Three months after he first held a javelin, Rancocas Valley QB Kevin Burr is a state champ. Now, he’s going for national renown.

As recently as three months ago, one of the best boys’ javelin throwers in New Jersey had barely heard of the sport in which he currently excels.

Kevin Burr Jr. had made his mark at Rancocas Valley Regional High School as a highly touted quarterback and a hard-throwing pitcher. Even after he decided in the final months of his senior year to try out track and field, the plan wasn’t to be a thrower but to compete as a runner and a jumper.

But during an early-season practice, which head coach Brett Flood set aside for athletes to attempt new events and the coaching staff to discover hidden talent, Burr picked up a javelin for the first time and launched it over 130 feet. It wasn’t yet far enough to compete at an elite level. But without any prior training, Burr was showing enough natural ability in a highly technical sport to catch everyone’s attention.

“I’m going to be completely honest: I didn’t even know what a javelin was until that practice,” Burr said.

Those eye-opening throws in March, plus some coaxing from his coaches, convinced Burr to pursue javelin further. By June 10, after a few months of refining his technique and gaining distance on his throws, he punctuated his accelerated rise through the sport by capturing the NJSIAA Group 4 title with a throw of 190 feet, 7 inches. Five days later, Burr finished a close second at the Meet of Champions with a throw of 204 feet, 4 inches.

The culmination of Burr’s rise in javelin will occur Sunday, when he competes on the final day of the New Balance Nationals Outdoor at Franklin Field. The premier event will pit Burr against the top high school throwers in the country, mere months after he first started learning the sport.

“I’ve been coaching for a long time — so it’s not like I’m new to this — and I can’t remember another kid just coming out and just picking up a sport like this,” Flood said.

Burr was adept at launching objects into the air, but that didn’t fully account for his sudden success in javelin, which required learning a new throwing motion and technique.

As an accomplished athlete — he stepped in as Rancocas Valley’s starting quarterback as a freshman and pitched and played outfield for the Red Devils’ baseball team — Burr was used to being coached and spending time on his craft. With some refinement from his coaches and time on the practice field, Burr picked up on the particulars of his new sport — the way to open his hips or sustain the flight of the javelin — faster than anyone could have expected.

“The thing about a javelin is you need to be able to throw it right for it to keep going,” Burr said. “So I would initially have that good jump off my hand, but I never [got] it to keep flying in the air.

“I had this one practice, and it was just everything. I went over there for an hour — no coaches, no nothing. I was just trying to figure out how to throw the javelin. … After that one practice, it really started clicking, and I started understanding it and I started liking it — I honestly just started loving it.”

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Burr’s performance at the Group 4 championship served as a reflection of how quickly he had taken to javelin and how dominant he had become. Overcoming a left-to-right wind and a foul on his first attempt, Burr’s winning throw was improvement of nearly 60 feet from some early-season performances, and his margin of victory over runner-up Mason Marino of Westfield High School was almost 25 feet.

At the Meet of Champions, Burr’s throw was a personal best, but he was edged by Mahwah’s George Kalkanis, who posted a mark of 205 feet, 9 inches. No other competitor eclipsed 178 feet.

With his state title, Burr became the unlikeliest addition to a legacy of javelin success at Rancocas Valley. The school also has produced the state’s current record holder and two other state champions in javelin over the last 25 years.

“It’s a lesson for all kids that you’re never too old, never too young, never too far away from trying something new that you could find success with,” Rancocas Valley athletic director Michael Lamb said.

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Held three days after his high school graduation, Sunday’s nationals in Philadelphia will mark Burr’s final time competing for Rancocas Valley — though it may not be the end of his javelin career. Following a meteoric rise this season, Burr is abruptly rethinking his plans to play college football and considering offers to continue competing in javelin.

“I love football and I love baseball, but it’s just something with javelin,” Burr said. “Something just feels right, in a sense, about it.

“The success I’m having in the short term with javelin — just [a few] months — I’m really excited to see how far it can take me.”