Friday, Aug. 29, 2008

Modesto Olympian Erin Cafaro: From golden to foldin'

After Beijing triumph, Erin Cafaro is OK with doing brother's laundry

Nastia Liukin was interviewed by Jay Leno. Shawn Johnson was cheered at the Democratic National Convention. Michael Phelps prepares to serve as host of "Saturday Night Live."

And what about Erin Cafaro, Modesto's Olympic gold medalist? She's doing her brother's laundry.

"Sibling love," she summarized Thursday from the San Francisco home of J.D. Cafaro, former Cal football player. "He helped me so much."

Cafaro, 25, calls herself the "happiest homeless person I know. I'm living off the dream right now."

Rowing never has commanded prime time and never will. Cafaro's Olympic odyssey was pure in scope and sincere in ambition. You don't get rich pulling oars through the water day by day and year by year. Her payoff in the end was about $160, the financial worth of a gold medal.

Not exactly a Wheaties box or seven-figure endorsement contract.

What you can achieve, however, is Olympic glory, which is priceless. For Cafaro, the graduate of Modesto High whose women's eight crew seized gold for the first time in 20 years, that's more than enough. She's the fourth Modestan to win an Olympic gold medal -- shot putter Wilbur "Moose" Thompson in 1948, javelin thrower Cy Young in 1952 and soccer player Tisha Venturini in 1996 are the others -- and only she knows, in painful intimate detail, the price paid along the way.

Cafaro has strewn parts of her life throughout the country. Boxes of her belongings remain at her parents' Modesto home. Other items are left at the team's training center in Princeton, N.J., and training sites in San Diego and Hawaii.

For now, Cafaro stays at the home of J.D., her unofficial coach and trainer. There is business to tend to and, yes, waiting through laundry spin cycles.

"J.D. said I'd have to work harder than anyone else," she said. "I was in great condition, thanks in part to him."

Cafaro believes her physical edge came from CrossFit, an elite fitness program favored by martial arts and police academies and world-class athletes. J.D. talked her into the workout regimen this year, when seven years of rowing reached its climax in Beijing.

See, Cafaro stands only 5 feet 8 inches (she fudged on all bios that list her at 5-10) and, from her seat on the bow, is the smallest member of the Olympic team, not counting coxswain Mary Whipple of Sacramento.

Making the team alone was daunting. Though Cafaro rowed to an NCAA title at Cal in 2005 and two world championships last year, she had yet to earn her seat on the Olympic women's eight, the 2004 Olympic silver medalist. Bumping out another worthy athlete was her only route to Beijing.

Which means she had to compensate size with strength.

"I got familiar with my pain threshold. I lost about 10 pounds, but my strength-to-weight ratio definitely increased," she said. "I make up for it (her size) with feistiness. I also can lift the same weights with the other girls."

When the team was set in June, it turned its target toward Romania, the three-time defending Olympic champion. Four years ago in Athens, the Romanians edged Turlock's Ali Cox and her women's eight teammates. In 1984, Team USA claimed its previous gold medal by upsetting Romania.

By now, you've probably read how Cafaro poured water from Lake Casitas -- the site of the Americans' victory in '84 -- on the fingers and legs of her teammates for good luck. And how Whipple showed a film of that long-ago triumph to her team before it departed for China.

Cafaro and Company didn't attend the opening ceremony because competition began only two days later. The fun would wait until later. Romania was the target.