Daily Journal Girls’ Track Athlete of the Year: San Mateo’s Kaitlyn Schuh

For a busybody like Schuh, however, a full-time focus on dance wasn’t enough to fill her schedule. So, the tall, athletic freshman, who stands 5-10 as of the end of her recent junior year, soon found the sport all tall, athletic kids are bound to find — basketball.

“I’ve been dancing ever since I can remember, I think since I was 3,” Schuh said. “I’ve always just loved it. It’s fun. So, all throughout elementary school I just did it for fun ... and then in middle school I started doing competitive dance. But I didn’t like it as much as I like competing in basketball.”

After making the girls’ varsity basketball team as a freshman, Schuh settled in to a busy schedule. But the best was yet to come. Still looking to broaden her horizons, Schuh finished up a historic season for San Mateo basketball and took her competitive edge straight to the San Mateo track and field team.

It proved to be the beginning of a Bearcats renaissance. Not only did the girls’ basketball team, under then first-year coach Paul Carion, snap a 49-game league losing streak, and went on to capture the Peninsula Athletic League Lake Division championship. The track team also introduced a new head coach Osif Rahman. And for Rahman, who had been on campus the previous year as an assistant coach, Schuh was a bolt from the blue.

“She’s a phenomenal athlete,” Rahman said. “Truly, it did not take very long with some assessments she has true Division I potential as a track athlete.”

In true Schuh fashion, the then freshman tried most every track event before her dynamic foot speed and explosive ups led her to the high jump pit. She has quickly climbed the Central Coast Section ladder in the event, including a 2024 Peninsula Athletic League podium finish in third place; a second-place finish in CCS in 2025; and, this year, bringing home the CCS championship with a top height of 5 feet, 6 inches, Saturday, May 23, at Gilroy High School.

“Oh my gosh,” Rahman said. “If she was really locked in as a track athlete ... she would legit have ... as many as six [school records]. She’s by far the most talented female athlete I’ve had on any team.”

Schuh already owns one program record, in girls’ high jump, which she set early this season, Saturday, March 14, at the 5th Annual Fighting Knights Relays at Hillsdale. Coming off her third varsity basketball season, Schuh came out of the gates with the record height of 5-7 in just her second competitive meet of the year.

“It’s kind of a pattern,” Schuh said of her quick start. “I think it’s because I’m coming off of basketball season; I’m in really good shape.”

The junior broke Liz Berger’s 41-year-old program high jump record of 5-6, set in 1985. Schuh isn’t far off two other program records. Delaney Brown set San Mateo’s girls’ long jump record of 17-5 3/4 in 2024. At this year’s CCS trials, Schuh hit a 17-0 flat. In girls’ triple jump, Rebecca Sprague has held the school record of 35 7 1/2 since 1985. Earlier this season, Saturday, April 18, at the CCS Top 8 Invitational at Los Gatos High, Schuh tripled at 35-3.

“We’ve kind of told her, she thinks of herself as a high jumper, but right now she could be going to state in the long, the triple and the high jump,” Rahman said. “She’s still not where she’s going to be. I’m really hopeful she’s going to continue to grow, because there are a lot of expectations on her. So, I think she’s starting to feel that as well.”

Schuh currently enjoys a big benefit in high jump, as San Mateo enlisted a regular volunteer high jump coach this season in Marcus Phills, after he began working with Schuh in 2025.

“It’s definitely helped me because I think, prior to this year, I was just jumping off my athletic ability,” Schuh said. “But now I’m working more on the technical aspect of the event. Most of the event is in the approach and the curve. ... It’s still something I’m working on, but it’s something I’m working on with my high jump coach.”

After a seventh-place finish in high jump at the Arcadia Invitational, Saturday, April 11, Schuh went on a tear, winning three straight high jump competitions, including the PAL and CCS championships. She continued competing in all three jumping disciplines, qualifying for the CCS finals in each, with an eighth-place finish in long jump at 16-7, and ninth in triple jump at 34 2 1/2.

Schuh’s crowning achievement to date, though, was her CCS high jump title. And what’s more impressive about the feat is it came just three weeks after San Mateo’s annual spring dance concert, Mateo Motion XXII, held May 1-2 at the San Mateo Performing Arts Center. Schuh is the only performer in dance instructor Olivia Reidy’s advanced class of 36 students who also competes with the school’s track team.

“Definitely challenging, but I think I’ve learned that I have to balance them all,” Schuh said. “I think the dancing, it’s also helped me a lot in track, and also in basketball. It’s made me more coachable because I think I pick things up more quickly. So, it’s kind of cool how it’s all gone together.”