CHARLOTTESVILLE — Dave Pfaff said one of the only times he knew Clayton Shultz to exhibit poor judgment was by signing up for a second year of Pfaff’s U.S. history class as a senior in high school.
Pfaff, later the high school principal and superintendent at Eastern Hancock schools, was then a social studies teacher who tried to provoke thoughtful conversations among his senior students, and the madder the students got, he said, the happier he was. One day, he posed a classic dilemma to the class: If they were clinging to a piece of wood to stay afloat after a shipwreck, would they give it up so that someone else could avoid drowning?
Most of the students said they would give up their piece of wood for someone else. Pfaff was skeptical.
“I got to Clayton. He said, ‘I’m not giving up that piece for anybody!’” Pfaff recalled. “‘I’ll punch ‘em in the mouth!’ And that really made an impression on me, because he was honest, in a room full of people who I wasn’t sure were being very honest. In a room full of high school students — who we know how it is for high school students to fit in — he had the courage of his convictions and the honesty to say, ‘Nope. This is what I would do.’”
Pfaff was one of many members of the Eastern Hancock community who told stories about Shultz at a memorial service on Sunday, July 25, at EH’s middle school gym. They remembered a coach who was larger-than-life, great with kids and dedicated to the school corporation he loved from his own high school sports career until his death of cancer in March 2020 at age 42.
Shultz, who coached football, basketball and track at Eastern Hancock, had a big impact on student athletics and the school community as a whole. The memorial service, delayed by more than a year because of the pandemic after Shultz’s death, was an opportunity for the school community to come together to mourn a man who many said embodied the spirit of the Eastern Hancock Royals.
Amber Shultz said she was grateful for the belated opportunity to come together with the school community to celebrate her husband’s life. She, along with the couple’s three children and Shultz’s parents, were front and center at the service.
“This is what he deserves, you know?” Amber Shultz said. “It’s amazing to see people that we haven’t seen, and we really appreciate everyone coming together.”
Shultz was diagnosed with Burkitt Lymphoma, an aggressive form of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. He was determined to pursue aggressive treatment, including several rounds of chemotherapy. At one point, Shultz and his family were told that his cancer was in remission, only to learn two months later that it had returned. Amber said she only talked once with her husband about the possibility of his death, after he was moved to hospice care. Shultz, a devoted Christian, promised he would still be with her after he was gone.
“I promised to make memories with our kids, to take them to do things we never had the chance to do, and to follow my dreams,” Amber Shultz said. “No matter where life takes me, I’ll take comfort in knowing that he’s close, that he’ll cheer me on from the best seat in the house.”
As principal, Pfaff later hired his former student first as an instructional aide for special-education students and then for the corporation’s in-school suspension program. In both of those positions, he said, Shultz worked with students who often had poor self-esteem and negative feelings about coming to school.
“Clayton was tremendous with those kids,” Pfaff said. “They loved him… He understood that kids are not finished products. He understood that they are things to grow, and develop, and get there, and he was so good with the toughest kids we had.”
Pfaff eventually came to think that Shultz had misjudged himself when he said he wouldn’t be willing to give his own life to save someone else.
“The adult Clayton I knew, everything about him was service to others,” he said. “Giving of himself, considering himself last, taking care of others first.”
EH teacher and coach Brett Bechtel recalled that after a summer of harsh chemotherapy treatments, Shultz still came “bounding into the room” on the first day of school, proclaiming that he was ready to get back to work.
“All of us were blessed to have Clayton for a few more months,” he said.
Other members of Eastern Hancock’s athletic staff recounted memories of Shultz’s big personality — his sense of humor; his ability to fall asleep in the middle of a conversation only to wake up and pick up right where he left off; and his ability to stop a conflict over a referee’s call on the sidelines of a game just with his imposing figure.
Everyone who spoke about him recalled his devotion to the students of Eastern Hancock. Jim O’Hara, the former head football coach at EH, said Shultz’s dedication was inspiring to everyone he worked with.
“Besides his family, this place was the center of his world,” he said.
For Shultz’s oldest son, Connor, there’s one piece of advice from his dad he plans on always taking with him.
“You always play things out until the last whistle,” he said.