Gets Tons Out of Weight Lifting

I get one $1000 a month from the U.S. Weight Lifting Federation because I made the Super 2000 Squad, and I get bonuses from the federation if I make certain totals at meets. They pay for my competition travel expenses. The average weight lifter, in a really, really good year, earns about $40,000. I just stick everything in the bank, save it up.

When I'm at a competition, I have high expectations of myself. Sometimes it's hard to stay focused. I keep it as basic as I can. I stretch and I convince myself that I can do it. You shouldn't worry too much about the way that you look. What's more important is the way that you feel and how you act toward others. Find out what you're good at, and concentrate on it. Give it 100 percent. Whatever it is, you can do it!

Sheila Haworth, Cheryl’s Mom: I made a choice with Cheryl as she was growing up, a good choice, I think: I didn't make food an issue. She's a good eater and she's just big. As a kid at birthday parties, she always had just as much cake as any of her friends. She's put together to be heavy; it's in her genes. She feels good about herself. And people like her. They don't poke fun at her. Her self-esteem is intact. People's egos are so delicate: we need to take care that we don't make them self-conscious. It's important for kids to have a role model like Cheryl. I love it when little girls who are chubby themselves come in to practice. They look up at Cheryl and just beam. They idolize her and think she's wonderful. If she's doing okay in the world, then they will do okay, too.

Coach Michael Cohen: Cheryl won three silver medals in Georgia in July 1999 at the Junior World Weight Lifting Championship. She was the highest-ranked lifter for the United States in that competition. Three weeks later she represented the United States at the Pan-American Games in Winnipeg, Canada, and won the gold medal, breaking U.S. records. She is the youngest person from the United States ever to win a gold medal at these games.

Three months later, in November 1999, she competed in Athens, Greece, at the World Championships, where she won the bronze medal, again, as the highest-ranked person from the United States-in fact, the only person from the United States to win a medal at the 1999 Senior World Championships. In December she competed in the American Championships in Tacoma, Washington, where she set more U.S. records. The American Championships judges ranked her the number one overall athlete in the United States, making her the youngest person ever to hold the number-one ranking in our history. She's had a very good year.

Since appearing in USA Today (see Radiance cover story this issue), Cheryl has been a guest on numerous television shows, including Live with Regis and Kathy Lee, Jay Leno, and Today. She has also been featured in Women's Sports and Fitness magazine with a pictorial by Annie Leibowitz and has been honored by the Women's Sports Foundation. I'm convinced that Cheryl will medal for us at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney this September and October. Magazines and newspapers call her a sixteen-year-old phenomenon. She makes me look really good. She's very coachable. She's internally driven, gifted with natural physical and mental ability.

At five-feet-ten-inches, and 290 pounds, Cheryl is at absolute peace with herself. Contemporary society has just about destroyed the self-image of young women. I coach women. I see my kids, at ages thirteen to nineteen, at constant war with themselves. Their archenemies are the mirror and the scale. Cheryl has no internal conflict. She's content, she's happy, and she's focused. She knows what she wants to do, which is totally unusual for a sixteen-year-old girl. On the Tonight Show, Jay Leno asked her, "Do you mind if I ask you how much you weigh?" Cheryl laughed, "Everyone knows how much I weigh! About 290 pounds." She went on to tell him, '"I'm solid as a rock. You wanna feel? We're not all gonna be supermodels. We're not all gonna look like that. I don't want to look like that. I'm happy the way I am."