BENTON — Fairfield High School senior pole vaulting standout Sophie Brown signed a full-ride NCAA Division I letter of intent Wednesday, Feb. 6 to continue her academic and athletic careers at the University of South Florida in Tampa.

Brown owns personal bests of 12 feet, 1 inch outdoors and 12-6 indoors.

She shares the Elkhart County record, is a two-time sectional champion (setting a Warsaw Sectional record), three-time regional qualifier, one-time regional champ and two-time State Meet qualifier.

According to athletic.net, she enters the coming season the No. 1-ranked high school pole vaulter Indiana and in the top eight nationally.

Brown is also a top student, ranking No. 1 in a class of 129 at Fairfield with a 4.0 grade point average.

The daughter of Wallace and Stephanie Brown, her high school head coach is Darin Holsopple and her club coach for pole vault is Paul Babits.

Brown has overcome a major obstacle during her career, according to information shared by the Fairfield athletic office. A childhood accident left her with visual impairment. She had “partially successful” surgery last fall, but it left her with double vision. As a result, she has to close one eye while vaulting, which makes it difficult for her to judge distances. That difficulty increases as it begins to get dark outside during late meets.

Due to a reporter’s error, an earlier story on etruth.com and in Wedesday’s Elkhart Truth print edition incorrectly stated what college Brown will be attending.