Don Nelson Award Page

I have had the honor and privilege of knowing Evelyn (Ev,as we call her) for nearly 18 years. Ev and I have worked side by side at Pacific West Gymnastics and on countless other tasks, events, and passion projects. Ev’s contributions to the gymnastics community in NorCal, Region One, and across the country make her the ideal candidate for the Don Nelson Memorial Award.

You’d be hard-pressed to find a club owner or coach who hasn’t directly interacted with Evelyn during her NorCal tenure. Whether that be through judging an intrasquad or Nationals, her time served as the USA Gymnastics NorCal SACC, as a member of the National Association for Women’s Gymnastics Judges NorCal State Governing Board, volunteering at Regional and National Congress, and most recently as the USA Gymnastics Region One RACC, it’s safe to say that Ev has involvement in nearly every part of our gymnastics community.

In October 2015, Ev helped to create Barb’s Pink Party Breast Cancer Fundraiser in honor of her friend and co-worker, Barbara Nicholson, who passed earlier that year. This family-oriented fundraiser featured carnival-style games, refreshments, and a cartwheel/forward roll-a-thon.

Since 2015, Barb’s Pink Party has raised over $50,000 for HERS Breast Cancer Foundation. In 2019 Evelyn received the prestigious People with Purpose Hope award because she works tirelessly to help HERS patients believe in a promising future.

In 2020, at the start of the COVID-19 Pandemic, Evelyn led an initiative to reopen California gymnastics centers, garnering support from nearly 15,000 people via a Change.org petition. As part of this initiative, Evelyn sent letters to the Governor, Senators, and State Representatives across every district in California, was featured in numerous press releases, and created a website to bring awareness to the cause. Having met with Representatives like Eric Swalwell, all the way up to Senator Dianne Feinstein, her love and knowledge for gymnastics allowed her to bring meaningful conversation to the table in an attempt to reopen gymnastics centers safely.

More personally, Evelyn is one of the most caring, compassionate, and driven people I know. You might even go as far as to say she is selfless - always listening, brainstorming ideas, developing an action plan, and holding you accountable. She’s always just a phone call away when you have a question about an element value or a deduction on a routine, to give advice on a program you’re launching, or when you’ve hit a snafu with a building permit. More importantly, she doesn’t stop when the call hangs up, instead doing additional research, sharing a news article, drafting a letter of recommendation, and so on. Ev is the prime example of someone who goes above and beyond for the betterment of all involved.

For the reasons above and many more, Evelyn Paradis is the ideal candidate to receive the Don Nelson Memorial Award for Contributor of the Year.

I am pleased to support the nomination of Evelyn Paradis for the Don Nelson Memorial Award. Evelynhas been the Director of the NAWGJ National Judge’s Cup for the past three years. Although this is a national meet rather than a NorCal Competition, the National Judge’s Cup has an historic stronghold inCalifornia--so much so that we named the Level 7 State Challenge in honor of the late Patty J. Shipman. The National Judge’s Cup provides Level 7 gymnasts from NorCal to compete as a team representing NorCal at a national competition. The California teams have been a dominant force in the competition and typically bring home honors as one of the top three teams in the country. This past year, the NorCal team placed second in the nation.
Evelyn’s contributions to the National Judge’s Cup are strictly on a volunteer basis. The meet is the primary fundraiser for NAWGJ and the proceeds are used to support educational activities for judges. Evelyn’s efforts have a direct impact on our ability to offer education and training to enhance the quality of judging throughout California as well as other states in the country. As National Judges Cup Director, Evelyn works closely with the local host who serves as Co-Director. She is the primary liaison between the Co-Director and staff on all aspects of the meet: venue, equipment set-up, registration, announcers, music, sales, awards, and marketing. She coordinates all of the judge volunteers (typically about 65 judges) and makes event assignments for each session as well as all award ceremonies. We recently started an RFP process to obtain bids for future competitions. Evelyn prepared the bid announcement and coordinated the review of all bids. As a result, we now have competition sites selected for the next two years.
Our major educational event is the NAWGJ National Symposium held every four years. In addition to her responsibilities as the National Judges Cup Director, Evelyn volunteered to coordinate the registration process for National Symposium. She helped our organization use a new online service to register participants and collect fees. She is always thinking of ways to move our organization forward through creative and innovative approaches.

Evelyn is an exemplar of professionalism. She is a problem solver who manages to find ways to
overcome any obstacles that come our way. She does this with good will, optimism, and transparency. She represents NorCal as an outstanding professional in all that she does within the gymnastics community. I highly recommend her for this prestigious award.

I wholeheartedly nominate Evelyn Paradis for the Don Nelson Memorial Award. Evelyn is not only a generous contributor of her time and resources, she is a positive influence, a problem solver and a huge proponent of the sport of gymnastics. She supports all gymnasts, coaches and judges
in Northern California and Region 1. Evelyn works tirelessly for all of us in NorCal. In addition to being USA Gymnastics Region 1 Chairman, she is involved in NAWGJ- by running the National Judges Cup, volunteers at Dev. Nationals, is volunteer coordinator for U.S. Championships and so much more.
Evelyn has a "can do" attitude and will do whatever it takes to help make Nor-Cal, Region 1 and all of the gymnastics clubs successful. She is a big proponent of us working as a team and helping gymnasts, judges, coaches, club owners and USA Gymnastics succeed. Evelyn is deserving of the "Contributor of the Year" award!

I have the great pleasure of working with Evelyn several times a year on different projects for our Region One gymnasts. When we start a project, we all know we must be at the top of our game because Evelyn will expect nothing but the best from us. She works incredibly hard and will do anything she can to provide the best for the gymnasts.
Her passion and dedication are contagious and makes what we do that much easier.
I’ve been making leotards and workout clothing for over 25 years and can honestly say Evelyn is as committed and professional as anyone I’ve ever worked with. She is as good as it gets, and NorCal, Region One, and the entire gymnastics community are lucky to have her.