Tony Fabrizio
Morris News Service
Article dated April 16, 1995

GAINESVILLE, Ga. - Cyrus Beasley lists his truck as his home address and vagabond as his occupation.

A bum he is not.

Come July, Beasley, a biology grad from Atlanta's Emory University, will be holed up in the Olympic Athletes Village, and he'll have the job of representing the U.S. Rowing team in the men's singles.

Beasley, 24, beat Patrick Sweeney by 8.2 seconds here Sunday in the Olympic Trials to clinch the berth. Forty-three other athletes were named to the Olympic team, pending final approval of the USOC, and four more - the men's and women's doubles teams - have spots if they qualify June 7-9 in Switzerland.

For Beasley, who is originally from Newburyport, Mass., the Olympics come just two years after he took up a sport that many of his peers have been working at for a decade or more. Winning the Trials is an outstanding accomplishment.

Only don't mail him his Olympic invitation.

``I'm pretty much homeless,'' Beasley said. ``Since I've been in college, I really haven't lived in the same place for more than four months at a time. Basically, everything I own fits in my truck, and it goes wherever I go. So, home is where I park my truck.''

Beasley trained at the National Sculling Center in Augusta during part of 1994 and 1995 before moving to the ARCO Olympic training center in Chula Vista, Calif., to work with Mike Spracklen, who coaches the sweep teams. Scullers, like Beasley, use two oars, while one oar is used in the sweeps.

``For the most part, my coach in Augusta (Igor Grinko) was my first coach for sculling, and I felt like I needed to look at what I was doing from another angle,'' Beasley said. ``I just felt like going out to California was a good thing. The living arrangements out there are great. The rent is free, the food's free. All I do there is train every day, and I don't have to deal with a lot of the everyday stuff that I was dealing with in Augusta.''

Beasley was the favorite in the competitive singles, but was expected to be challenged by two-time Olympian John Riley. Riley was injured in a car accident last Wednesday and dropped out of the competition, but Beasley said he never felt secure about winning over other contenders, such as Sweeney and lightweight champion James Martinez, who finished third.

``I was a little more uncomfortable after (Riley's accident), I think,'' Beasley said. ``I mean, he was who I was focusing on throughout my training. I knew he would be the strongest guy coming out here. Every race I had done in my head had him in it, and all of a sudden he wasn't there. To not have John here was definitely a bit of a shock. This is not the way I pictured winning.''

Although the U.S. Rowing team has fared very well in the Olympics, no American in the men's single has won a gold medal since John Kelly, the father of actress Grace Kelly, in 1920, and no American has won any medal in the division.

``Right now, I'm focusing on just making the (Olympic) finals,'' Beasley said. ``I have to make the finals (six boats) to have a shot at a medal. This is my first Olympics, and I'm going to be around for another four years. So, I'd like to think I'll pull in a medal this year, but if not this year, definitely in 2000.''

Rowers had to win two of three finals to earn a berth on one of the 12 U.S. boats that have qualified in the 14 Olympic divisions. Only one division Sunday required a rubber match Sunday night. In the men's double, Ty Bennion of Seattle and Andrew McMarlin of Santa Monica, Calif., beat Greg Lewis and Suddury, Mass., and Greg Walker of St. Clair Shores, Mich., by one length in a finale that wasn't decided until the final 20 yards.

Other highlights:

- Ruth Davidon , of Haverford, Pa., dominated her race as expected to win the women's singles. Karen Kraft, of San Mateo, Calif., and Melissa Schwen, of Bloomington, Ind., won the women's pair. Michelle Knox-Zaloom and Jennifer Devine won the women's double sculls, but they still must qualify for the Olympics in Switzerland. The women's quadruple sculls was won by Andrew Thies, of Irvington, N.Y., Julia Chilicki, of Somers, Conn., Cecile Tucker, of Warren, Maine and Catherine Symon, of Villanova, Pa. The lightweight double sculls went to Lindsay Burns, of Big Timber, Mont., and Teresa Bell, of Washington Crossing, N.J.

Michael Peterson, of Gulph Mills, Pa., and Adam Holland, of Glenside, Pa., won the men's pair. Holland studied folklore and mythology at Harvard and owned a dock disco while in college. Tom Auth, of Maplewood, N.J., and Stephen Peterson, of Glastonbury, Conn., won the lightweight double sculls. The lightweight four without coxswain was taken by Jeffrey Pfaendtner, of Detroit; David Collins, of Thousand Oaks, Calif., Marcus Schneider, of Everett, Wash., and William Carlucci, of Rye Brook, N.Y. In the men/s quadruple sculls, it was Jason Gailes, of Webster, Mass.; Timothy Young, of Moorestown, N.J., Eric Mueller, of Cadarsburg, Wis., Brian Jamieson, of Livingston, N.J.

- The men's and women's eight and the men's four without coxswain did not have competition and automatically secured berths.