VYING ON WORLD STAGE

Josh Babb looks to rise above the competition again.

Springboro grad will compete in six sports this week during the World Dwarf Games in Ontario, Canada.

He is the BMOC. Big Man on Campus. That might be a surprise to some folks back in high school where he was deemed too small for most varsity sports and was the shortest guy on the Panthers indoor track and ultimate frisbee club teams.

But this week 18-year-old Josh Babb is something of the Yao Ming of the Little People at the World Dwarf Games on the University of Guelph campus in Ontario, Canada.

The recent Springboro High graduate not only will stand out because an unexpected reconfiguration of the verte- brae in his rare form of dwarfism allowed him to grow to 5 feet — a foot taller than the average adult with dwarfism, according to the Little People of America — but because of the way he rises above the competition at these big-scale sporting events.

At the 2013 World Dwarf Games at Michigan State University, Josh — then 14 and new to international competition — turned in a Jim Thorpe-like performance, winning two gold medals and six silvers.

His most memorable showing may have come in the soccer competition when he was switched from the U.S. team’s goalkeeper to a striker before the gold-medal game against the more-seasoned unit from Great Britain.

Although the U.S. would