Racing Ahead : Shelley Beattie Uses True Grit to Land Spot on First All-Female America’s Cup Team

Viewers of the “American Gladiators” television show probably look on Shelley Beattie with envy. As “Siren,” one of the show’s muscular competitors who battle contestants in feats of strength and skill, she seemingly has it all--the physique of a champion bodybuilder, the looks to attract an audience and the determination to be a success.

Now Beattie, a Malibu resident, is turning heads on the sailing circuit. Despite having no previous sailing experience, she has secured a spot on the first all-female sailing team to compete for yacht racing’s pinnacle--the 144-year-old America’s Cup.

She will be aboard America3, one of three U.S. yachts entered in the competition, which gets under way Jan. 12 in San Diego. She has been designated one of five “grinders”--crew members who use muscle power to raise, lower and change the direction of sails that measure 4,500 square feet and develop several thousand pounds of pressure in strong winds.

Beattie’s achievements are impressive in themselves, but her background makes them remarkable.

When she was 6, doctors found she had a hearing problem. Now, at 26, she’s nearly 100% hearing-impaired. Her parents, unable to cope with her difficult teen-age years, put her in foster care, where she languished in three homes with no special provisions for her disability.

Though often confused and alone during those years, Beattie emerged from a shell of shyness and began using her disability as a motivation for winning.

“You get put down so much growing up that you acquire a survival instinct,” she says. “Don’t tell me I can’t, because I will show you I will.”

Beattie has exhibited such grit from an early age. Blessed as a natural athlete who found security in sports, she excelled in track in high school and later developed an interest in weightlifting. She wound up on the professional bodybuilding circuit and in 1990 won the USA Champion contest. She went on to earn titles in the Ms. International and Ms. Olympia competitions.

That led in 1992 to her most visible role--that of the muscular, supercharged “Siren” on “American Gladiators.” Typically dressed in a red-white- and-blue spandex outfit that reveals every sinewy line on her 5-foot-7, 150-pound body, she competes against both genders--effortlessly, it seems--climbing a 35-foot wall, suspended 20 feet in the air from a harness or sparring with a pugil stick from a seven-foot-high platform.

During her third season of taping “American Gladiators,” Beattie’s husband and manager, Jon Romano, heard about openings for America’s Cup crew members and encouraged her to apply, despite her lack of yachting experience. “He believes in me probably more than I do,” she said.

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With an open slot in her schedule--after completing the “American Gladiators” season and before promoting her new Gold’s Gym facility in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, which is under construction--she decided to take her husband’s advice.

“It’s nowhere near what I thought I’d be doing next,” Beattie said of the America’s Cup competition. “It just came up and I grabbed the chance.”

It wasn’t as easy at that, however. Beattie was merely one of 600 women athletes who applied for a chance to participate in sailing’s greatest event. She knew it was a long shot, akin to a second-string running back trying out for a spot in the backfield of a Super Bowl team. But she made it into the group of 50 invited to three grueling, weeklong tryouts.

When the team lineup was announced last June, Beattie’s name was on the list with 25 others whose backgrounds included sailing, weightlifting and rowing. Sixteen team members are on the yacht at any one time, with 10 reserves. As a grinder, Beattie will always be on board.

After taping the final “American Gladiators” segment for the 1994 season, she left Malibu for training camp in San Diego.

As taxing as the tryouts were, the struggle in many respects had just begun when Beattie arrived at camp.

Beattie first had to learn the basics of seamanship. A native of rural Monmouth, Ore., her exposure to the sea was limited before she moved to Southern California after graduating from Western Oregon State University.

She learned yachting skills and was coached in the mechanics of being a grinder. That job revolves around a pedestal winch, which provides the mechanical power needed to pull in a series of boa constrictor-sized lines used to control the sails. With arms rotating like a bicyclist’s legs, she may perform the task more than 100 times during a tacking duel against an opposing yacht.

“The effort is comparable to sprinting 50 meters on a track 30 times, with 20 seconds’ rest between each sprint,” said grinder Stephanie Armitage Johnson, a world-class weightlifter and assistant strength coach for the University of Washington football team. Armitage Johnson is one of Beattie’s grinding partners.

All of that doesn’t include the daily gym workouts, beginning at 6:30 a.m., to improve strength and endurance. Then there are the long days on the water, the labor-intensive chores that include stripping the $5-million, 75-foot racing machine of its electronic gear and enormous sails--it requires at least eight women to carry a sail--and the seemingly endless team meetings.

The team aspect proved most difficult for Beattie. From her early days as a bodybuilder, she had been a solo competitor, depending only on herself for success. Though she earns points for a team during “American Gladiators” shows, she, like the other gladiators, takes on opponents one-on-one.

For a hearing person who has never been on a team, suddenly becoming part of a group effort is difficult enough. For a hearing-impaired person it is still harder, because teamwork involves communication among the group’s members.

Frustrated because her hearing impairment made it difficult to understand the game plan, Beattie nearly quit the team.

“I was going crazy holding in so much anger--I want to like people and want them to help me understand what’s going on,” Beattie said.

But she found ways to cope. She asked the coaching staff to provide her with a sign language translator for team meetings. She has also begun teaching teammates to communicate with her through touching and gestures--especially her grinding partners, who help Beattie respond at the appropriate time with hand signals and facial expressions.

Beattie’s efforts and attitude have not gone unnoticed.

Said teammate Amy Baltzell, who has become Beattie’s close friend: “It is such an honor to work with someone who not only has to struggle with a hearing impairment but is an incredible athlete with such love in her heart.”

Certainly, Beattie has contributed to the success of the team, which in November placed second in the 1994 International America’s Cup Class World Championship. Along with the winning team from Australia, the regatta attracted all-male teams from the United States, Japan and Russia.

More significant than placing second, America3 beat the other two U.S. cup contenders, including the Stars and Stripes, skippered by three-time America’s Cup winner Dennis Conner.

“The Worlds gave us confidence,” said Beattie, who now considers herself a sailor after having logged hundreds of hours on waters off San Diego Bay. “The guys have more respect for us now.”

So do her fans.

One day recently two friends, also deaf, arrived from Los Angeles to watch Beattie train with the crew.

“I feel fortunate that there are deaf people like Shelley,” says Jennifer Thompson, who relies on sign language to communicate. She met Beattie four years ago while in-line skating at Venice Beach and considers her “a great role model.”

With the trials just weeks away, the team is now training 12 hours a day, seven days a week to prepare for the 1995 America’s Cup race. Bodies are tired and nerves are frayed, but Beattie and her teammates say they are determined to win the America’s Cup, especially for Bill Koch, the multimillionaire and former America’s Cup winner who founded the team.

“You know he believes in us--we’re his family,” Beattie said.

Koch, who won the cup in 1992, is proud of Beattie and calls her impact on the team a “net plus.”

“Everybody has some sort of disadvantage; it’s just not as obvious as being deaf or blind,” he said. “Shelley’s deafness is offset by her determination, physical ability and good attitude.”

For her part, Beattie says, she finds it rewarding to break new ground for women, for the hearing-impaired--and for herself. Said Beattie: “I feel that I’m growing as a person and learning for the first time to accept myself in front of others.”