When you come into this Miami County village on either State Route 718 or SR 48, you are greeted by a red sign that proclaims Pleasant Hill to be the home of the 2010 Division IV Softball State Champions.
Walk into the main office at Newton High School and you’ll see the 2015 Cross County Conference championship trophy, won by the Indians cross country team for the first time last month, proudly displayed on the counter.
And Friday afternoon, should you stop by the school, you will witness an especially heart-warming spectacle.
The entire student body — all 650 kindergarten through 12th-grade students — will line the sidewalk leading from the front school doors and form a congratulatory tunnel for one of their own.
It’s called a Clap Out and last month they gave this same salute to junior golfer Brock Jamison, who qualified for the state tournament.
This time the attaboy passage is for Brady McBride, the senior cross country runner who won the conference meet in mid-October, then finished first at the Division III district meet in Dayton the next week and won again last weekend at the regional in Troy.
Saturday, he runs in the state cross country meet.
He did the same last year, which means he was given the student body salute then, too.
“It’s kind of embarrassing,” the 17-year-old said quietly. “But it makes you feel good too because you realize the younger kids really look up to you. Last year the whole fifth-grade class wrote me letters wishing me good luck. That was kinda cool.
“That’s how it is in small towns. We don’t have a whole lot of other stuff, so high school sports means a lot to everyone.”
Brady’s dad, Pat, the superintendent at Newton High, agreed: “That’s what makes small schools so neat. He’ll walk down the hallway and all the young kids know his name. It’s like he’s a big brother to them.”
The only thing better known in Pleasant Hill than the prep athletes is the town’s Civil War monument.
“Oh yeah, if you say you’re from Pleasant Hill people know it,” Pat said with a smile. “They say, ‘Oh, that’s where the monument is right there in the middle of the road.’”
State Route 48, which turns into Main Street through town, is lined by American flags hung from telephone poles. In the center of town, it crosses Monument Street, which is otherwise 718, and right there in the middle of the intersection stands the monument — topped by a Union soldier in a forage cap and sack coat, his hands resting on his musket — erected in 1895 to honor the township’s soldiers killed in the Civil War.
A dozen names are engraved on the base of the statue along with the inscription: “…In memory for Fallen Heroes who died in defence (sic) of the union and sleep in unknown graves.”
While it’s the focal point of the town, the monument also stands in a precarious spot and has collected more than one unsuspecting motorist over the years.
About a year ago some people in town pushed to move the statue to another location.
“Oh my goodness, you’d have thought the people in favor of the move were trying to do something evil,” Pat said. “It kind of divided the community.”
So the monument remains where it’s always been and awaits becoming part of the next celebration of a Newton High state champ.
The year the softball team won the state title, the school bus bringing it back home stopped at a church outside of town and the players were moved onto waiting firetrucks which, with lights flashing and sirens blaring, paraded them through Pleasant Hill, circling the monument as the townsfolk lining the sidewalks cheered and the Civil War soldier looked on stoically from above.
A bond with Mom
One of the best parts of Brady’s championship run is that he’s coached by his mom, Tiffany.
She grew up on a farm outside Pleasant Hill and when she went to Newton High, she played the only sports offered for girls: volleyball, basketball and softball. She and her sister, Tina, both had their dad, Cecil Jackson, as their hoops coach.
As a teenager Tiffany started running with her dad, who was dealing with some health issues and needed a fitness regimen.
“I started running 5Ks with him and after a while we were running marathons, too,” she said.
Over the years she’s run everything from the Marine Corps Marathon to Boston and New York City.
“Tiffany has a special relationship with her father because they did all that running together,” Pat said. “It still draws them together today.”
When her own kids — Brady and younger daughter, Tatum — were little, they showed up at some of the races she ran.
“I remember them standing along the course at the Columbus Marathon and holding up signs and cheering me on,” she said.
Both children have turned into good multi-sport athletes. Brady became the starting point guard of the Newton basketball team when he was a freshman, but running soon proved to be his real passion.
Along the way he has developed a bond with Mom, just as she did when running with her dad.
“Here’s another good thing about cross country,” Pat said. “Sometimes in other sports it comes down to a coach’s judgment as to playing time. But with cross country, it’s black and white. You either run the best time or you don’t.
“And Brady has earned the right to be called a district champ and a regional champ. Nobody can ever say he got that because his dad was superintendent or his mom was the coach.”
And soon he will sign a letter of intent accepting a college offer, likely with Ohio University.
That would make him the fourth Newton athlete to receive an NCAA Division I athletic scholarship.
Steady approach
Last year’s state meet at National Trail Raceway didn’t go as planned for Brady.
From the wide-open cattle call start, runners barrel downhill on a course that narrows and turns, often causing a logjam.
“He had positioned himself nicely at the start and was about 20 back, but at the turn he fell,” Pat said. “And when he started to get up, someone hit him again and he went down again. At that point he was no longer 20th. There were like 150 people in the race and maybe 100 had gotten past him.”
As Brady explained: “Mentally, it just kind of defeated me. A ton of people went past and I panicked a little.”
He overran to catch up and was spent by the end of the 5,000-meter race. He finished 51st.
Since then, he has trained especially hard to have a big senior season. He’s known for his work ethic and dedication, which was exemplified the summer he decided to put up 20,000 shots to make himself a better scorer in basketball.
While Brady shrugged at the mention, Tiffany smiled: “He made it — 20,188 shots.”
He took the same unwavering approach this past summer for cross country.
“He trained at least 60 miles a week, did a lot of road races and some cross training, swimming and even a little biking,” Pat said. “There were times his mom had to get on him about taking a day off and letting his body rest.”
Brady is more physically mature this year and it’s shown. Three weeks ago he won the conference title with a 15-minute, 45-second clocking.
A year ago that would have been the fastest time in the state by two seconds, but this year he said nine people have run faster. That will make Saturday’s race a real challenge,
Although he said he will have to go out faster than he normally runs, he plans to stick to his plan, avoid sprinting with the race leaders and position himself for the finish.
He said he has to remember what it’s all about here.
And that especially means realizing that while some fallen heroes get a statute in the center of town, others simply get up again, train hard and make their way back to state — after first running through another cheering Clap Out and straight into a hometown’s heart.
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