Fresno City College removed the name of “Euless Ballpark” named after John Euless, a Fresno real-estate businessman who made major efforts to help build the park that originally hosted Fresno State. The decision and name change came after a Fresno Bee in 2020 exposed Euless for being a member of the Ku Klux Klan, a group of white supremacists that spread hateful ideologies .
The FCC president at the time, Carole Goldsmith, told the Fresno Bee that the college has worked towards progress of equity and race. Goldsmith said keeping the name of a racist associated with the school does not fit their mission.
School officials assembled a task force consisting of the college senate, student government representatives, and Black and brown community members to vote on a new name. Since the announcement, no further updates about a possible name change have been made.
Colleges are starting to face pressure from students to reconsider having statues and areas that were dedicated to people who’ve been deemed problematic and controversial. Recently students at Fresno State voiced their opinion that the Gandhi Study Room should be renamed due to some of Gandhi’s harmful actions towards the Sikh community.
Euless was originally exposed to have racist ties in 1991 by another Fresno Bee journalist, Bob McCarthy. McCarthy suggested FCC rename the park after Head Coach Len Bourdet.
Bourdet is known for his impact coaching the Rams for 31 years. In that time, Bourdet won a total of four championships. He led the Rams to a three-peat, winning from 1961-1963 and winning his fourth in 1972.
He finished his coaching career with 722 wins in 1988. At the time Bourdet held the record of most wins by a coach in California junior college history.
Working under Bourdet and eventually taking over in 1989, Ron Scott served as head coach of FCC for 34 seasons. Scott led the Rams to a state championship in 1992 winning coach of the year and getting inducted into the Fresno Athletic Hall of Fame.
When Scott retired in 2022, he ended his career surpassing Bourdet in wins with a total of 1,100 becoming the new record holder of most wins by a coach in California community college history.
Scott became the third person to have their jersey number retired for FCC baseball in 2025 and his accomplishments warrant being a candidate if discussions to give the park a name resurface.
A player from Fresno that succeeded in the Olympics is John Hoover who attended Fresno High and Fresno State. Hoover led college baseball in strikeouts his senior year being drafted 26 overall in the first round.
Hoover became an Olympic silver medalist, pitching a win in the opening game. Hoover had his MLB career cut short due to injury but managed to make the most of his baseball career.
