Fahey Bank Athlete of the Month: Elgin's Tiffany Hix shows toughness in track
MARION — There's tough and then there's Tiffany Hix.
All the Elgin senior did was compete in track and field all season on what turned out to be a broken foot.
She won a couple conference championships, went to the Division III regionals in four events and competed in the state meet in the pole vault. And she did it all despite being less than 100 percent.
"It was pretty sharp pains pretty much the whole time I was running or pushing off of it to jump," Hix said.
But she's used to it. As a lifelong high-level gymnast who went to the OHSAA state gymnastics meet the last two years, she knows all about aches and pains and injuries of all types.
"I’m so used to dealing with the pains my body gives me at this point," she said.
So when she noticed a pain in her left foot while practicing the long jump before the season started, she didn't think much about it.
"I thought it was because I hadn’t long jumped since last season," Hix said. "I thought it was kind of sore from it, and I stretched it out a little bit. I kept on going. I long jumped the next day, and it kept bugging me. I went to pole vault that night. When I went to pole vault, I really couldn’t do much because of how bad it hurt."
So Hix took a few days off from training.
"It helped it a little bit but didn’t do much because I was still up walking around on it and doing stuff here and there," she said. "We tried taping it a few different ways to try to figure out what was going on with it. We really couldn’t figure much out."
Eventually, she got the foot x-rayed. Doctors knew there was an issue, but couldn't see a break. She was told that as long as she could tolerate the pain, she could continue to compete. A second opinion went the same way.
So that's exactly what she did. She tolerated the ailing foot and kept on competing.
Hix won the Northwest Central Conference championship in the girls pole vault and as a member of the 4x100-meter relay. She was league runner-up in the long jump and the 4x200 relay.
At districts, she was second in the pole vault at 9-8, runner-up in the long jump at 15-1, plus ran the third leg for the 4x100 and 4x200 relays that each finished third.
She earned a coveted state berth in the pole vault by going 9-8 for fourth place at the Chillicothe Southeastern regional.
"I kept running on it and jumping on it," Hix said. "I would take an ice bath almost every night and massage guns and stretching and extra treatment stuff on it. The ice baths felt good but that was about it.
"The day before state we went to get an MRI and had it read the Tuesday after state. I was really wanting to get through the season and do whatever I could to get through the season."
She more than got through it. Hix set a personal and school record by going 10 feet at the Division III state meet in Ohio State's Jesse Owens Memorial Stadium, finishing 14th out of 18 competitors.
As for the verdict on the left foot a few days later?
"We found out what it was," she said of a stress fracture of her navicular bone. "I was in a boot and on crutches for two weeks, and I just went back (last week for a recheck). I get to start a weight-bearing progression starting with 50 pounds of weight and in four days adding 25 pounds and continuing that until full weight bearing."
While she wishes she was healthy, Hix has no regrets about competing as a senior on a broken foot.
"I would have done it the same way I did to get the season that I got," she said. "I was just super happy with my season and being able to get the school record twice and being able to have fun."
It earned her the Fahey Bank Athlete of the Month Award for Marion County girls in June. It is her second such honor, having earned it a year ago as a gymnast.
"It’s so exciting to do it in a second sport and a sport I’m going to actually continue with in college," she said.
Hix will compete next year as a pole vaulter on the women's track team at Wittenberg, but she'll always cherish the memories of her final day wearing an Elgin uniform while competing in front of thousands in the stadium.
"It felt wonderful," she said. "It was the perfect temperature that I love to compete in. It was nice and warm, but not flaming hot. I loved the atmosphere of all the people there. Over at pole vault, it seemed like our own little area just because we were out of the way of everybody, but still everybody was there to support the pole vaulters and the runners and everyone else.
"All the kids I was jumping with were wonderful. We were standing under the tent talking about what we ate the night before. Just fun, goofy conversations."
Broken foot or not, she was glad she could show her toughness and finish out the season on the state's biggest stage. It was worth it to Hix.
"I would not change what I did whatsoever," she said.
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Fahey Bank Athlete of the Month
June Girls Nominees
» Winner: Tiffany Hix, senior, Elgin track and field.
» Kameron Biederman, freshman, Marion Harding softball.
» Eva Moran, freshman, River Valley track and field.
» Whitney Waddell, sophomore, Pleasant track and field.
» Mackenzie Delaney, freshman, Ridgedale softball.
This article originally appeared on Marion Star: Fahey Bank Award: Elgin's Tiffany Hix shows toughness in track
