A Champion Who Kicks Convention

Cheyenne Lewis doesn’t look like a fighter. 

She has thick glasses like a bookworm.  A calm, easygoing smile.  Impeccable manners.

But face her in taekwondo and it’s a different story.

Lewis, a sophomore at Franklin High School, is a black belt and reigning junior champion.  Since 2009, she’s been unbeaten and was named USA Taekwondo’s Female Athlete of the Year in 2010.

And yet you’d never know by looking at her.  Good thing it’s all on tape.

“My teacher YouTubed me the other day and he was astonished,” said Lewis, who has an eye-popping 4.5 grade point average and hopes to attend Stanford one day.  “(I’m) definitely not the same person at school.”

Almost everything about Lewis seems unorthodox. Born to an African-American father and a mother who’s Chinese, Lewis already walks in two worlds.  Starting in 2006, she turned heads when her dad, Jason, assumed most of her coaching duties even though he’d never strapped on a taekwondo belt.

It was non-traditional but not unprecedented.  Both Lewis and her father were inspired by one famous example of another bi-racial American athlete coached by an ever-present father.

“We have drawn that analogy,” said Jason Lewis, comparing his daughter with Tiger Woods, who has a similar background in golf.  “Hopefully, (Cheyenne) can get the best of both our cultures.”

It might seem bold to compare someone to Woods, who has rewritten both sporting and cultural history.  But Lewis, who has Olympic dreams, seems poised to leave the same legacy in taekwondo after dominating the sport the past two years.

Still, it’s been an unlikely journey.

The Elk Grove resident initially didn’t seem cut out for taekwondo. Tall and skinny like a rail—Lewis is a willowy 5’-9” and 108 pounds—she cuts a striking figure in the ring.  But her gawky frame also made her vulnerable against smaller and faster opponents. 

It was most obvious when she was younger.  As an eight year old, Lewis struggled after joining the sparring team at a local taekwondo school.  Her father remembered how she would stumble helplessly around the room during practice, absorbing blow after blow from more experienced fighters.

“She didn’t know what she was doing,” he said.  “She was fixing her glasses and stuff.  It was like a horror show.”

Lewis eventually improved—and then some.   

Since taking bronze at the 2009 Junior USA Taekwondo Olympics, she hasn't lost.  Lewis has thoroughly dominated the junior flyweight and featherweight divisions in what’s known as Olympic taekwondo, a more sparring-oriented discipline that’s governed by the World Taekwondo Federation.  

Her 2010 world championship gave Lewis a burst of confidence that has continued to grow.

"That happened, then I got bigger and stronger," Lewis said.  

That's probably the last thing her competitors want to hear.  And in fact, she’s started running out of titles to win.

Junior world champion?  Check.  First place at the 2011 Junior Pan-American Championships?  Check.  Two-time defending gold medalist at the U.S. Junior Olympics?  Strike it off the list. 

She may just be getting started.  Henry Cruz, a taekwondo instructor from Union City who helped coach Lewis before the 2010 world championships, thinks she hasn’t tapped her full potential.

“When it comes to skill level, she’s not the smoothest fighter out there,” said Cruz.  “But guaranteed, Cheyenne is going to throw all the kicks she has and she’s not going to stop until someone’s on the ground.”

Better yet, she’ll put on a good show at the same time.  Even on paper, a Lewis victory is compelling stuff.  But on film, she’s more entertaining than a Kardashian Christmas special.

Check out this YouTube video from her junior world championship in March 2010 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHUbq9SARd4&feature=related).  Facing a South Korean fighter named Mi Hui Choi, Lewis trailed most of the fight before storming back to win in dramatic fashion, 13-12.

Boring, she isn’t.

“She loves fighting for the USA,” said Jason Lewis.  “She gets on that team, she’s fighting for her country and it enrages her.  It’s just great.  A great show of patriotism.”

Still, the pair has drawn some negative attention for their passionate approach to the sport.  Lewis often celebrates an important point or a victory with a fist pump—considered excessive in taekwondo where it’s bad form to upstage an opponent.

When Lewis first began training in the Bay Area, her arrival created some tension, said Cruz.

“I lost a couple people who didn’t think she should be on our team, so I had to sacrifice those (athletes),” he said.

But would Lewis be, well, Lewis if she didn’t show some personality?  Her father doesn’t think so.

“She’s just had this over-exuberant attitude and (the taekwondo community) hasn’t seen this before,” he said.  “We do a lot of things they’re just not used to.  But see, when you win, you can get away with it.”

That includes their their father-daughter coaching relationship, which goes against the grain in taekwondo. Lewis mentioned that he’s only aware of eight or nine other parents who coach their fighters.

Cruz sounded concerned when discussing the arrangement.  His chief worry is that the younger Lewis, who hopes to qualify for the 2016 Olympics, won’t achieve her dream without conventional coaching.

For Team Lewis at least, those concerns haven’t panned out.  In the wake of recent abuse scandals at Penn State and Syracuse, sticking with family seems even more prudent to them.

“I enjoy it because I’m establishing a rapport with my daughter,” said the father.  “These are rare moments and I’m not going to give these moments up for anything. I’m sure not going to trade it up to someone I don’t trust.”

At least from his daughter’s perspective, the arrangement seems empowering.

“If I need something, I can always go to him,” Lewis said.  “I’m not
hesitant.  There’s no pressure.”

For now, however, there’s winning.  And that doesn’t appear likely to stop anytime soon.

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