Brad Epperson sometimes revisits his athletic past by reading old newspaper clippings and looking at medals he won.
Reminders are many, considering Epperson was a two-sport standout at Franklin Community High School. However, the medal from winning the discus competition at the 1994 boys state track and field meet remains special.
In May, Epperson will be honored by the Indiana track and cross country hall of fame when it recognizes its Silver Anniversary team this spring at the boys state meet.
Another former Johnson County athlete, Greenwood pole vaulter Gordon Crail, is part of the Golden Anniversary team. Crail, the state champion in 1969 and 1970, will be honored posthumously after passing away in 2010.
Now 42, Epperson still remembers that magical day at Michael A. Carroll Stadium on the IUPUI campus.
“I thought I had a good chance of winning, and was a lot more relaxed than the year before. I went as a junior and kind of bombed out,” said Epperson, a fireman and paramedic in Franklin.
“But that day was all pretty surreal. I was walking on cloud nine for a while.”
As a high school senior, Epperson stood 6 feet, 195 pounds. He won discus with a best throw of 176 feet, 3 inches. In the process, he outdueled some better-known competition in then-Decatur Central athlete and eventual University of Wisconsin football signee Aaron Gibson, who stood 6-6 and weighed well over 300 pounds.
Gibson was later named an all-Big Ten offensive lineman twice before playing seven seasons in the National Football League.
“Brad had a lot of things going for him. Height wasn’t one of them, and weight wasn’t one of them,” longtime Franklin boys track and field coach Mike Hall said. “But he was really, really quick. We also used him in sprints. He was very quick in the ring, and the other thing was he was devoted to the discus.
“Track and field just became his thing. Brad spent a lot of time on it improving his technique.”
Epperson spent four and a half years at the Naval Academy after high school. He later enrolled at Franklin College and graduated in 2003.
Epperson’s school record in the discus of 181 feet, 9 inches, set at the Columbus North Sectional his senior season, still stands. Stories pertaining to some of his more memorable discus throws as a Grizzly Cub have become legend.
Hall laughs remembering the time Epperson twice cleared the fence at Seymour’s Bulleit Stadium — located some 175 feet away from the ring — during warmups prior to a meet against the Owls and Columbus North. He won that day, with two tosses ricocheting off the fence.
Then came the time at Beech Grove when one of Epperson’s tosses wound up at the bottom of the creek some 170 feet from the ring.
“I’m not even sure they gave him a distance,” Hall said. “They just said Brad won.”
Epperson will be winning again on May 31 when he and the other Silver and Golden Anniversary recipients are announced at Indiana University track and field stadium.
“Absolutely,” Epperson said when asked if he would attend. “I am going to do everything I can to be there.”
