THE SEOUL GAMES / DAY 9 : For Evans, Life Is Just a Natural Combination of Laughs and Laps

SEOUL â€”  I can’t think of anything else to ask Janet Evans, so I ask her what she thinks of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue.

“The what?� she asks.

“The swimsuit issue.�

“Why?� she asks.

Some other guy says, “He wants to know if you want to be in it.�

“No, I don’t, I swear.�

“You’re a swimmer. You wear swimsuits.�

Janet gives me a look, like, OK, bud, I know that it’s 8 o’clock in the morning, and I know that I’m functioning on about 6 hours’ sleep, but I’m not totally out of it, you know?

“I don’t think it works that way,� she says.

Janet Evans is growing up.

She’s not completely grown up, not yet. She’s 17. She has a lot of girl in her still. She’s a giggler. She has a year of high school left. Then college. Maybe Stanford. Maybe not. Her Olympic coach coaches there. Any idea what she wants to do when she is all grown up? Nope. No idea. Maybe coach?

“No way!� she says.

And she is laughing when she says it, because that’s what Janet Evans does best. Laughs. Laughs and swims. Laughs and laps. Two things that get her through even the toughest days. Two things that helped make her America’s golden girl. Two things she never stopped doing, on her way to three Olympic gold medals.

“Where are your medals?�

“I’ve got two of them right here in my bag,� she says. “The USOC (United States Olympic Committee) has the other one in a safe. We’re supposed to take a team picture later.�

“What will you do with them when you get home?�

“I’m not sure,� she says. “I know John Mykkanen, who won a silver medal in 1984, and I know he locked his medal in a safe-deposit box. I don’t think I’ll do that.�

“Because you want to look at them once in a while?�

“Exactly,� she says.

Janet Evans is packing up her medals and going home. Leaving today on a jet plane. Going back to Placentia, back to school, back to swim for the El Dorado Golden Hawks, back to the future, back to where, “I just hope they treat me the same.�

Kind of hard to do that when a kid comes back from a trip with three gold medallions around her neck, after appearing on television in front of about a billion people. Just the same, though, Janet hopes they’ll try.

Life goes on.

“How’s your homework coming?�

“No comment,� she says.

“What does that mean?�

“That means I’m doing it on the plane,� she says.

Some’s gotta swim, and some’s gotta lose. Janet Evans lost to nobody. She entered three Olympic races, won three Olympic races. The 400-meter individual medley. The 400 freestyle. The 800 freestyle. If they had had a 1,500-meter freestyle for women, she would have won that, too. Probably by a half minute.

By the time the runner-up had touched the pool wall, Janet could have climbed out and drip-dried. Maybe had a sandwich. That’s how good she is. The longer the race, the greater she gets. The wetter the better. The girl has the endurance of Tarzan. If they miss the plane, she might freestyle her way home.

There are things to do. Start that homework. Read Hermann Hesse’s “Siddhartha.� Think about improving that French grade. School started Sept. 6. Janet goes back to class, well, “I don’t know. Whenever my mom makes me.�

Get home first. Dig into the cabinets, the fridge. Find something better than all those sticky-rice balls and bad chicken she has been eating. Help put some weight back on mom, who has lost 10 pounds over here. Maybe gain an ounce or two back herself, now that she’s down to about 100.

Take a breather. Stay away from water for a couple of weeks. Dry out.

“Most of the kids are taking a month. I’ll try 2 weeks. My coach says, ‘Oh, Janet, you’ll be bored stiff.’ The last time I tried it, I lasted about, what? Eight days.�

Get back to some sort of normal routine. Not regret leaving Seoul a week early, except maybe when the closing ceremony is on TV. Be glad there’s no relay to swim, no 1,500 individual race to enter.

“It would just be another 2 days of extra pressure and stress,� Janet says, although if this kid is a victim of pressure and stress, she sure does know how to hide it. Janet Evans looked about as nervous here as Jack Nicklaus at a miniature golf course. The only butterflies this girl had were the ones in the medleys.

On the award pedestals, Janet would stand up there, all 100 pounds of her, soaking wet, as they say, next to a couple of Europeans who would look as large and stony as lions outside a public library. How amazed they all must be by her. This little wisp of a thing. This kid who looked as though she ought to be there running errands, dispensing towels. Maybe they envied her. Maybe they even resented her.

“I don’t know how they could,� Janet says. “I trained just as hard as them.�

“But you look like their daughter or something.�

“Hey, just because you’re little doesn’t mean you have to work twice as hard,� she says. “You can be little and still be good.�

And still stroll through Seoul and have swarms of locals rush at you, yelling, “Ev-ons! Ev-ons!� Be little and still be recognized. Be little and not get lost in the crowd. Stand above the crowd. Be the best. Be pleased that all the 5:15 morning workouts and 2 1/2-hour evening sessions finally paid off. Be glad you didn’t listen when little voices in your head told you you’d have more fun off doing something with your high school friends than swimming these stupid laps, back and forth, back and forth.

“You must have missed out on some social stuff.�

“Yeah,� Janet says, “but then again, not all the students from El Dorado High are standing here right now with gold medals around their necks.�

It’s not bragging. It’s just the way it is. Janet Evans has gone the distance. Now she’s going home. I imagine friends and relatives will be calling. I imagine promoters and interviewers will be calling. I imagine Johnny Carson’s people and David Letterman’s people will be calling. I know she wants to take a break from swimming. I know she wants to get back to normal.

I don’t think it works that way.