Summer Special : Kathy Steele Decides to Put Her Career on Hold . . . at Least for a While

There are signs of a champion littered throughout the Newport Beach apartment.

A silver cup from the United States boardsailing championships, gold medals from the Pan-American and Goodwill games, and photographs spanning 10 years of boardsailing competitions--the last five on the international level.

Kathy Steele pointed out all of them, and more. There was no conceit in her voice, merely pride.

And a little fatigue.

“For 10 years, I’ve been a boardsailing junkie,” Steele said.

And after 15 United States championships, in various divisions, 4 North American titles and 2 gold medals, Steele has decided it’s time to rest on her laurels. At least for the next year.

A little cold turkey for an addiction that has kept her moving from one airport to the next, competing in as many as five events per month. Wherever the weather was warm and the wind blew.

A break from the vagabond life style that Steele said was partly responsible for the disintegration of a seven-year marriage with Scott Steele, another world-class boardsailor. A separation that brought her west.

Just some time off, which in Steele’s terms means no more than “four or five competitions in the next year.”

Some rest.

“For the last five or six years I’ve been getting off one airplane and onto another,” Steele said. “I wanted to do something different. I wanted to get a job and see how the real world works.”

After separating from her husband, Steele, 28, moved from Florida to Newport Beach in April. She took a job as an account executive for a collection agency, and began a 9-to-5 life.

She selected Southern California because the climate lends itself to year-round sailing, something that was impossible in Florida, where she said it’s too muggy in the summer, or her home in Annapolis, Md., where it’s too cold during the winter.

“Just because I have a job doesn’t mean I have to cut out all other activities,” Steele said. “I still run and sail and work eight hours. But, with sailing, it’s quality time now instead of quantity.”

What has been eliminated is the stress of constant competition.

“If I kept up that pace, I would have been burned out in a year,” she said. “There was no way I could keep going like that until 1992. This way, I’ll be able to come back to the sport with enthusiasm to carry me through 1992.”

For Steele, 1992 represents a last frontier--the Olympics. It’s the only competition she has yet to participate in and a goal that already has Steele making plans.

Steele has been successful on the international level, winning a gold medal in the 1986 Goodwill games in Moscow and another in the 1987 Pan-American games in Indianapolis. She also has competed in the world boardsailing championships four times, finishing second in 1986.

Although the 1988 Olympics in Seoul will have boardsailing as an event, men and women are in the same competition. But, the International Olympic Committee is considering splitting the competition into divisions for men and women for the 1992 games, which will be held in Barcelona, Spain.

That possibility led to Steele’s decision to forgo this year’s Olympic trials, held last week in Newport, R.I.

“Why spend the money to go to Rhode Island, when there’s nothing to be gained?” Steele said. “Boardsailing is not one of your high-profile Olympic sports, so there are few sponsors. It is better to save my money to get better equipment and try for 1992.”

Steele didn’t enter the sport with competition in mind. It just looked like fun.

“I really wasn’t big on sailing at first, my father was,” said Steele, who competed in a Trans-Atlantic race when she was 16. “When I was 11, he said we were either going to buy a camper or a sailboat. It was very diplomatic, the whole family voted and all of us except dad wanted the camper. Dad said, ‘Tough, we’re getting the sailboat.’ We hated that thing.”

For a while.

By the time she entered St. Mary’s College in Maryland in 1978, it was her favorite recreational pastime.

That is, until an October day in 1978, when she saw her first boardsailor, Scott Steele.

“I was out sailing and saw this guy on a board,” Steele said. “It looked really fun. It looked like part sailing, part gymnastics. Right then, I knew I just had to try it.”

Steele, who had been a gymnast, knew Scott Steele by sight, but had never met him. She approached him a few days later and asked for a lesson.

“The first time I tried it, I sailed out and back without falling,” she said. “Scott said I was a natural. It was real beginner’s luck, I guess.”

Steele first competed as a freestyle boardsailor, which is what she had seen Scott Steele performing. Freestyle involves acrobatics on the board while sailing. She won the world championship in 1984.

She changed to racing in 1983 and won her first competition, the U.S. Championships, in 1984. The Steeles, who were married in 1981, began competing all over the country, and their careers took off.

Scott Steele won a silver medal in yachting at the 1984 Olympics. He finished second to Stephan Van Den Berg of Holland in the windglider class. A year later, Kathy was named the women’s yachtsman of the year by a panel of writers.

“I couldn’t believe, this was something I always read about but never even considered,” Steele said. “It was the ultimate achievement.”

But, the constant travel and competition began to strain the marriage.

The Steeles often were on the road three weeks each month. There were times when they wouldn’t return for three months.

“After a while, you realize you have no home, no roots, no stability in your life,” she said. “You really don’t have a relationship.

“It’s sad, because Scott was also my best friend. In other ways it’s been good. I’ve had a chance to go out and experience new things.”

Steele has not competed since defending her U.S. championship title in February. It was the fourth time she has won the event.

Her days are spent working and sailing, for pleasure. But, the itch to compete is still there. Steele plans to go for a third straight U.S. championship title in February.

“I can’t wait to get that trophy again. You win it three straight times and you get to keep it. No one’s ever done that before. I have to check on getting some time off,” Steele said, then paused.

“Geez, here I am talking about getting time off (to compete) already.”

Seems there is no rest for the weary.