ANDERSON, Ind. —
One of Madison Heights High School’s most enduring and recognizable face, Paul E. Bradford, died Thursday at Saint John’s Medical Center at 87 years old.
He was athletic director for the Pirates for 34 years, but he also coached baseball and basketball. He and John McCord were the only athletic directors in the school’s history.
“We lost a good one,” said former MH boys varsity basketball coach Phil Buck. “You just hate to lose such a good guy. I think I worked 26 years with him and I don’t recall we ever had an argument. Whether you were a student-athlete or a coach, he backed you all the way. It didn’t matter what you coached, he made you feel like you were coaching the most important sport.”
“He was a wonderful guy,” said Neal Rector, who played for him as a student and then coached under him at Madison Heights. “He had great wisdom. He had a wonderful family and my heart goes out to them. There’s no one I know who had more love for high school athletics.”
Bradford’s influence over athletes and coaches was expansive.
“My first coaching job was at Madison Heights with Paul as athletic director,” recalled current Anderson High School tennis coach Jim Hostetler. “He was very instrumental in getting me started. He taught me what I needed to learn about how to treat athletes and coaches. It was a joy to work for him. He was a major reason why that school had so much athletic success.”
“Other than my father, he had as much influence over my coaching and teaching career as anybody,” said Madison-Grant principal Phil Nikirk, who coach baseball at MHHS while Bradford was AD there. “I always thought it was great that Paul was the first baseball coach (at MH) and that his son David was the last baseball coach there.”
But while many Pirate teams and athletes had great success at the school, it wasn’t Bradford who sought credit for it.
“He wanted the success to be for the athletes and the coaches before he was noticed,” said Hostetler. “He stayed behind the scenes.”
His memory for names and faces was encyclopedic.
“That was something that amazed me,” said Buck. “He knew the names of all of the players on all of the teams. He had such a great memory.”
He was able to remain in contact in various ways with players and coaches from his past.
“A group of us from the class of 69 go to an Indianapolis Indians game together every year,” said Greg Graham, a former Pirate basketball player who spent the past four years as Anderson’s deputy mayor. “A couple of years ago Paul went. He was a great baseball fan. I know all of the guys were glad to have him there.”
Arrangements for viewing and the funeral are pending at Robert D. Loose Funeral Homes & Crematory, Anderson.
Local News
Related Photos
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Former Madison Heights High School Athletic Director Paul Bradford speaks to those in attendance at the dedication ceremony for a monument to Madison Heights High School in 2010. File photo / The Herald Bulletin
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