‘I’m back’: Jacob Schultz finds his way to RAF Undiscovered
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COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Jacob Schultz still had the nose plug in.
He spoke by video Monday night from the shoe store inside the Collin Palmer Wrestling Academy in Ohio. The moment fit. Earlier that day, Schultz had gone through a full Division I practice at Kent State. He said he completed every rep and every live go, even after vomiting into a trash can.
Then he kept wrestling.
At 33, the former Lewistown standout has returned to competition on a stage few could have predicted when his college career ended more than a decade ago. Schultz is one of 12 contestants on "RAF Undiscovered," a new reality competition series that premieres Wednesday, Sept. 16, on FOX Nation. The winner earns a Real American Freestyle contract and a spot on the RAF 13 card Friday, Sept. 18, in Miami.
Schultz already knows how the show ends. He isn't allowed to say.
What he can talk about is the road that got him there.
Schultz went 106-36 at Lewistown, reached the PIAA Class AAA championships twice and continued his career at Kent State. Wrestling had given his life structure from the time he was a boy. Then the structure disappeared.
Schultz said he left Kent State in a "very, very non-fulfilling way." He said he wasn't living the way a Division I wrestler should and burned bridges along the way. He spent years removed from the version of himself he recognized.
Wrestling eventually pulled him back. Coaching became part of that return. Schultz is an assistant at St. Francis DeSales in Columbus and at Collin Palmer Wrestling Academy. He also began competing again, entering college opens and searching out difficult matches.
One loss helped change his direction. Schultz said his defeat to Cody Johns at a Wrangle in the Wild event in his hometown came in what he called a "really embarrassing way." He wasn't living the way he wanted to live, and knew it.
"That is the moment right there where I turned a corner and got back in shape," Schultz said.
For the last three years, his rule has been simple: "Stay ready so you don't have to get ready."
That preparation mattered when RAF Undiscovered opened applications. Schultz had already become familiar with Real American Freestyle through the shoe business connected to Palmer's academy. He attended seven of RAF's 12 domestic events, built relationships within the promotion and made himself visible. When applications opened for Undiscovered, Schultz saw a chance he couldn't ignore.
He initially received an email telling him he was a backup. About two hours later, another arrived. He was in.
Schultz said he jumped up and ran around the academy celebrating until people in the boxing gym started asking what had happened.
"I'm in," he told them.
He'd prepared for the wrestling, too. Palmer's academy trains all styles, and Schultz had spent much of the summer working freestyle. He approached his training as though the call from RAF was coming, even without a guarantee.
"I was training like a professional athlete," he said.
The cameras presented less of a problem. Schultz admits he enjoys attention, and cameras are common inside Palmer's academy.
"I was made for this," Schultz said. "I was made for this show."
Yet the show also brought him face to face with a side of himself he once had trouble controlling.
Schultz describes his personality in two parts. There is the "Day Maker," who wants to make people smile, open doors, and help others. Then there is the "Day Breaker," the competitor who, as Schultz put it, will "run you through a wall."
For years, Schultz said, wrestling gave that second side somewhere useful to go. When wrestling disappeared from his life, Schultz said that side of his personality began surfacing in his social and family life.
"Wrestling is the way that I was taming that guy," Schultz said.
It's an idea rooted in something Schultz heard growing up in Lewistown: Be a gentleman off the mat. Be vicious on it.
Schultz remembers elementary practices run by Dale Searer at the old Lewistown Middle School as some of the hardest he ever endured. He mentioned Searer, Mike Robinson, Ken Chertow, Ken Whitesel, Kirby Martin and Dave Bonson among the men who helped shape him.
"It's life training," Schultz said.
Among all those influences, his father remains the largest.
"My dad is my ultimate leader," Schultz said. "My dad is my ultimate superhero."
Those relationships make what happened at Kent State on Monday more significant.
More than a decade after leaving the program on bad terms, Schultz returned to its wrestling room. This time, he said, coaches and wrestlers welcomed him with open arms. He even broke down the team at the end of practice.
Ten years earlier, Schultz said, Kent State had been "kind of kicking me out the door." Monday felt different.
"It's one of the best days ever," he said.
Age has changed the wrestler. Schultz concedes he isn't as fast and his reactions aren't what they were in college. He believes his wrestling IQ is better. When asked who would win between the current Schultz and the Kent State version, he paused.
"I'm honestly not sure who'd win that match," he said. "It'd be a great match."
RAF Undiscovered gave the coach a chance to become the athlete again.
The young wrestlers Schultz coaches didn't fully understand what he had done until commercials for the series began appearing during NFL games. Suddenly, Coach Schultz was on television.
Whatever comes from RAF, Schultz said coaching remains his priority. His favorite rewards are handwritten cards from wrestlers he’s helped. He keeps them at home.
Schultz said he isn't leaving DeSales or Palmer's academy.
When people in Lewistown watch the show Wednesday, Schultz wants them to understand the distance between the wrestler they knew and the man they'll see now.
He said the wrestler who graduated from Lewistown had returned, along with the feeling he carried then that he could take over the world.
"I'm back," Schultz said.