‘You’re an Olympian forever’: Locals prepare for the most important games of their life
The Olympic Games don’t just consume athletes for weeks, months or years at a time. They mold them and identify them. Forever.
That’s what Ali Aguilar is experiencing, and she could not be more ecstatic.
An infielder for the U.S. softball team, the Casa Roble High School product revels in the opportunity to compete on a global stage. As her team prepares for competition in the Tokyo Olympics, Aguilar told The Bee on Monday morning, “I am blessed to be here in Tokyo, and we are prepared to win a gold medal.”
Aguilar speaks as someone with a single-minded purpose. Her time is limited in Tokyo, with appearances and workouts, everyone a curiosity in the streets of Tokyo with the colors of their country splashed across their chests, undone only by their smiles.
Aguilar dozes off thinking about softball and wakes up thinking more softball. She visualizes scenarios, moments, achievements.
That’s what Olympians do. They dream, then prepare, and then set aim on making their mark, understanding their time is fleeting and someone is right behind them, ready to take their spot on the roster or the medal stand.
Olympians have a shared motto: once an Olympian, always one. Now Aguilar is in the exclusive club.
Aguilar was a wide-eyed little girl in Orangevale years ago, wondering if she’d ever wear USA colors in a softball game facing off against other countries. The Olympics dropped softball after the 2008 games but brought them back this year.
“I’m so thankful it’s back,” Aguilar said. “It’s exciting for girls to play softball and have something to dream about. I know I was dreaming of being in the Olympics when I watched in 2008, the last time softball was in the Olympics, and the dream died off because the sport was taken out. It’s really a full-circle moment and an incredible opportunity that my dream came back to life. I want that for other girls.”
Debbie Meyer reflects on fleeting Olympic fame
Debbie Meyer was one of those other girls a generation ago. Her youth was spent in New Jersey, often in the pool, and then the family moved to Sacramento, where Meyer kept on swimming.
By 14, Meyer was setting age-group world records, powering her long body across the pool. She had visions of gold. So did her coaches. Fifty-three summers ago, Meyer was a wide-eyed, blond-haired, blue-eyed 16-year-old from Rio Americano High School. She set the swimming world on fire with her long-distance strokes and remarkable poise.
Years before Title IX — mandating gender equity — took hold, Meyer seized her moment in Mexico City and scored one for every girl who dreamed big. In those 1968 Games, Meyer became the first swimmer to win three gold medals in one Olympics, knocking down barriers and world records as she blitzed across the pool in taking the 200-, 400- and 800-meter freestyle events.
Meyer retired as a competitive swimmer at 20, spent from the grind of churning through water and spitting out chlorine. Practice wasn’t fun any more, and that was it. All these years later, she has no regrets.
Still tanned and radiant and now living in Reno with a personalized license plate of “3GOLD68”, Meyer can’t completely avoid the water. It’s a part of her just as much as her legacy. She has for decades taught children how to swim, either in Carmichael or Truckee. Most of the kids and their parents don’t know the teacher is an Olympian. Meyer appreciates her measure of fame and anonymity.
Those three Olympic gold medals, 15 world records and 25 American records and 19 AAU national championships never gave Meyer an Olympic-sized ego. She never cashed in on her Olympic fame, but does not dissuade others from maximizing their celebrity because, for most, it’s a fleeting existence.
Meyer’s medals are tucked away safely, each of them deeply cherished.
“They’re in a safe deposit box in Truckee, though I want them in Reno, but the banks here don’t have room,” Meyer said with a laugh. “Keep checking back, they say!”
“I’m still drawn to the water and that’s why I can’t completely retire,” Meyer said with more joy clear in her voice. “It’s still in me, and I’m so excited to watch these Olympics. To be an Olympian, you’re so proud to represent your country, to be an Olympian, to have this chance. You’re an Olympian forever.”
Meyer’s advice: Be realistic
Meyer’s advice to anyone competing?
“Be realistic in your goals because not everyone’s going to medal,” she said. “You’ve got to enjoy this. You have to be able to wake up and think, ‘I can’t wait to practice,’ and you practice like it’s a competition. That will get you psyched up. And as long as you know that you put 100 percent into it, then you should be satisfied.”
Meyer also warned of the post-Olympics letdown. She recalled how she wasn’t able to enjoy a normal teenage life after the 1968 games. She wasn’t just a senior at Rio Americano. She was that Olympian who won three gold medals, and sometimes, she felt more lonely than exceptional.
“I felt out of place when I got home, and had a lot of, ‘What do I do now?’” Meyer said. “Even when I went to UCLA, I felt out of place. Athletes have to guard against that after their Olympic experiences. I tried to get into skiing and broke my ankle. I tried tennis. That didn’t work. So I got into more swimming, as a teacher. When people found out who I was when I was in college, I wondered if they liked me for me or what I did in the pool. It was always in the back of my mind. That’s not easy to deal with.”
Meyer also said Olympians have to expect any question. She was asked after winning one of her 1968 Olympic races, at the height of the Vietnam war, by a television reporter, “Do you think the American boys in Vietnam are proud of you?”
Said Meyer now, “To this day, I remember my response: ‘I hope they’re as proud of me as I am of them.’ I don’t know where that came from as a 16-year-old, but you grow up fast in the Olympics.”
Settling in before zeroing in
Getting acclimated to your setting is also a major task, Meyer and Aguilar said. The comfort zone changes. Languages and cultures are different. And everyone’s watching you.
Aguilar, the USA softball star, played a year of professional softball in Japan after an All-America collegiate career at Washington. She said she is delighted to return as an Olympian.
“The fans here are very loud and they have their own band of what they call ‘cheerleaders,’” Aguilar said. “I appreciate Japanese culture so much. They are the most selfless, hard-working people, and I learned a lot from their dedication to doing things the right way.”
Aguilar said the language barrier is a challenge, but people generally share the universal theme of warmth and smiling.
“I honestly feel comfortable in Japan now,” Aguilar said. “If there’s another country I could go to and feel confident navigating around it, it would be Japan. I never thought I’d be able to say that. What I missed most about Japan was the people. It’s really cool to me that even though we speak different languages, we can understand and love one another through our actions. It’s truly a special place.”
Aguilar isn’t sure what looms after the Games. Will she coach? Make another run at the Olympics? She knows the Games make her feel young. Meyer is closing in on her 69th birthday and feels “Alive every day!”
Aguilar turns 26 next month. She said, “I know I’m right where I’m supposed to be right now, and I trust that God will show me my next steps when it’s time!”
Oak Ridge’s Mefford in the pool
The summer Games have been a boon for swimming for decades. Tradition carries over, and that’s where Bryce Mefford of Oak Ridge High School comes in.
He earned his 200-meter backstroke Olympic entry by placing second in the Olympic Trials in Nebraska, his second trials experience. At 22, he’s just getting warmed up in the pool in a sport made famous in the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich by Mark Spitz, who grew up swimming in Carmichael with Meyer under famed coach Sherm Chavoor and won seven gold medals, all in record time.
Mefford grew up swimming. His father Scott was an All-America swimmer at Utah and swam in the 1984 Olympic trials in the 200 backstroke. Like son, like father, that’s the same event young Mefford dabbles in.
Mefford’s mother, Roxanne, is a longtime swimming instructor at Glen Oaks Swim Club in Carmichael.
Said Mefford, “Everyone’s dream is to reach the medal podium. That’s my dream, too.”
Sacramento-area Olympians
▪ Haley Anderson is an open-water swimmer in the Games, a Granite Bay native who is in her third Olympics. At 29, she is the most-decorated female athlete in the event. She won silver in the 10K race in the London Games in 2012, becoming the first American to medal in an open-water event. She became a national name at USC, where she was an 11-time NCAA All-American and a three-time NCAA champion after earning All-American swimming honors at Granite Bay High.
▪ Ally Carda was a prep All-American pitcher at Pleasant Grove who was a two-time Pac-12 Player of the Year while at UCLA. She was a pitcher on the 2019 team that won the Japan Cup gold medal and went 3-1 for the 2017 Pan American team that won gold.
▪ Michelle Sechser is a member of the USA Rowing team, short in stature at 5-foot-5 in a sport ideal for the long-limbed competitor. She is known for her power, which works in any sport. A Folsom High graduate, Sechser started rowing at 14 and really set aim at earning USA National Team honors after graduating from the University of Tulsa.
▪ Alex Obert of Del Oro High roots helped power the University of Pacific in Stockton to the 2013 NCAA finals and then embarked on the international and club circuit, including scoring two goals in Team USA’s Bronze-medal finish at the 2015 FINA Intercontinetal Tournament The 6-foot-6 Obert He has played professionally in Croatia and Greece.
▪ The Tokyo Games also feature sports that are not mainstream, including skateboarding. One of the world’s best is Nyjah Huston, a Davis native now based in Southern California. Now 26, Huston started skating as a 7-year-old in Yolo County without a helmet, saying years later, “you just have to be fearless and go for it.” Fearless is right. Among his 200-some tattoos, Huston has one that features a tombstone with the words, “See Ya Soon.”
This story was originally published July 21, 2021 at 5:00 AM.