Success Stories

Not too long ago when I shot a tournament, a couple of groups in front of us had two cub archers. These “kids” where about 6 or 7 years old. One was shooting a recurve and one was shooting a compound. They seemed to be having fun early in the day but towards the end of the day they were getting tired. They slowed down a little and didn’t laugh as much. They lost a couple of arrows and spent some time behind the bales looking for arrows. Parents and other adults kept saying “hurry up, hurry up” to these young archers. I heard five or more adults complain about those darn kids slowing us down and how we have to wait for them to go up to the cub stakes and shoot and then to find their arrows. I was shocked by those complaining adults and started thinking about when my kids shot every tournament with me. If they did not shoot with me they shot with my life-long friends (now deceased) Faye and Smitty.

I started my children when they were ages 3 and 4. My wife and I had a daughter and four and one half years later a set of twins. All three enjoyed archery for many years. All three of them learned to shoot and could run a line of shooters safely almost before they could talk in full sentences. They have been shooting for more than thirty years now. They do not shoot every week or even every month. But if they are visiting and I say let’s go to the archery range, they lead the way to the car.

Years ago one of my good friends wanted to shoot a money tournament I was promoting but had not registered because his 4 year old was shooting with him. The pros at that tournament accepted my ruling that the 4 year old could shoot along with us. Over thirty years later that 4 year old is one of the best archers in California and the nation. He is highly respected and I am proud to consider him a close friend. He and his wife are raising a new family and I expect to see his boys at tournaments in the next two or three years.

Kids are the future of our sport. The manufacturers spend most of their advertising money (wasted I might add) trying to get an established bowhunter to switch companies. Some of the major manufacturers have curtailed their shooters programs. Can you guess what has happened ? That’s right, the companies that maintained and even enlarged their staff of dedicated archers have grown to be the current industry leaders. Most of the serious “sponsored” archers try to give something back to the sport. The smart ones help with youth programs.

We want and need more kids in archery. In my opinion too many youngsters sit at home watching TV and playing video games. If every archery club had a good youth program (which takes a lot of work and volunteers) we would see a continuous flow of interested individual archers. Some of our kids would become field and target shooters, some would become 3-D archers, some would become bowhunters and a few would set goals towards competing in the Olympics.

The result would be more archers in the future. If the sport of archery had more archers, the sport would have a stronger voice and gain stature with park districts, cities, counties and even states.

I personally love to hear an excited kid yell something like “Wow, I hit it !” or “Hey Dude, I beat you on that target !”. Some of my fondest memories of archery tournaments were watching my kids place at the tournament. My son used to come home with a trophy almost every tournament. He would give me a bad time by telling me how he beat me because he had a trophy and I had not won a trophy. He did not consider the fact that I may have outscored him by 400 points…. It didn’t matter – he was and is to this day a winner.

Start a kid with the correct archery equipment. Then fit it to them. Don’t shortchange them in the equipment selection process. Teach them safety and how to compete fairly. Teach them the rules and how to follow the scoring and classifying rules. Learn to enjoy their game of archery. Take them often to the club, indoor range, tournaments, hunting trips, camping trips and more. A laughing kid in my group is just as pleasing and enjoyable as a top score.

The future of archery depends on today’s kids for they will be tomorrow’s leaders, voters, teachers, and politicians. Teach your kids and the neighbors’ kids the lifetime sport of archery now.