AMERICA’S CUP : Is This Man a Drag on Women’s Boat?
In the comedy classic “Some Like It Hot,” filmed at the Hotel Del Coronado here, Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis witness a gangland murder and hide out from George Raft’s mobsters by dressing in drag and joining an all-woman band.
Millionaire oilman Joe E. Brown, as Osgood E. Fielding III, becomes enamored of Lemmon’s “Daphne,” and as he takes her away to elope, Lemmon protests, “We can’t. . . . I’m a man!”
To which Brown blithely replies: “Well, nobody’s perfect.”
Neither is Dave Dellenbaugh, if gender is still considered important to the feminist movement. Like Daphne, Dave went to his destiny reluctantly. The new tactician of America 3 finds himself as the only man among 15 women on what was the first all-female crew in the 144-year history of the America’s Cup.
It was a fine idea Bill Koch had to gather the best female sailors available to compete against men on equal terms. He had already won the Cup in 1992; now he could advance a cause: A boat of their own. Move over, Betty Friedan, Sally Ride, Gloria Steinem, Billie Jean King, Lucretia Mott, Susan B. Anthony and Ida May Phillips and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Make room for a guy named Bill.
America and the world picked up the theme and ran with it. So the women weren’t winning as often as their male rivals aboard Kevin Mahaney’s Young America and Dennis Conner’s Stars & Stripes. Considering they were sailing an older boat in the first three rounds, they were doing themselves proud, and when they got their new boat they’d be dangerous.
In an interview taped on March 6, ESPN’s Jim Kelly asked Koch: “Do you ever put a man on the boat anywhere?”
Koch replied: “No. This team is dedicated to a principle and we’re going to see it through. . . . absolutely.”
Kelly: “You’re committed?”
Koch: “I’m committed.”
Kelly: “I can play this tape the 1st of May and the answer’s the same?”
Koch: “Same thing. . . . You might see a 17th man as a male (passenger), but you will not see any males on that first 16.”
Twelve days later, the day the defender semifinals started, America 3announced that Dellenbaugh would replace Jennifer Ann (J.J.) Isler as tactician and starting helmsman, jobs he held on the men’s boat in ’92.
The timing was interesting. Later, crew member Dawn Riley said: “The possibility was brought up three or four weeks ago, and as the weeks went by it became a more viable option.”
If that’s true, Koch did not only betray a promise; he was lying when he talked to Kelly.
America 3’s story is that some of the crew were concerned about an inability to make quick tactical decisions under racing pressure because of inexperience. Isler, an Olympic bronze medalist, probably was the best woman available for the job, but they thought she wasn’t good enough.
Never mind that helmsman Leslie Egnot kept saying she was having trouble steering the new boat. Dellenbaugh and a dozen other guys who work for America 3could have done that better too. When you’re throwing idealism over the side, why not throw it all?
It’s also interesting that after Isler had taken the fall, she said she hadn’t had a clue to her demise until the morning of that race. This suggests a conspiracy among the crew, led by . . . well, nobody will own up to it.
But on the same day he fired Isler, Koch announced before a mass news conference, with Isler’s parents Tom and Jane Fetter seated in the rear, that Egnot had been elevated to skipper and Riley, the port pit person, to team captain.
And what of the sponsors who bought into the fraud of promoting women’s equality?
Steve McAvoy, manager of passenger car marketing for Chevrolet, said: “Little has been diminished relative to those purists who say, ‘Gee whiz, they’re not delivering what they said they were.’ I would challenge that rather strongly.”
McAvoy called it a “gutsy call by Bill Koch . . . to know he had a quote out there but would be willing to go against that based on the request of the team. There are (still) 15 women on this boat and a tactician who happens to be very good at his job. Is this a problem from a sponsor’s standpoint? I don’t think it is.”
But Eric Kraus, a spokesman for Gillette, thinks the purity of purpose is now more than slightly contaminated.
“It’s disappointing that the all-women’s concept isn’t going to be followed through to the end,” Kraus said. “We went with America 3because we felt the team embodied the spirit of the Dry Idea brand. For us, whether the team won or lost wasn’t as appealing as an all-woman crew.”
With Dellenbaugh, the women might go on to win, but at the price of sacrificing a sister to the god of victory.
If they lose, at least they could have lost with honor.
Worst of all, now they’ll never know if they could have won by themselves.