William & Mary throwers KJ Cook (Buena Vista, Va.) and Jared O'Riley (Woodstock, Ontario, Canada) were honored by the Colonial Athletic Association on Thursday with the announcement of the year-end men's track & field awards.  The awards were nominated and voted on by all of the league's head coaches following the conclusion of the NCAA Championships.

Cook, a senior, was named the Field Athlete of the Year for the second time after also claiming the award in 2019.  Cook now has five major awards in his career, winning Rookie of the Year honors in 2018 and both Field Athlete of the Year and Athlete of the Meet in 2019 and 2021.  That ties the all-time conference record currently shared by George Mason Olympian David Verburg (2010-13) and Northeastern's Nate Hunter (2006-10).  Cook is also one of just six men in league history to ever win Athlete of the Year multiple times, joining Verburg (sprints, 2012-13), Hunter (throws, 2009-10), GMU's Marc Kellman (jumps, 2005-06), W&M's Matt Lane '01 (distance, 2000-01), and JMU's Jerry Roney (hurdles, 1991-93).

In 2021, Cook won the CAA title in the shot put for the first time, and also repeated as the conference champion in the hammer throw.  In the hammer, he qualified for the NCAA Eastern Semifinals, and finished 17th overall at that meet.  Cook also was the CAA silver medalist in the discus, and won a total of seven events over the course of the season.  For his career, the senior graduates as one of the most remarkable athletes in school history, with four CAA titles, eight All-East honors at the IC4A Championships including the 2020 indoor shot put championship, and All-American honors after taking 24th in the discus at the 2019 NCAA Championships.  Cook qualified for the NCAA Outdoor Championships all three years he was able to compete, including in 2019 when he became the first CAA athlete to ever qualify in three different individual events in the same year.  He totaled 26 wins in his career at W&M, and ranks top-three in all five throwing disciplines he has competed in.  That includes second all-time in both the discus and the indoor shot put; and third in the outdoor shot put, hammer throw, and the weight throw.

O'Riley, a redshirt-freshman, was named the Rookie of the Year after winning the conference title in the javelin.  He's the third W&M athlete in a row to win Rookie of the Year honors (joining Cook, 2018, and Evan Goodell (St. Louis, Mich.), 2019), and the fifth in the last eight years.  In addition to winning the CAA title in his specialty event, O'Riley also won a total of six of his nine competitions this year, including the Colonial Relays.  In fact, after the very first meet of the year, he won six of seven leading up to the NCAA Eastern Semifinals, where he finished 32nd overall in his first appearance at the national championships.  O'Riley's best throw of the season came at the CAA Championships, with his winning throw of 66.71m (218-10) to rank sixth all-time at W&M.