Not so with Amber DeLuca, a 5’9”, 196 lbs member of the Omaha nation, one of the most recently hired American Gladiators, “Apache,” and lifelong athlete competing in national and international team sports and strength events. De Luca, 34, received a four-year scholarship to play volleyball at Gannon University, in Erie, Pa. She earned her degree in Communications/English, by hammering and blocking volleyballs as a stand-out middlehitter. DeLuca possessed a 33” leap, easily swiping the rim of a basketball hoop, enabling her to rewrite the record books and leading the National Collegiate Athletic Conference Division II Volleyball in kills and blocks. In 1989, DeLuca lead the team to their first ever NCAA national appearance. DeLuca’s volleyball coach, Gerry Burbules, was relentless in grooming Amber into becoming on of the most feared volleyball players on the East coast. Burbules quickly noted DeLuca’s leaping ability and quickness, and immediately converted her from an outside hitter to a middle hitter, the most dynamic, explosive position on the team. “When Gerry first met me, she told me the sky is the limit with my ability, it depends on how hard you want to work.” From that day on, Gerry was relentless in practice. “She made me sprint, hit hundreds of volleyballs against the wall, and made me jump like a grasshopper every day in practice. She was the first coach who had instilled confidence in me to become an aggressive athlete. DeLuca dominated Division II volleyball from 1985-1990, capturing the East Coast Athletic Conference All-Regional player honors three years in a row. In 1988, DeLuca met up with an Apache Indian, original creator of the American Gladiators, Dann Carr. Back in the late 80’s, DeLuca would analyze the Gladiator games after volleyball practice, and dream about one day becoming a Gladiator. Carr held the first Gladiator competition at Tech High School in Erie, PA, in 1983, where local athletes competed publicly. Carr staged the joust, armwrestling, and other events. Carr actively promoted state and national level armwrestling tournaments from the 70’s through 1990.

     “I got into the Pennsylvania State Armwrestling Championships on a whim. My girlfriend and I dared each other to compete in the tournament. I lost in the regular bracket to the former state champ, only to beat her in the Finals, taking home the Women’s Open Division PA State Championship title.”  Carr took DeLuca under his wing, training her at the Erie, PA Lower East Side Federation Gym. Under Carr’s tutelage, DeLuca too home first place armwrestling trophies in several charity events, as well as the 1990 Northcoast Championships, held in Cleveland, Ohio. DeLuca enlisted in the United States Air Force in 1990, serving one tour of duty at Cannon Air Force Base in Clovis, New Mexico. The Information Management Specialist served in Operation Desert Storm in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. DeLuca qualified as an expert marksman in the 9mm small arms and M-16 service rifle.

     Upon arriving at Cannon Air Force Base, NM, DeLuca was immediately recruited onto the Air Force Volleyball team. She led the team to three Armed Forces Championships and the United States volleyball Championships from 1990-1993, and captured the World Military Games in 1991. DeLuca also managed to find time to volunteer teaching rockclimbing through the Air Force’s Outdoor Recreation Program, leading groups to her private rockclimbing area, where she and her husband established over several hundred routes. DeLuca has led sport route climbs of 5.11 difficulty. DeLuca earned the Outdoor Recreation Instructor of the year in 1992. DeLuca also captured the most prestigious Air Force award, “Air Combat Command Athlete of the Year” in 1992.

     From DeLuca’s days at Cannon, and throughout her Air Force tour of duty, Carr and DeLuca envisioned on day the syndicated show would have an opening for an American Indian woman as one of the Gladiators. DeLuca tried out as a contender several times, excelling in the try-outs, and competed as a contender on the live Tour in Amarillo, Texas in 1991. Five years later, DeLuca contemplated participating in the Galaxy fitness competition. “I went to the camp in Venice beach in the Fall of 1996. At a bodyweight of 165 pounds, and still densely muscled from years of athletics, I found that I did not want to lose any of my hard earned muscle for the swim wear round, although I am confident I would excel at the obstacle course. Instead, DeLuca opted to continue training with the intent on someday becoming a Gladiator. In March of 1997, DeLuca’s dreams had materialized. Carr called DeLuca up, and asked her to become the next American Gladiator in the live show in Orlando, Florida. “At the time, I was finishing classes for a Master of Science in Human Resources Management.” In May of 1997, DeLuca took a leave of absence from her job as a Security Manager at the Inn of the mountain Gods, a five-star resort/casino, owned and operated by the Mescalero Apache tribe. “My family is very proud of me.” DeLuca is the first tribally enrolled American Indian Gladiator. “I have made a positive impact in Indian country, and have been honored and well received by many Indian people. They are glad to see a woman represent Indian people in a strong, warrior capacity. My blood family gave me their blessing to use the name “Apache”. The Apaches were known throughout history as some of the greatest warriors of all time. My family told me that I represent not only the Omaha nation, but also all American Indians.

     The Air Force brought DeLuca to New Mexico in 1990. “In 1994, I attended the Gathering of Nations powwow in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I yearned to know my origins, my clan, my blood relatives. I picked up the phone, and called the Omaha tribe, where my adoptive parents had me enrolled since I was a young girl. I spoke with the enrollment officer, who also happened to be my aunt, Gaile Bertucci.” She knew my mother, and we began corresponding. Soon thereafter, Tapa, or Deer clan, welcomed her with a homecoming and a traditional naming ceremony at the Omaha tribe in Macy, Nebraska. Spiritual leader for the Tapa clan, Clifford Wolfe, Jr. stayed up all night with relatives, waiting for a vision to name her. They finally arrived at the name, “Ponca-sa”, which is an old name, meaning “White or Pale Ponca.” This name does not translate literally into a white or pale person, as the original meanings have been lost through time.

     The Ponca people was once a part of the Omaha people, but they separated from the Omahas down the Missouri River, and formed a separate tribe, however, many of the names are still a part of the Omaha tradition. “My maternal grandmother was Shoshone-Bannock, from Fort Hall, Idaho, and maternal grandfather was Omaha. I am proud to be a member of the Omaha nation.” ‘Omaha’ literally means “going upstream” or “against the current”. The mysteries of an unsolved 26 year old puzzle started to piece themselves together for the native athlete. “I soon found out that my family had inherently strong genetic traits toward athleticism. My Uncle Nelson Levering was an amateur welterweight champion boxer back in the late 30’s and early 40’s. He even fought on the same card with Rocky Marciano in Madison Square Garden. Uncle Nelson was inducted in the Haskell University Hall of Fame, one of the first all Indian colleges, along with other American Indian Olympians such as Jim Thorpe and Billy Mills.

     At a bodyweight of 170 pounds, DeLuca captured titles in sportclimbing. DeLuca won “The Game,” “Climbathon,” and the “On-Sight” sport climbing competitions, held in Albuquerque, New Mexico. “Climbing is about facing your fears and gaining confidence in your physical abilities.” DeLuca’s competitive spirit in volleyball and rockclimbing only served to spur her on to other hardbody sports.

     DeLuca competed in the Billy the Kid Tombstone race in Ft. Sumner, New Mexico. She negotiated a 100-yard obstacle course while carrying a 50-pound tombstone barehanded. DeLuca took home the Women’s Open title from 1992-1994, as well as winning the couples’ division in 1994.

     For the past nine years, DeLuca has volunteered her time to make guest appearances and role model within tribal communities. DeLuca travels to the Sisseton-Wahpeton, Mescalero Apache, and Omaha nations, and Haskell University promoting health and wellness. DeLuca particularly enjoys working with youth, encouraging them to pursue academics, athletics, and staying on the path to a drug-free lifestyle. Topics have included: “Finding the Warrior within,” “Empowering Apache Youth,” “American Indians: the first Gladiators.” DeLuca has also been selected as a guest/keynote speaker at Oshman’s National “Women in Sport Day” in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

     When DeLuca decides to “relax,” she mountain bikes into the harsh desert Tularosa basin with a Camelback and her custom Remington Rand .45 Caliber for some target practice. Another one of DeLuca’s hobbies is collecting rare, museum quality minerals at her mining claims in Bingham, New Mexico. Or perhaps head 7,000 feet into the Sierra Blanca mountain region to pose for a friend, Artis Lane. Lane, a world-renowned sculpture/artist, who began sketching the native woman in the spirit of a female warrior, and hope to unveil a bronze in the near distant future.

     DeLuca grew up as a self-described tomboy in the village of Peninsula, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland. She started swimming at age 4, tumbling/gymnastics at 8, and organized sports at 10. “My mother was a Cub Scout den mother, and some of the most vivid recollections I have of my childhood was chasing down the boys, and knocking the wind out of them, much to my mother’s dismay.” The 34-year old woman began her lifetime pursuit of fitness in high school, at the Cleveland Coliseum Fitness Center, where the Cleveland professional sports teams trained. “My high school volleyball coach encouraged me to train on the Nautilus machines and introduced me to free weights around 1980.” DeLuca also started training at her school gym, Woodridge High in Peninsula, Ohio during her study halls and lunch breaks. “I remember when I was the only girl in the little room with a flat bench, squat rack, and universal gym. Weight training back then certainly wasn’t cool for women yet! My big goal was to lift 135 pounds. I immediately saw strength gains, and loved the feel of the weight, and was bench-pressing 135 pounds for several sets of 10 repetitions. Sometimes, I would coax a girlfriend to spot me, and all the football players looked at us as if we were crazy.”

     “On the weekends, I would help my father run our family business, a sporting goods store/silk screen business in Streetsboro, Ohio. A few doors down was a gym called “Bodybuilders Unlimited”, owned and managed by local bodybuilder, Dean Caputo, who later turned professional. Dean scratched on a piece of paper my first training routine, and I followed it exactly. Of course, there were only men at the gym, and being a young lady of only 15, my parents frowned upon my weekend trysts with the iron. My body responded quickly to weight training, already at 5’6’ and 130 pounds, in the 8th grade, much to my parents’ disapproval. In teir opinion, they did not want their daughter “muscle-bound”. DeLuca started out as a 5’7” 135 pound freshman, gaining approximately 10 pounds each year, graduating at 165 pounds. I also snagged my first leather cowhide belt, from the sports store, and had my father stencil “Amazon” on it. By the time I was 17, I was committed to training, and was bitten by the iron bug.” Recalls DeLuca. “My parents never quite understood what drove me to heaving heavy iron, but they supported me nonetheless. I knew deep within my heart, that with serious weight training, I could achieve my goals and dreams of becoming the best athlete physically possible in whatever sport I decided to pursue.”

     DeLuca excelled at volleyball, and track and field during her high school days. The added weight of both feminine curve and muscle mass discouraged DeLuca in going out for the track team her senior year. The added mass had slowed her down quite a bit, and discouraged her ambition to compete against 100 pound girls in middle distance running events, particularly since she was sporting 160 pounds. A coach encouraged DeLuca to compete in the shot put and discus. “I never took those events seriously. All the runners would jeer at them as they sprinted past them.” Not to become the butt of a joke, DeLuca captured the discus record in 1985, after only a few months training without a discus coach. “I was pretty much self-coached back then. I would run a few sprints, hit the weights, and go home. That was practice, and it apparently worked well enough that I broke a 10-year old record. To this day, the record still stands.”

     DeLuca calls home the Chihuahuan desert basin foothills of the Sacramento Mountain range in New Mexico. The desert landscape is a sharp contrast to the lush green rolling hills of Ohio. Perhaps the desert foothills speak to DeLuca’s innate Omaha, Shoshone-Bannock, Lakota and Ojibway American Indian blood running through her veins. At 5 feet, 9 inches tall, she attributes her height and impressive physique to her Lakota/Ojibway father, who is 5’10” and 200 pounds, and athletic prowess to her Omaha relatives. “The Omaha people are very tenacious; they had to be to survive. My ancestors were nearly all wiped out from the smallpox epidemic in the late 1700’s.”

     Always seeking a challenge, DeLuca trained under a three-time World Champion Muay Thai kickboxer, Chata Thamvongsa. Thamvongsa taught DeLuca the art of kickboxing, and awarded her a blackbelt in 1993. DeLuca was also selected as a Team Handball participant at the Olympic training center in Colorado Springs, Colorado in 1995. “I really liked team handball. I had one of the fastest, hardest shots at the tryout camp, due to my volleyball background.” DeLuca was selected to participate in the Olympic Festival West Region. “I decided against pursuing the sport, there aren’t many teams in the states. I would have gone broke trying to pursue the sport, and I couldn't afford to just play for a living.”

     From DeLuca’s early childhood exposure to sport, and her early love affair with iron, she has definitely paid her dues in the gym. DeLuca’s bodyweight fluctuates from 165 pounds to 185 pounds, depending on what she is training for. Obviously, for events such as rockclimbing and volleyball, her weight is at the lower end of the scale. When preparing for the Gladiators, armwrestling, and strength events, she likes to have her weight up around the 185 pounds. At a bodyweight of 165 pounds, DeLuca routinely squatted 315 pounds for reps of 10, can bench press 225 pounds and regularly performs 15 pull-ups. Her measurements are 44-26-36. Her calves are 17 inches and her arms are 15 inches. “I like to emphasize functional strength in my training. It has taken me a long time to balance out my physique after all those years of leaping. My legs became quite overdeveloped. My arms have always been very difficult to add mass to, but that’s fine with me as well, since mass works against me in sports like kickboxing, rockclimbing and volleyball. I constantly strive to improve my overall appearance. My husband is my mentor in training. He has helped me improve my physique by leaps and bounds since my college days by constantly providing me with innovative training routines and adaptive techniques.”

     DeLuca is also active in her home community of Alamogordo, New Mexico. She owns her own security company, “ELFs” Effective Level Fighting Systems. ELFs personnel have trained hundreds of security officers and local Department of Public Safety police officers. DeLuca is the Vice President/Co-Founder of the United Martial Artists Against Crime, a grassroots organization whose main mission is to promote public safety and awareness, and working with troubled youth within the community. DeLuca regularly volunteers her time to participate in charity events, and sports days within New Mexico.

     Shortly after being selected as “Apache”, DeLuca was playing a game against one of the contenders, when she felt her knee pop. “It was a freak accident; I never imagined after all the explosive sports I have competed at such a high level that my knee would give out. I just felt a pop as my knee twisted and my foot was firmly planted on the ground during the game. Initially, I was in complete denial as to the severity of the injury. My doctor performed complete reconstructive surgery of the anterior cruciate ligament forming a graft from my semitendinosis/gracilis (hamstring). When my doctor scoped my knee, he observed my ACL completely blown apart, and a damaged meniscus. I have gone through some sever bouts of depression, anxiety, and anger from the injury and surgery. Any knee trauma is psychologically and physically devastating to anyone, much less a professional athlete. My roommate, Dallas, the 1996 Toughest Woman in the World (Shannon Hall) told me, “All Gladiators have down time, and it’s part of the game. No matter what sport you've played, or how tough you are, you will sustain an injury in the Gladiator Arena.” “I suppose I have earned my ‘rite of passage’ into the Gladiators. Injuries test your pain tolerance, patience, and most of all, how much heart you have. If you stay in athletics long enough, sooner or later, you will surely face obstacles to your success. You can choose to stay down, or get back up and continue with your life. You only fail when you refuse to get back up. Sky, Siren, Tiger, and myself all have ACL tears. We all wear braces, they are a mandatory part of our costumes!”

     DeLuca is training hard. Her ultimate dream of “playing for a living” is now a reality. Nothing can keep this fierce, warrior woman down for long!