San Jacinto Christian Academy senior Brandon Jones named GOAT Scholar Athlete of the Week

AMARILLO, Texas (KFDA) - This week’s FirstBank Southwest GOAT Scholar Athlete of the Week is proving that nothing is too far out of reach, even for a pole vaulter. Meet Brandon Jones.

San Jacinto Christian Academy senior Brandon Jones has flown over 12-feet 6-inches in pole vault. He started vaulting around 2.5 years ago.

“Tricking your brain into thinking you’re not going to die whenever you do this because everything we do is totally against what’s natural to protect yourself from getting hurt,” said Jones.

Jones placed fifth at State last year in TAPPS.

“Gives you so much adrenaline once you get over the bar and you just feel weightless,” said Jones. “Improving feels so good.”

“You watch him run and you watch him plant and it’s just beautiful. We knew something special was going to happen for him as soon as he had enough vaults in his repertoire.”

Just as Jones was building momentum, September in 2021 shocked his strength.

“Had this crazy shoulder pain and was pretty well unbearable, so we went to the hospital and found out that my left lung had collapsed.”

“You know next thing we knew we were in the hospital for 10 days with a test tube and literally it went from healthy kid to pediatric ICU‚” said DeDe Jones, Brandon’s mother.

After recovery about five weeks later Jones’ right lung collapsed as well.

“I was pretty depressed about not being able to do pole vault for a while or do anything because I had to take three months off after it healed,” said Jones.

“He was recording. He was helping coach. He was doing whatever he could to support the team,” said DeDe. “He actually had a thing on his steering wheel that said Dream Big that he put on their right after the collapse happened, so with him it was never an issue whether he was coming back.”

Now Jones is going back to TAPPS Regionals and looking to punch his ticket to State. He is vaulting around 10-feet and getting closer to his old goals.

“We talked about just being strong in his faith and trusting what he was doing,” said Malone.

“If you give up on the things you love just because something gets in the way then you’ll never really go anywhere with that,” said Jones. “Even though it’s tough as much as you can just try to push through.”

Jones holds a 4.0 GPA and plans on studying Manufacturing Engineering at Tarleton State University. At San Jacinto Christian Academy Jones participates in National Honor Society and is a member of the Youth Group at Church of Quail Creek.

Congratulations to Brandon Jones on being named our FirstBank Southwest NewsChannel10 GOAT Scholar Athlete of the Week. To nominate a senior, go to https://www.newschannel10.com/sports/goat/.

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