Riley Keeps Rolling Despite Disappointment

Dawn Riley’s OK about this. In the scheme of things, she’s quick to point out, the end of the world is not at hand.

Not even close.

Riley, a pitman, is vying to become the first woman to compete in the finals of an America’s Cup campaign in the modern era. If she does, she’ll likely do it coming off the bench. America 3 ringleader Bill Koch recently announced the syndicate’s A and B squads, and Riley, 27, is on the B team.

A day after roll call, Riley said she needed a couple of days for the sting to wear off, but she had already put the decision in perspective.

“It was like, ‘Hey, quit bumming,’ ” she said. “I have to hold out the thought that it’s not over till it’s over. What’s really important anyway? I could walk across the street today, get hit by a car and be paralyzed.”

Only her senses were numbed when she arrived at base camp for routine crew work early one evening and heard the lineups. Koch has kept everyone--insiders included--playing a continuous personnel guessing game. This decision was no different.

“We didn’t expect it to be for a while,” said Riley, who added that the timing was bad only “for the people who weren’t picked.”

No explanations accompanied the announcement, which Riley, a Detroit native, said was just as well.

“At the time, (explanations) don’t help,” she said. “Absolutely, it’s disappointing. Very disappointing, even. Afterward, we just went out and cleaned the boat.”

Scrubbing and sailing boats has provided years of adventure for Riley, a 1986 graduate of Michigan State. She started racing at 13; she took her first family sailing trip when she was four weeks old, and she can’t remember a time when she wasn’t up to her ears in water.

That’s where she needs to be. Involved. For her, there’s no comparison between watching a race and being in one.

“I’m a competitor,” she said. “I like doing. I don’t like watching.”

Which was what her family was doing, watching television, when they heard the crews of A3 announced. Riley herself found out shortly before the phones started ringing.

As encouraging as they tried to be, hugs don’t translate well via Ma Bell.

Said Riley, “How much can your mom say over the telephone anyway?”

Particular attention has been paid Riley because she is the rarest of breeds--a woman playing in this men’s game. That sometimes gives her the kind of attention and pressure she’d just as soon avoid.

“I stand out in a crowd, definitely. Sometimes I feel like I’m under a microscope,” she said, adding that her peers haven’t drawn any gender lines. “The guys on the team are great. They treat me just like anyone else.”

That includes Boss Koch, the man who will determine if she’ll become the first known woman to sail in a defenders’ final, and possibly the championship regatta.

“This had nothing to do with being female,” Riley emphasized. “Some people may think that, but this is the America’s Cup. The competition is so close, there’s so much talent here to begin with. It’s not like I’m the only one this happened to. There are 15 guys that didn’t make it either.”

America 3 executive vice president David Rosow hammered home the depth of the crew’s talent at a media briefing.

“That’s why it was so hard for Bill to choose,” Rosow said. “The men and the woman on both sailing crews are extraordinary. They’re both A teams as far as we’re concerned. They both would stand up to any crew out there.”

And since every day brings to light new scenarios and surprises in Koch’s camp, crew assignments aren’t exactly etched in stone. Riley holds out hope that the A team still within reach.

“You can never quit because you never know what’s going to happen,” she said. “I truly believe that if you work hard and try your best, things will work out.”

She paused.

“Besides, you know how things change around here.”

As they did Monday. There Riley was, on the A team in Kanza’s shootout against Stars & Stripes.

Sue Maffei Plowden, the syndicate’s press liaison, said it’s hard to analyze what Riley’s participation Monday means long term, or even tomorrow.

“The other guy may have had a bad day over the weekend, maybe the (wind) conditions were to her favor. It’s hard to tell,” Plowden said.

Just as Riley will never know if there was something she did, or didn’t do, that lowered her odds of starting for A3.

“There are so many variables involved,” she said. “It could just be timing. Heck, maybe it was the way I blew my nose.”

On deck for Riley is another stab at the Whitbread Round-the-World race, a 32,000-mile sailing marathon held every four years. In 1989-90, Riley was the only American on an all-female Whitbread crew.

For the past two months, Riley has been holding 5 a.m. conference calls with a New York-based firm helping her raise money for the 1993-94 effort, which will be co-ed this time.

But for now, her vision is on this challenge and her role in it.

“I’m really too immersed in this to think a lot about anything else,” she said. “This is the priority.”