An Honor She Can’t Live to Talk About

FULLERTON —  It’s a disturbing fact for some of her biggest fans: City officials won’t name a pool after its most famous swimmer--Olympic gold medalist Janet Evans--because, well, she’s not dead.

“She’s a total role model for all young kids,” said Beth Lamb, whose 14-year-old daughter, Heather, recently joined the Fullerton Aquatics Sports Team that Evans belonged to when she started swimming competitively. “If we wait until she dies, the kids won’t remember her.”

Team members recently asked the Fullerton Community Services Commission to put Evans’ name on the 50-meter pool at Independence Park, where Evans trained for eight years. The commissioners rejected the request.

“Naming a facility after someone while they’re still alive could possibly be a decision that one could regret in the future because they might do something later to discredit their name,” Commissioner Rick Feuchter said Friday.

But the city, which has several parks and streets named after prominent residents who are deceased, has no formal policy for naming its facilities.

“As a general rule, I think it’s only good to name things after people after they’ve been gone for a few years to really gauge their historical impact and contribution to the community,” Mayor Chris Norby said.

An appeal to the City Council is being considered by Robert Bergstrom, a Fullerton School District psychologist and longtime member of the aquatics sports team, who is leading the effort to name the pool for Evans. Bergstrom said he disagreed with the reasoning behind the city’s decision.

“[Evans] has not been involved in any scandal and the likelihood of that happening is just so remote, it shouldn’t even be considered,” he said. “Janet is such a positive role model, not only for the youth of our community but for everyone.”

It is a tradition across Orange County to wait until people die before places are named in their honor, but exceptions are made. Huntington Beach officials, for example, named a park after the city’s first female mayor, Norma Brandel Gibbs, on her 70th birthday two years ago.

Members of the Fullerton Aquatics Sports Team want the same consideration for their hero.

Evans, who grew up in Placentia, joined the team when she was 9. The 25-year-old swimming champion, who now lives in Pasadena, represented the United States in three consecutive Olympic Games, won four gold medals and was the 1996 Olympic team captain and torch bearer for the Atlanta games.

Evans could not be reached for comment Friday.

In a recent letter to Bergstrom, however, she wrote that she would be delighted to have the pool named in her honor “mostly because I am indebted to the city of Fullerton for all of their support. . . . Doing this might inspire other young athletes to do their best.”

And it would, said Bergstrom and the kids who swim at the pool.

“She deserves it because she’s famous and people would want to come here and be as good as her,” said 12-year-old swimmer Christina Antemie of Fullerton.