Photo: Fanster.com

Imagine being a BMX World Champion, traveling all over the world to ride and play baseball, and appearing on the cover of Sports Illustrated with Peyton Manning. That’s a great resume’ for any athlete. It’s unbelievable when those credentials belong to an 11-year old.

That 11-year old is Brock Heffron of Gilbert. In 2007, Heffron won the UCI BMX Racing World Championship in Victoria, British Columbia. He defended that title in Taiyuan, China in May of this year. He’s planning on defending it again at the next UCI World Championship in Australia.

How does a young man raised on team sports by a father who played and coached high school football in the Valley get into BMX? “I discovered BMX when I drove by the track with my mom on the way to Wal-Mart, and I thought it was cool. Two weeks later, my dad took me, ” Brock said. He was seven at the time, and the rest, as they say is history.

Brock loves BMX, and says it took him about a year to reach world class level. Brock’s father, John, is on board now with BMX as a sport, but there was a time when he wasn’t so sure it was right for Brock. After Brock showed an interest, John try to steer him away from it. “I generalized the kind of people that rode BMX bikes, so I didn’t want him to be a part of it. My wife told me a week later ‘it’s not about you, it’s about Brock’, so I took him, and man, was I wrong,” he said.

Brock also plays football, which he lists along with BMX as his favorite sport, and excels as a catcher in baseball. It’s pretty rare to see a pure athlete play catcher, but Brock makes it clear that catching is a choice he made. “I like catcher, because you can see the whole field and see what everyone is doing,” he said. This past summer, Brock played for the Gilbert American Little League Baseball All-Star Team in the Arizona State Tournament. And just a few weeks ago, Heffron was in the Dominican Republic playing for U.S.A. Select Baseball in the Dominican Baseball Classic.

Then there’s the whole matter of how Heffron was named the first ever Sports Illustrated Kids Athlete of the Year, and how he appeared on the December 2007 cover with Peyton Manning of the Indianapolis Colts. Heffron was chosen from over 6,000 nominees by the readers of SI Kids for his skills on the track, on the field, and in the classroom. Brock still marvels at his interaction with Manning. “He told me he was happy that he was there with me. When he first came in, he said it was a pleasure to share the award with me,” Brock explained.

You might think that such an honor would go to a young boy’s head, but that’s not true in this case. “A couple of my friends asked for my autograph, but nothing else changed. I’m still a normal kid,” Heffron said.

Sports isn’t the only area where Brock excels. He is also a straight-A student in the 6th grade, who enjoys math and science. His face lights up when he tells the story of how he won first prize in a school science fair.

For an 11-year old, Brock has a pretty good grasp of what he wants his future to look like. He’d love to continue riding and training for the Olympics. BMX made it’s Olympic debut this past summer at the games in Beijing, China. “I’d definitely like to be in the Olympics because it’s a chance to win a gold medal and be number one in the world,” Heffron said.

His father John, has a dream for his son, and where he’d like to see him in ten years. “I’d like to see him play football for Army at West Point and watch him in an Army-Navy game,” John said. Brock also says he wants to attend West Point.

Don’t rule it out either. It seems like when Brock Heffron sets his mind to something, it usually happens.