While competing in the Adidas Outdoor Nationals at North Carolina A&T State University last weekend, Point Pleasant’s Cody Schultz didn’t quite match his discus distance from a month earlier in the WVSSAC Class AA State Track and Field Championship.
That Schultz still managed to walk away with a national championship in the event at Irwin Belk Track Complex speaks volumes to just how strong the rising senior at Point Pleasant High School is.
Competing in a division with eight other athletes, Schultz compiled a throw of 173-7 to take first place by nearly five feet.
“It’s pretty nice. I was going to do it last year, but I wasn’t really as confident as what I was this year,” Schultz said. “This year, I trained every day and trained a lot harder. I definitely thought I could keep up with those guys.”
To be in the division Schultz was part of, athletes were required to have a discus throw of 170-plus feet in an official high school meet, though Schultz was the only one to reach that mark at NC A&T.
Back in May, Schultz repeated as Class AA discus state champion when he came within a foot of a new state mark with a throw of 179-4 in Charleston.
While it was the second straight state crown in that event for Schultz, it capped off a marked improvement from the previous year when he won the discus title at 159-11 as a sophomore.
“Throwing six inches short of a state record definitely put me out there and got my confidence sky high,” Schultz said.
Schultz is also a standout football player for the Big Blacks who earned Class AA honorable mention all-state honors in 2021. He believes football training has been a benefit as it pertains to discus.
“The lifting from football and being in there with all those guys, that translates over to throwing something far,” he said.
While Schultz said his state championship was well received in the community, garnering national hardware sparked a reaction he won’t soon forget.
“It’s amazing,” Schultz said. “An hour after, my phone blew up. It was all over Facebook. It was great. It felt really good. Some of the people, I didn’t even know.”
As he continues to add strength over the summer in an effort for a standout senior season on the gridiron, Schultz is keeping goals for the spring of 2023 on his mind as well.
“In my head, if you throw 200 feet,” Schultz said, “you’re going to be remembered in West Virginia for a long time. That’s the goal.”