Big fun

Cheryl Haworth's nickname says much about the 300-pound weightlifter's outlook.

SHELTON
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By GARY SHELTON

SYDNEY, Australia -- She is not a pixie. She will not flitter down from the balance beam like Tinkerbell with starlight in her hair, the way gymnasts often do. She will not preen, for heaven's sake.

She is not a model. She will not slide across the sand in a swimsuit like an extra on Baywatch Australia, the way beach volleyballers do. She will not pose, thank you very much.

She is not a dancer. She will not float through the water, keeping time to the music, the way the synchronized swimmers do. She will not primp, if it's all the same to you.

Cheryl Haworth is not a pretty little athlete doing fluffy little things while someone plays soft little music in the background. She is a weightlifter. You want to make something of it?

We are all a victim of stereotypes, even when it comes to athletes. We live in a society where magazines and TV shows tell us that to look healthy, a woman has to be 10 pounds lighter than tiny. There have been hundreds of strong, athletic women, but Sports Illustrated gives more attention to Anna Kournikova than it ever seemed to give to Bonnie Blair or Jackie Joyner-Kersee.

Then there is Cheryl Haworth. Her friends call her "Big Fun."

After today, you might, too.

There is something endearing about Haworth, a 17-year-old from Savannah, Ga., who pursued a gold medal in the weightlifting competition. She is wonderfully comfortable in her own skin, at ease with the weight on her body as well as the weight in front of her. Hey, this isn't about being a belle. This is about lifting the bar.

"My weight doesn't bother me," she said. "I like what I do, and I'm good at what I do. It's who I am."

You're going to like Haworth. She's an artistic, intelligent, Bart Simpson-quoting, funny young woman who happens to be the strongest woman in America. She is 5 feet 9, if you want to know. She weighs 300 pounds, if you have to ask. She has not had a date, if you're being nosy.

None of this seems to matter a whit to Haworth, which may be the best example for a young person struggling with her weight. Grab your self-esteem with both hands. Lift it above your head. If anyone says anything, drop it on his foot.

"Girls are taught they've got to be under 100 pounds and wafer thin," said Mike Cohen, Haworth's coach. "That's ridiculous. That's dangerous. If a child is healthy and comfortable, that's what you want. Cheryl says, "I'm bigger than most people, and I don't care. Like me or not for what I am.' "

What she is is strong, amazingly so. For instance, there is the story of how she, with a couple of friends, lifted another friend's Ford Festiva and moved it to another spot in the parking lot, just for grins. "It was a little car," she protested as she told the story.

Then there was the time the local high school football coach wouldn't let his team in the weight room at the same time as Haworth. It wasn't that he had a problem with female lifters. He just didn't want his players intimidated.

Then there was the time Cheryl's mother, Sheila, worried that other kids teased her daughter about her weight. "No," Cheryl said. "If they do, I beat them up."

Haworth was a small, sickly child. Her tonsils were constantly inflamed, her ears constantly infected. Sheila remembers how little Cheryl would eat because food irritated her throat. But after Cheryl's tonsils were removed when she was 6, it didn't hurt to eat. And eat some more.

Her mother consulted dietitians, who suggested she limit young Cheryl's intake. But when she did and Cheryl cried, she considered the potential psychological damage worse than the weight.

Despite her bulk, Haworth was a good athlete. She played softball well enough for her teammates to refer to her as "The Arm." She played basketball. But when she was 13, she noticed others weightlifting. "I can do that," she thought.

Oh, could she do that. She lifted like something out of Greek mythology, tossing the bars around so easily that Cohen wondered if he was going to need more weights. Finally, she had found the sport that matched her body, and her self-confidence seemed to grow as fast as her biceps.

The world can be a particularly unkind place for heavy girls in high school, and the taunts can scar deeply. For Haworth, weightlifting was the proper outlet for finding self-acceptance.

"I would like to set an example for other people to stray away from the normal and do something more challenging," Haworth said. "I hope bigger girls will know they can do more than just sit on the couch.

"It shouldn't matter how you look. This is a great sport for me. There are some things I couldn't do. I had to find something else. This was it."

For Haworth, it was also the perfect counterbalance to her other side. She attends a high school for the arts in Savannah, and she can draw a profile in a matter of minutes. Her IQ has been tested at 135. Oh, yes. And she is large.

With Haworth, this is the fascination. This is the first year for women weightlifters in the Olympics, and already Haworth has been on the Today show, The Tonight Show, and Regis. By now we know she has 17-inch biceps, a 32-inch thigh, a 30-inch vertical leap and a 5.5 time in the 40-yard dash.

"And everyone in the country knows my weight," she said.

Frankly, there are some out there who needed to hear the story. After Haworth made the Olympic team, she received a letter from a 50-year-old woman.

"She told me she never realized how athletics could help people," she said. "She said she started crying when I made the team. I didn't even get that emotional."

Okay, so there is no glitter in her hair. Okay, so Sports Illustrated hasn't asked her to pose topless. It's the performance, not how the performer looks.

After today, when people talk of Cheryl Haworth's weight, perhaps they will talk of what is over her head, not underneath.