briana.
At the same time I was thinking that, she was thinking, I'm just going to come and get it because it's a simple play, and as I passed it, she ran out and it went past her and into the goal, and as we raced back, of course, all the oh nos, are hitting your head and probably with more expletives than that. Lots of expletives, I'm sure. And it crosses the line and you're devastated, of course, because you have a responsibility to your team and the future of women's soccer. Of course, I think initially, my head went down and then, there was my teammate, Carla Overbeck. She came over and she kind of gave this clap, and she has this clap that if I heard it, I would turn around and go, "Carla's here." I know when it's her, and she said, "Don't worry about it. We've got a lot of game to play. This is only six minutes into the game. We've got a lot of game to play. We're going to win and you're going to help us." And I was like, "All right, let's go."
Honestly, not for one second post that, very short life changing conversation did I think about that I scored a goal because what normally happens in these moments is it crushes people. It breaks their soul, it breaks their spirit. Now all of a sudden, they're thinking, I can't do it. I've lost the game. All of these negative, negative, negative things. Carla didn't let that get into my head. It really solidified the power of teams, the power that each one of us as individuals have to change someone's life. So, that mistake moment, it's my beacon. It's a story I love sharing because now we get to the redemption, which is later in that game.
I score a goal and this time for our team, thank goodness, and as we all know, we go onto win that game because we advance through to the final. That redemption goal, even though I wasn't thinking redemption, what makes that moment to me so special and quite spectacular in it's own right is that, you have to be ready and you have to have that mental capacity to be ready for a moment like that. Just like Carla, she didn't think she was going to change my life that day. She didn't get up in the morning and say, "I'm going to change someone's life," but she was ready to do that. Just like my job was not to score a goal, but I put myself in a position to score a goal and follow through.
Guy Kawasaki:
After Brandi told me this story and how Carla supported her, I reach out to Carla. Here she is.
Carla Overbeck:
Here we were in the quarter finals. The World Cup is in our own country and there were 80,000 people in the stands and millions watching on TV, and just the magnitude of the game in itself gave us so much pressure, and when that happened, when Brandi and Bri had this miscommunication and she kicked it into our own goal, I just know that if I were in her position, I would've been beating myself up and I'm not sure I could've ever recovered from that, so I wanted to make sure that I was the first one that got to her, just so she could see a smiling face and one of reassurance that, we will be okay. I think that's what I told her, I just said, "You have to forget about it. We will be fine." And then, I said, "We're going to win this fucking game." Sorry for the language.
Guy Kawasaki:
There you have it from Carla Overbeck. That's what teammates do for each other. By the way, Carla is a remarkable person, too. She won four NCAA Women's Soccer Championships at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She was All-American three times. She won an Olympic gold medal in 1996 and a silver medal in 2000. She won two gold medals in the Women's World Cup 1991 and 1999, and a bronze in 1995. Back to Brandi.
Brandi Chastain:
I think that redemption was self-fulfilling because you have to be able to be willing to have that redemptive moment, and I think sometimes, when we beat ourselves up about the mistake, we don't allow ourselves to get into that space. Then the last and the final, of course, the penalty kick, which again, I never saw coming. I really thought that game would end in regulation at some point and it nearly did in overtime when Kristine Lilly jumped her 5'3 body behind Briana Scurry to clear the ball as it almost crossed the line off a corner kick header by China, and then we cleared the ball and the game went on and that was really a catalyst for us winning because I think if you can bend and not break, you can achieve the victories that you're looking for, and that's really what happened.
The PKs, I don't say this flippantly, were easy. They were easy at that point because we had gone through this game and we hadn't broken and we stayed together and every kick, and then Briana's save on the third player was so great that there was no doubt in my head for one second that we would win in this penalty kick situation. The going up to the ball was, don't look at the goalkeeper because earlier in the year, she had psyched me out. She totally pulled a Jedi mind trick on me, and I had a penalty kick in one of our earlier games in Portugal, and as I put the ball down and looked up, she was standing in front of me and it was like, two boxers in the ring. I'd never experienced that before and I felt like I shook it off but then I guess I didn't, and I ended up hitting the crossbar, the ball went out and we lost the game, and I was like, that is not happening again. No way. So, the celebration I think, was what I love about sports, which is this unabridged, uninhibited, genuine, organic moment that was just born of this, maybe this life's journey of playing the game, but also, for sure, the journey just during the World Cup and to see it through with 90,000 plus people at the Rose Bowl was phenomenal.
Guy Kawasaki:
There was no forethought, if I score I'm going to-
Brandi Chastain:
Oh gosh, no.
Guy Kawasaki:
... rip off my jersey.
Brandi Chastain:
No. I think herein lies another reason why I believe sports is so incredibly important is, the coach came to me in the end of '95 and said, when I wasn't on the team and I was trying to make my way back. I had a great camp and he said, "We want you on the team." Oh gosh, Guy, I was so excited because having been on the World Cup team in '91 and then missing the '95 World Cup team because I was cut, was devastating as a player. As a person, I had a journey to go on. Who am I? What does this mean? Where does in the rank and file of importance in my life and so, I had to do a lot of soul searching, and a lot of hard physical work because I wanted to be there.
When I got to that place, and now we're standing on the field, and the coach came up to me, and I went from being a forward to a defender, which they're opposite side of the field, opposite responsibilities, having to recreate myself, the coach comes up to me before we go out to the penalty kicks and he says, "Okay, you're going to take a kick," and I said, "Yep, I got it. No problem. I talked to the assistant coach, we chatted about it. It's all good." He says, "Okay, but you're going to take it with your left foot," and then he left, really fast. He didn't want it to be a discussion. It was a comment. It was a point. Luckily, I think we were all so exhausted that you're not spending any time overthinking anything anymore. The time for that was done. This was now just, do the things that you know how to do in the instinctive way you know how to do them. Even though I'd never taken a penalty kick with my left foot in a game before, how about that?
Guy Kawasaki:
Yes.
Brandi Chastain:
He trusted and he believed, and I think that trust and belief, like Carla had in me in the quarter final game, it really wore off on me and I think that's why, being a good manager or a good owner or a good coach matters because you really have a chance to put some positivity out to your employees or your players in a way that really can impact your life.
Guy Kawasaki:
Do you think that what was going through his head was, you're telling the Chinese goalkeeper that I can beat you with my weak foot?
Brandi Chastain:
Hey, I never thought about it that way, but here's the truth. During that World Cup, our practices were all open, so anybody could come. So, China could've been at our practice and I would suspect that they were because if it was open, why wouldn't you go? I think he was a tad bit worried that maybe they had been watching, so even in training, he would make sure that we kicked with both feet, we kicked to all places in the goal, and then on that day, it was just do what you do, except for Brandi, you kick it left foot.
Guy Kawasaki:
No pressure. No extra pressure. Big picture, with hindsight, what did that World Cup mean to you, to women in the country?
Brandi Chastain:
Well, I think now that we're 20 plus years away, it's certain becoming more emphatic, the meaning about the power and the presence of women in sports. Though that was not the intention, I think sometimes again, the celebration being this organic moment, that's when we see the true light. When we see things in their purest form, we get to examine them for what they really are, and I think that '99 game was examined in a way that people started thinking, oh my gosh, this is something that young girls and women can do. Obviously, we're in a stadium of 90,000 plus people. There's people who enjoy it. This thing is for real. I think big picture wise, it's one of the stepping stones, like a Billie Jean King. Big-
Guy Kawasaki:
When she beat Bobby Riggs?
Brandi Chastain:
Bobby Riggs. Just one of those moments that you think about or that has happened that you can't deny it. You can't deny it and the argument is, not for less, it's for more. We want to see more of that. I think the shear confidence, maybe the shedding of the shirt was a, here we are. We're unapologetic for being here, and see us for who we are in these moments, and how meaningful these moments are. I talk to people of all ages, Guy. It could be 10 year olds to 80 year olds and everybody in between, men, female, trans, whatever you are, or they are, and they come to me with a different story of how it impacted them, which I think is also very crucial because we all see things differently, and we're all impacted in different ways, so big picture, I think absolutely catalyst to a movement, not an intentional action, which I think maybe has endeared itself to it's perpetual existence.
Guy Kawasaki:
Did any organization or group criticize you for partial nudity? I don't know.
Brandi Chastain:
No, there was def-
Guy Kawasaki:
What did they say?
Brandi Chastain:
This is so great. I'm glad that you brought up this question because I think it pertains to what we're all experiencing in the world right now. There's belief systems, there's political parties, it could be gender, race, whatever it is. There always seems to be people who want to divide things, and I would say 99% of the comments were like, "Wow, that was an amazing moment. I've never seen a moment like that. I was present for the game. I wasn't present for the game, but I watched it on television," or "Now I've seen it via YouTube only," and "Wow, this is the impact it's having." Now, there were some people who said, "You totally blew it. You've sexualized sports for women. You totally took a moment that was sports related and now you've done X, Y, and Z." Initially, it kind of stopped me in my tracks and then I realized, what a great opportunity this is to have a conversation, because if someone doesn't believe or see the things that you believe or see, doesn't mean that their beliefs and their things aren't important, or aren't valid, and that you should listen to them. Maybe we can bridge the gap of the divide that separates us.
I would listen and I would give my, "Here's what was happening in the moment. Here was the non-intentional experience that I," it was like an out of body experience. I didn't say I was going to do that. Never did I ever think I would be scoring the winning goal in the World Cup anyway, so how do you prepare for that? I think that's where you got to start to say, now you know it's authentic, because as a defender that was not my responsibility primarily, but I loved having those conversations because then I would say to the person, "Come to our practice. Come and see what it's like to be on the Women's National Team. Watch the body of work that's put in and you will see that this isn't about sexualizing sport or shaming women or any of those things. This is really about the grit and the drive and the determination and then, the celebration of a job well done."
Guy Kawasaki:
Well, Brandi, you're a better person than me because I wouldn't have had a two word conversation with anybody who told me that, and you don't want to know what the two words would be, but I think you can guess. Getting on a little lighter subject here, what's your reaction to Landon Donovan's tribute?
Brandi Chastain:
Oh yeah. I think mimicry is the best form of a compliment. Minus his hair color at the time, I think he had also, he might've had his hair dyed some ghastly yellow color, but as a San Jose native and Landon playing for the San Jose Earthquakes at the time, I honestly felt that it was a shout out. It was a great moment, but because he planned it, I even think it was even deeper of a meaning. He understood the magnitude of that moment and I think he was willing... I think there's a part humorous component that I think a lot of people might find funny, which me too, I've got a great sense of humor, I feel, and I could laugh like, "Oh my gosh, he just did that." But then, the deeper meaning to me was that, I think he really appreciated what the women's national team did and stood for, and he scored some big goals in his career to that point, but I think he scored some of the biggest goals maybe even post that moment. So, I think he could appreciate it.
Guy Kawasaki:
This is a semi-serious question. Do you think that taking off your jersey should now be a yellow card offense.
Brandi Chastain:
No, God. No, and I believe-
Guy Kawasaki:
What a surprise.
Brandi Chastain:
No, and I believe this for all sports. I think it's hard to know where to draw the line in the sand, between excessive celebration on every play or allowing what is so great about sports, which are these triumphant moments. We all love the agony, the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. We thrive on that as sports viewers. To kind of deny that from happening, with all the time VAR takes up now in sport, you should let people celebrate as far as I'm concerned. That doesn't seem congruent.
Guy Kawasaki:
With all the time, what's VAR?
Brandi Chastain:
Oh, that's the video replay.
Guy Kawasaki:
Oh, okay.
Brandi Chastain:
In soccer now, they replay every potential goal scoring moment and goal. So, now there's this pause that happens, which doesn't allow for these moments to really blossom, which is really too bad.
Guy Kawasaki:
While we're on that subject because I really don't understand this, what's with all the drama? What's with all the drama where you're flopping on the ground, like you just got crippled, and then 30 seconds later, you're back. What is that about? I don't understand that.
Brandi Chastain:
I don't know if we have enough time here, but I'll try to give some kind of an explanation.
Guy Kawasaki:
Okay.
Brandi Chastain:
How do you start this conversation? Partly, you have to start by knowing that soccer is a game of deception and it's a game of territory. So, you want to invade the other team's territory so that you can score, and to do that, you have to deceive them and attract their attention, all the while knowing that maybe you're going to do the action over here, and the ability to outwit your opponent in a one-on-one moment as well is highly valued. Deception is a part of it. The rules are the rules, but the referee has to enforce the rules, and if you are quite good at deception, you can make someone believe something that's almost like magic, which is you weren't fouled but you were so good that you got a whistle anyway. I shouldn't say the best, Julie Foudy used to call me Hollywood because I could get a foul like that, but the art of deception in soccer is crucial because if you telegraph every play, the likelihood of you getting the end result is pretty low. That's why if you look at, culturally, across the board, you look at the South Americans, the Brazils, the Argentinas, they're phenomenal. They are phenomenal. They love it. They have a flare for the dramatic. They have taken it to exponential heights, but it's also too much. There's a fine line between, you're ruining the game and you're influencing the game.
Guy Kawasaki:
Okay.
Brandi Chastain:
That's where I'm going to leave it.
Guy Kawasaki:
Okay.
Brandi Chastain:
How does that sound?
Guy Kawasaki:
Well, I'm also a big hockey fan and if somebody tried to do that in hockey, they would be laughed out of the NHL. It would last.
Brandi Chastain:
It's very much interesting because if you look at the NBA, I think there's a very big influence now of soccer on basketball because a lot of the players now, playing in the NBA are international players. They have a big influence of soccer or football in their lives. I think that quotient of flopping has gone up because everybody wants to pretend they're shooting so that they get two free throws or they want the foul. They want to get the other team into some kind of peril because then that's one less foul they can give up and they have to let them maybe go to the basket. I think there's a lot of gamesmanship. I would call it gamesmanship. There's a lot of gamesmanship. What's the gamesmanship in hockey? It used to be beating the crap out of each other, but now you can't do that anymore.
Guy Kawasaki:
There's not too much flopping in hockey, but anyway. Just while I notice, is that the bra over your right shoulder?
Brandi Chastain:
Yes sir. That is it.
Guy Kawasaki:
Yeah?
Brandi Chastain:
Yeah. That's it.
Guy Kawasaki:
I'll take a screenshot of that. Last question about 1999.
Brandi Chastain:
Okay.
Guy Kawasaki:
Did Phil Knight call you up and thank you for the exposure and for winning it for the USA, and making women's sports cool?
Brandi Chastain:
Oh gosh.
Guy Kawasaki:
No?
Brandi Chastain:
No. The answer's no, directly no. I think it's funny that you say, "Enhancing." Did you say enhancing?
Guy Kawasaki:
Yeah.
Brandi Chastain:
Previously, I had been working with Nike, so I think they were satisfied that my small contract with them was sufficient.
Guy Kawasaki:
I would say, per dollar, that's the best contract in the history of sports.
Brandi Chastain:
But I wish we had done something bigger post that. We worked together for a long time. I really actually enjoy my relationship with Nike. I wish it would be a lifetime because there's a lot of things that we can do going forward, but I think in terms of what they have given to women's soccer, it's been significant and their continual support is really great. Again, I don't give Phil Knight a hard time because he's got bigger fish to fry than Brandi Chastain, but I have had some significant relationships in terms of awareness and being asked to come back to Nike and to campus, and to be involved in programs out there, so I want to keep that bridge solidly built.
Guy Kawasaki:
Okay, okay. I can read between the lines, okay. Back then, who did you-
Brandi Chastain:
Don't say back then like it was so long ago.
Guy Kawasaki:
Okay, okay, all right.
Brandi Chastain:
No, no, I'm kidding. No, it's okay. It was. It was a long time ago.
Guy Kawasaki:
I worked in the Macintosh division 1984, so you were prob-
Brandi Chastain:
Oh, yes.
Guy Kawasaki:
Yeah, you were barely born.
Brandi Chastain:
No, I love you.
Guy Kawasaki:
Who did you look up to as your heroes back then?
Brandi Chastain:
In sport?
Guy Kawasaki:
Well, in anything, but in sports first.
Brandi Chastain:
I would say in sports, most of the role models that I saw were people that my dad watched, so it was NFL football, it was baseball. My mom loved tennis, so really Billie Jean King and Chrissy Evert, even though we're not that far apart in our ages, I think that was seminal time for me to see athletes and really, it was only individual athletes that I could see on the women's side. I thought I would play in the NFL because I saw that on television and I loved playing football, so my godfather, my mom's uncle, was an old time NFL player with the leather helmets, and so I assumed because I liked football, I would play football. Why wouldn't I?
Guy Kawasaki:
Really?
Brandi Chastain:
Yeah, why not? In sixth grade, I remember playing flag football for the first time and I was the defensive end, and I chased down the quarterback and I'd pull the flags and I loved it. I thought that was phenomenal. And then, as I got every year older I realized, there were no girls that were playing NFL. The Steelers were my team at the time. Then of course, now, my beloved 49ers because I'm a native to the Bay area and I'm a big hometown team fan and so that leads me to, probably the one who had the most influence on me in sports, was George Best, when he came to play for the San Jose Earthquakes from Manchester United. I think if you asked the soccer purists top five players, maybe top 10 players in the world ever, he would make that list. He just played the game so effortlessly and so gracefully. He would slither his way through five, six, seven players in a 10 by 10 spot, and then he'd score a goal and he'd do it with a smile on his face, and I just thought, I'm going to do that. That is phenomenal. His game was a big influence on me.
And then I think the biggest person, Guy, in all honesty, was my mom, because she didn't grow up in the Title IX era. She wasn't encouraged to play sports but she had an incredible resiliency, an amazing love of all people, open arms to everybody, and she found her way into a vice-president position at a temporary service employment company where she worked with IBM and Hewlett Packard, like you said, in the 80s, and she wore a suit to work and she was the boss. Not only just being the boss, but I had people all the time come to me, Guy, and say, "Your mom got me the first job and she believed in me and I can't thank her enough." She's been passed away now for gosh, almost 20 years, and people still will come to me and say, "Your mom was so influential in my life. She really saw something in me that I never saw in myself." So without sitting me down and say, "Hey, here's the lesson, young lady." She just lived by example. She was a great person, a wonderful role model, hardworking. No one ever told her she could be some kind of big executive person, and she did.
Guy Kawasaki:
You brought up Title IX and Title IX was not so much about sports but it was about discrimination in general, but one of the applications was of course, giving women more opportunity to play in sports. What do you think the impact has been of Title IX.
Brandi Chastain:
Oh, I don't even know if I'm eloquent or adept enough to explain the impact. I think it's hugely profound in whether that's in a physical sense of just creating more physical opportunities to be on fields, whether that's on the emotional, mental side of just the belief that you belong. Here, I'm going to give you a little numbers so that maybe you can see. Let's say, 1996 we win the Olympic games for the first time. Women's soccer had never been in the Olympics before. Now all of a sudden, you have this platform and USOC is great. They have ambassador programs and they send athletes into different places around the country. You're preaching women's soccer in these little communities, and it's like, oh, we have 1,000 girls playing, which a thousand girls, that's a lot. Awesome. Keep up the good work. Keep going, girls. Excellent.
1999 happens, and I go back to the same community that had a thousand girls and 1999 happens, and they had 10,000 girls sign up, which I don't even know if they thought they had 10,000 girls living in this area, in this very rural South Dakota neighborhood. If we went from a thousand to 10,000 in a place like South Dakota, imagine where we have these populous states with big metropolitan areas and then, the sheer numbers of young girls that are playing. It was mind blowing and Title IX of course, is the support or the foundation to this happening because the players on the 1999 team were absolutely born of the Title Ix movement. Michelle Akers, myself, Joy Fawcett, Carla Overbeck, we were all born before 1972.
It wasn't about sports. It was about education. That anything that the government would spend its money on had to be equally distributed, and since sports fell under education, sports was a recipient as a byproduct. It really was about educating the whole person, gaining opportunity to all these experiences that existed and it absolutely, 100 percent, unequivocally changed the landscape of the United States, and I think, potentially, I'm saying this because I believe it to be true, has changed the globe, because now these women who have Title IX as their foundation are influencing things outside of these communities that we live in here. It's changing the way that women see themselves, whether that be in an equality space, whether that be in a gender space, whether that be in a payment space, whether that be in the business arena, or sports, whatever it is.
Guy Kawasaki:
And yet, there are people who say that by giving women equal shots in sports, it has caused the decline and closure of some men's sports because there just wasn't budget for both, to which my response would be, "Tough shit." Honestly.
Brandi Chastain:
Well, my response is that it's not because of women's sports, it's because of the organizations that are handling those finances where they choose to put their money. I'll give you an example. Again, I told you, I love football. College football is a money sucker. It's a lot of people, a lot of resources. Now, why is it necessary for any football team to take their players and put them in a hotel the night before a home game and spend whatever it is that they spend on hotel and food away from their homes where they would be eating and sleeping? That's a cost. That probably could, for a year, could sustain men's wrestling.
Guy Kawasaki:
Yes.
Brandi Chastain:
It's a choice.
Guy Kawasaki:
One night, you mean? Yeah.
Brandi Chastain:
Yes. It's a choice.
Guy Kawasaki:
Yes.
Brandi Chastain:
It could be one night. It could be a whole season, but those are decisions athletic directors are making. Obviously, we're talking at the collegiate level. Those are in-house decisions that university's athletic directors are making and sometimes there is a suffering that happens. It's not because of women's sports. It's because of decisions of where to put your resources.
Guy Kawasaki:
If you were playing today-
Brandi Chastain:
Yeah.
Guy Kawasaki:
Would you kneel during the National Anthem?
Brandi Chastain:
Oh God, I didn't know we were going to go there.
Guy Kawasaki:
You can say you don't want to answer.
Brandi Chastain:
No. I think it's a very valuable conversation, and I go back and forth. My father and my two grandfathers were in the military and I have always put my hand over my heart and sung the National Anthem, and I believed that we did live in a country of the free and the brave. I feel that I've been educated about the inequality. I knew it as a woman, and then I knew it as a woman in sports, and I subconsciously knew it on a race component or level, but maybe I just didn't know it to what degree, and I can see the difficulty in standing for that. Like the conversation I had with the people that maybe thought that what I did was detrimental to women's sports, I can look at the other side and say, maybe standing it detrimental because we're forgetting to appreciate what everybody is going through, not just what I'm going through. It's hard for me to answer 100 percent whether I would stand or whether I would kneel. I've had many conversations with friends, Black friends, Hispanic friends, and I'm continuing to try to learn.
Guy Kawasaki:
Let's say you won the World Cup or the Olympics in the past-
Brandi Chastain:
I did. We don't have to say-
Guy Kawasaki:
Well, no, wait, wait. Let me finish.
Brandi Chastain:
Oh, sorry. Okay, sorry, sorry, sorry.
Guy Kawasaki:
During the last four or five years, and you were invited to the White House, would you have gone?
Brandi Chastain:
Oh. Here's what I said to some people about Megan Rapinoe. Here's what I said, and I guess then, I would say, "Yes." For this reason, for the same reason I gave you before, which is the same thing I would say to Megan, which we haven't had this conversation, which is, "Go there." Go there and express your opinion to the person who you feel is giving you the most conflict and have a conversation, face to face, because perhaps that will close the gap. Now, maybe the bigger statement in her opinion was, not going, is her statement. She's entitled to that. Me, I guess I feel like I want to have the conversation. The only way to have the conversation is face to face. Again, I might not like the comments. I might not agree with them, but I think showing up sometimes is as impactful as not showing up.
Guy Kawasaki:
Okay. Plus, you get all the free Big Macs you can [inaudible 00:46:55]. Is the donation of your brain to medical research still on?
Brandi Chastain:
Yes, it's still on.
Guy Kawasaki:
What about heading?
Brandi Chastain:
I'm going to keep it for the time.
Guy Kawasaki:
What about heading?
Brandi Chastain:
Yeah, heading is a great conversation. Again, this is one of those touchy subjects because the purist in me, heading's a part of the game, but the realist in me understands that we didn't know the science that we know now and we should listen to science because it's offering valuable information. The science to me says that our young players are more vulnerable than our older, more mature, more seasoned athletes. I should help protect those young players so that they can matriculate to being that older, lifelong soccer player, and I feel that it's up to the coaches and the club directors, the NGOs to protect its most valuable asset, which is the people. If we know that heading is potentially dangerous, then let's just raise the age level, because ultimately, we want the ball on the ground anyway. We want the ball on the ground. We want to be able to keep control of the ball. When we put the ball into the air, there's a percentage of doubt as to what's going to happen. Do you and I read the play the same and if we don't, what's that collision going to look like? It's not always that it's the heading part that becomes the issue, now it's the mismanagement of time and space and awareness that creates some kind of collision, but we can mitigate that I think, a little bit by, influencing the age and protecting our players.
Guy Kawasaki:
Equal pay. Why?
Brandi Chastain:
Yes, please.
Guy Kawasaki:
Why would there not be equal pay?
Brandi Chastain:
Yeah, why? I don't know. I don't know why there wouldn't be but-
Guy Kawasaki:
It's the same people who are putting the football team in the Hyatt Regency the night before the game, isn't it?
Brandi Chastain:
I'm not really sure why. I don't know why, but here's what I do know. There's solutions out there. There's going to be solutions like, just women's sports, which is going to alter the paradigm that's happening right now. 96% of the digestible content out there is on men's sports. 96%. Four percent on the women's side and we have millions of girls, just in soccer, in the soccer space. Young girls playing soccer and then, as we matriculate in college and adult soccer and then professional soccer, those numbers jump. We know that, that exists in soccer, so it exists in basketball, it exists in other places. We know that, I think the number is, I was just having this conversation today. I wish I had the deck in front of me talking about the billions of dollars that are spent in sports and how many of those dollars are spent by women? Very significant. We know that there's interest. That was one of the misnomers about Title IX was, oh, there's just not interest of girls. They don't want to play.
Guy Kawasaki:
Right.
Brandi Chastain:
Well-
Guy Kawasaki:
Of course, those are men saying that.
Brandi Chastain:
Yes, and this is the same. In this argument, too, is oh, there's just not that much interest. It's not true. It's not true, and women are by far, the majority spender of the household items, and yet, most of the commercials during sports are drawn up for male consumption. It's strange.
Guy Kawasaki:
Could we draw a line from Patsy Mink and Title IX to 1999 World Cup to equal pay someday?
Brandi Chastain:
100%. Patsy Mink, for sure. Billie Jean King, as the driver, I think the conduit from that early stage to '99 because she was such a heavy influencer of our team, a huge sounding board for negotiations for contracts and what we should be thinking about instead of being present and only wanting what was good for the present, but what was going to be good for the future, she was a huge influence, and I said this before and I'll say it until I don't have to say it any longer, I'm tired of this conversation. I'm exhausted by this equal pay. Maybe it's been rhetoric in the past and now I'm just, we should be here. The fact that someone's saying, "Oh, the 2019 Women's World Cup team is talking about equal pay." I'm like, "Are you kidding? We've been talking about this for 30 years," but it's time to stop talking about it. It's time for it to be a thing of the past, and I believe that there are so many amazing, influential women now in positions of power, in the C-suites, and in sports that I don't think we want to take over the world. I think we want to deliver our potential, and I think we understand now that our potential is greater than it's ever been.
Guy Kawasaki:
Pretend a young girl is listening to this episode and she wants to be the top of her sport, the top of her field, academic, sport, whatever it is. What's your advice?
Brandi Chastain:
Number one, I would say, "Congratulations for making such a bold statement because now comes the hard stuff, which is the actions," but when you put it out there, I think you're making a statement to the world, but also to yourself, that I'm going to take steps to go forward. For me, it's find the thing that you love and you're passionate about, and then be unapologetic in the amount of time you spend doing it. People say, "What did you sacrifice?" I say, "Nothing." I didn't sacrifice anything. Did I go to every dance? No. Did I play in all the soccer games I wanted to? Probably, I would've loved more, but I chose those things, and those are the things that led me to this conversation. They're the things that fulfilled my interest level or it peaked my competitiveness. Those were choices I made, not a sacrifice at all. I would say to that young girl, "Do not overlook the details. The details matter, and though they might not make the highlight reel, though they may only be seen by you, those are the ones that are going to get you to the place that you want to be."
Guy Kawasaki:
Okay, here comes this episode's remarkable moment. It is brought to you by the sponsor of the Remarkable People podcast, the Remarkable Tablet Company. In this moment, I ask each guest when he or she does her best and deepest thinking. The Remarkable Tablet helps you do your best and deepest thinking because it's a single purpose device. It is for taking notes. It is not an iPad. It doesn't let you check your email, check social media, and do all the other things that defocus you. Now, here's Brandi Chastain about her best and deepest thinking.
When do you do your deepest thinking?
Brandi Chastain:
Mmm. It's very hard because I just started getting into this book right here called, When.
Guy Kawasaki:
Daniel Pink. Yes, he's the man.
Brandi Chastain:
Have you read it? Have you read this?
Guy Kawasaki:
I read his other works, that's for sure.
Brandi Chastain:
This one is talking about a study done on what part of the day are we the most impactful or where do we find these lulls in the day, and they did it with groups of women. They did it with other populations, and somehow, around the world globally, there was this confluence of early morning was high, midday low, up and it's across the board. I'm kind of an unusual person. I'm a late night, early morning, which probably I should get more sleep. I've been told that sleep is very valuable.
Guy Kawasaki:
Doesn't that just mean you're a mom?
Brandi Chastain:
Fair enough. Maybe so. I do my best thinking, maybe late at night. Late at night when it's quiet, when everybody else is sleeping, or when I'm doing exercise like on my bike right here, when ideas come into my head. But I would also say, Guy, I would also say, there's for me, I think, another component of that answer is when I have good conversations with people like you. Your questions or our conversation make me think, am I in the right place? Have I really examined standing for the National Anthem? Have I really examined what's the influence of 1999 picture? I think those are moments that I should say are the most valuable, talking with people.
Guy Kawasaki:
I lied, I have one more question. Where do you keep your gold medals?
Brandi Chastain:
Well, I have one in the drawer, because I take it places, and the other one right now, as you can see behind me, so you see that, see the moment.
Guy Kawasaki:
Yeah, okay. Wait, I got to point you, too.
Brandi Chastain:
Right there, but right behind it, that's the first gold medal, and the reason why it's behind these other things is because I just got the walls painted and now I have to put them back up on the walls. The first one is framed and the other one goes with me places because I love sharing it. I remember the first Olympics where I was really cognizant of a championship team, and that was the 1980 men's hockey team, and when I saw Phil Eruzione and his team step up onto the podium, and they received their gold medals, and they had that big American flag behind them, that was really powerful. I thought, I want to do that but I wonder what that feels like. So, that first time you get that medal put over your head and it falls, it's substantial. It's heavier than you think. I love sharing that with people. That for me, is so fun. It goes places. It used to get the beep, beep, beep at the airport and then, they'd have to take it out and examine it and-
Guy Kawasaki:
No.
Brandi Chastain:
Yeah.
Guy Kawasaki:
No.
Brandi Chastain:
Yeah.
Guy Kawasaki:
Did people want to take selfies with it from TSA?
Brandi Chastain:
Yeah, and I'm up for that all the time. The medal belongs to everybody. Absolutely.
Guy Kawasaki:
Post-pandemic, you and I and John will have to get together. We'll take you surfing.
Brandi Chastain:
Oh, see. Now, he asked me about that. I said, "I am happy to cheer you on from," I was going to say the sideline, but I'll cheer you on from the cliff. I know where you guys surf. That's crazy.
Guy Kawasaki:
Why would you not try it?
Brandi Chastain:
This is my funny answer and my serious answer all in the same. I respect mother nature.
Guy Kawasaki:
Okay, so do we.
Brandi Chastain:
She is powerful.
Guy Kawasaki:
Okay. We believe that. We're in sync.
Brandi Chastain:
I don't know if I have the skills to take her on, on a surfboard with a powerful wave.
Guy Kawasaki:
Brandi, if you can take a penalty kick with your left foot in the World Cup, I guarantee you, you can surf.
Brandi Chastain:
Okay, let me tell you the truth. I hate being cold and-
Guy Kawasaki:
We got wetsuits.
Brandi Chastain:
Yeah, and I said, "But I know how cold the water is in Santa Cruz. That is not warm, even with a wetsuit on."
Guy Kawasaki:
It is.
Brandi Chastain:
But my toes get so cold, Guy.
Guy Kawasaki:
Booties. You are not going to come up with a reason that I'm going to accept. Why don't you just face it.
Brandi Chastain:
I feel that's true.
Guy Kawasaki:
I will let you know if I get Brandi Chastain into the water, the cold water, with a wetsuit on a surfboard. If you have a chance, Google Brandi Chastain, 1999 World Cup, and watch her celebration. It's worth the effort. My thanks to John Conway, proprietor of the Com Cam, the finest surfing camera in Santa Cruz. He made this interview possible. My thanks to Jeff C. and Peg Fitzpatrick, who produced another remarkable podcast. Someday, I'm going to get the two of them into the water, too, and that will be an event. I'm Guy Kawasaki and this is Remarkable People, and for the umpteenth time, let me tell you, please, wear a mask. Avoid crowds, wash your hands, and get vaccinated. Aloha and mahalo.
This is Remarkable People.