Joscelyn Stamper, left, is shown with her mother, Miranda Stamper, at Cherokee High School on Thursday, March 26, 2026. Both are state champions in discus throw. (SCOTT MCKIE B.P./One Feather photos)
By SCOTT MCKIE B.P.
One Feather Asst. Editor
CHEROKEE, N.C. – Joscelyn Stamper has a calm, kind demeanor that probably surprises a lot of people when they find out just how competitive she is athletically. She recently broke the Cherokee High School women’s discus throw record with a distance of 137-6, and she isn’t even close to being finished. Oh, and she also holds the school record in the shot put with a throw of 40-0.
Stamper, a member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and a junior at CHS, spoke to me recently about her track and field throwing career to date. “The first thing that I noticed straight off the bat was it was just me. In team-affiliated sports, everything gets dispersed. A loss gets dispersed. A victory gets dispersed. The work gets dispersed. But, track and field, throwing, it was just me.
So, if I woke up that day and I didn’t want to go extra weights, I knew at the end of the day it was only going to be my fault if I didn’t and it didn’t work out in the end. So, my freshman year, when I had fallen short, that’s when it hit me because that’s the human thing – you want to blame something else, you want to get it off of you. And I was like, ‘I can’t, this is me’. There are those days that I decided to skip practice and those days that I decided to maybe not eat the best things or not go to weights. That’s what that got me. The next year I came in completely 100 percent devoted and locked-in.”
As a freshman, Joscelyn won the discus throw at the Smoky Mountain Conference Championship held at CHS on May 1, 2024. Her throw that day was 110-2. She followed that up with a 1A West Regional title with a throw of 120-11 at Montreat College Track in Black Mountain, N.C. on May 11, 2024. The next week, she took third place in the 1A State Championship held in Greensboro, N.C. with a throw of 113-0.
Joscelyn Stamper competes in the discus throw at the Smoky Mountain Conference Championship held at Cherokee, N.C. on May 1, 2024 at Cherokee High School in Cherokee, N.C. A freshman at the time, she won the competition with a throw of 110-2.
As a sophomore, she repeated at SMC Champion at the meet held at CHS on April 30, 2025 with a throw of 125-1. She also repeated as 1A West Regional champion at the meet held at J. Alan Peoples Track in Columbus, N.C. on May 9, 2025 with a throw of 129-0. Then, she won her first state title in discus throw at the 1A State Championship held in Greensboro, N.C. on May 16, 2025 with a throw of 129-11.
As a junior, she has been tearing it up.
With a throw of 36-7 in shot put, she won the state title at the 1A/2A Indoor State Championship held at the JDL Fast Track in Winston-Salem, N.C. on Feb. 11, 2026. A month later, she broke her own school record in discus throw at a regular meet at Murphy High School on March 18, 2026.
A multi-sport athlete, Joscelyn said training for each sport is different. “It’s definitely different movements lift-wise. There’s a lot more core in discus and discus is a lot more technical. You don’t have to be as strong or big. It’s a lot of, ‘you have to have your feet here, here, and here, and it’s got to move quickly’.”
She finds that playing multiple sports helps her with each. “You get on the phone with college coaches and they ask, ‘we see that you’re a multi-sport athlete’. They love it. They love the cross-training. It’s amazing, it truly is. You prevent injury. You’re not doing repetitiveness all year long. So, every sport that I play translates into one another. Volleyball, you have your core, you have your shoulder strength. Basketball, you get a little heavier – you’re more stable for discus. It’s a cycle.”
She has been recognized all over for her athletic accomplishment. Joscelyn won the Apollo Flame Division II Female Athlete of the Year Award at the 63rd Annual Western North Carolina Sports Awards held at the Omni Grove Park Inn on the evening of Sunday, May 25, 2025.
In 2024, she was a co-recipient of the Bertha Saunooke Memorial Female Athlete of the Year Award from Cherokee Central Schools. At both the 2024 and 2025 Smoky Mountain Conference Track and Field Championship, she was named SMC Female Field Athlete of the Year.
Twice (2024 and 2026), she was named Most Outstanding Player for the Tsalagi Anata Anitsvyasdi (Cherokee Lady Braves) varsity basketball team in the state championship game. She has won a state title in each season she has played for the team so far (2024, 2025, and 2026).
Joscelyn’s mother, Miranda Stamper, is a two-time state champion in discus throw as well, and she helps her daughter set goals. “There’s not been anything that we’ve set that she’s not gotten, attained, won, whatever. It’s crazy stuff, too, that we’ll set. Right now, there’s a couple on the board for track and field and she’s two and a half feet away from that.”
Miranda is the head coach for the Tsalagi Anata Anitsvyasdi (Cherokee Lady Braves) women’s varsity basketball team, but for track and field, she is simply mom. “It is a sport where I can sit back and watch. I was a little bit more involved when she was in middle school, but now being able to turn over to Mike Winchester, and he’s a great coach. Being able to just sit back and watch and enjoy the track meet and cheer her on…she’s one of the most competitive kids I’ve ever met and to put anything in front of her, competitively, it’s awesome just to watch her inch up. And then, eventually, know she’ll beat anything else that we put on the board as well.”
She is proud of her daughter on and off the field/court. “It’s awesome to see other coaches see her athletic side. Her awards for athletics are very important to a kid. But, even more so, the compliments that I hear from the community, from the state official that has been the security down there who literally brought her a bag of candy…he was like, ‘I met Joss when she was a freshman down here – best kid I’ve ever met. Phenomenal’…That, more than anything, makes a mom proud. The athletic awards are great, but when you see stuff like that, her whole family, her community has done a great job of getting her here.”
The next level is still a year away, but it is on her mind as college coaches are reaching out frequently. Joscelyn wants to do it on her terms. “My number one goal going into high school is that I knew I wanted to be a collegiate athlete, and I knew I wanted to pursue something at the next level. I want to have options. I don’t want to settle. I want to choose something that’s going to make me happy. So, putting in the work to get there was the first step.”
Being a multi-sport athlete means decisions regarding which one to pursue at the next level are also looming. “At the beginning, I couldn’t imagine myself saying goodbye to one sport, two sports. I couldn’t imagine it. It’s a part of me. It’s who I am…but, I made that decision earlier on that I don’t think triple sports in college is going to work out for me. And, even dual sports, I think I’m pretty set on picking one and going full-force into that for two very big reasons. I want to go out and get an education. And, I want to go out and pursue something that I’m very passionate about. Splitting that time between two sports and an education, that would be overkill.”
When asked what advice she would give to younger athletes, Joscelyn noted, “I wish somebody would’ve told me, ‘you’re going to look dumb. It’s going to be awkward. You’re not going to be the best at the beginning. But, trust the process. If you put your head down and you understand all those things, you understand that it’s going to take a while, and it’s going to be ok’.”
