Lorretta Sinclair’s Blog

Today was a great day for Team USA.  I’m sure you’ve all seen the results – but I’ll give you a recap, just in case you missed them.  Erika won the bronze medal in individual women’s compound; Steve Gatto won gold in individual men’s compound; and the men’s team (Zach, Steve, and Steve) won gold in the men’s team round!  Hooray for US College Archery!

The day started out cold and rainy.  Bill and Erika went to the field early and the rest of us caught up before the match started.  Erika built up a solid lead, then shot a 7 and an 8, giving Brittany a near heart attack up in the stands – but she followed it up with a 10, and finished the match with a one point lead.

Steve Gatto – well, he was just plain awesome.  His mother, Angel, was in need of oxygen a few times in the match – although I’m not sure why, because Steve won his match handily with a 118. 

Our women’s compound team ran into trouble when Brittany and Elissa each had two misses.  Brittany later wanted to shoot the match over – and if we would have been allowed, I’m sure we would have won, but as it is, we leave with a 4^th place finish.

Gatto, Schwade and Zach were almost perfect and won the gold medal match with 23 out of 24 points.  They, along with Tom Barker in the coaches box,  made archery look easy, winning the gold medal over Mexico 23-19.

The USA Archery Team leaves Belgrade with 2 gold medals, a silver, and a bronze.  This puts us in second place in the Archery medal standings behind Korea.

The team support was excellent and all that college archery could want as all of the recurve archers supported the compound archers, not only taking turns running arrows, but also in the stands chanting for our archers.   

The Gatto family was unable to purchase tickets to closing ceremonies, but one of our attache’s, Lilliana, who is fantastic, called the mayor – and got them for us!  The support from US FISU, which is essentially a bunch of great coaches, trainers, and volunteers from other US colleges have been remarkable.  Without them – my job as team leader would have been much more difficult.

Team USA has discovered that we are a very creative problem solving group.  Not only can we make shower curtains out of plastic flags and serve banquet lunches on muddy soggy fields.  We can make a shirt protector out of our credential lanyards and a gallon sized Ziploc bag.  We discovered that rubbing soap on creaky hinges silences them and that mud splattered white skirts can be cleaned by hand with some water and a baby-wipe while on the muddy field – and held in the wind to dry while the team practices.  Never a dull moment in Serbia – and no problem that we have been unable to solve.

Curfew has ended as competition is over.  The team has gone out to mix and mingle in the village with their fellow athletes and the staff is trying to figure out what to do with ourselves since we, for once, have some downtime. 

Mandy, Jenny, Jacob, Bill and I are going to go back to the fort and watch the stars, while Marcia and Tom decided to go over to the mall for some quiet time. 

Tomorrow we will do some more sightseeing – Tim wants to see an old orthodox temple that is being restored, Mandy wants to go on a boat cruise on the Danube, and Erin wants to souvenir shop in a Serbian open air market.  Closing ceremonies are at 8 pm – with a party afterwards.

Lorretta

12 July 2009

Steve Gatto and Erika Anschutz won the silver medal in the compound mixed team event.  The final match with the Russian team ended in a tie.  The first shoot off was a tie, as was the 2^nd.  The third shoot off ended with the Russian team having the closest arrow to the center of the target by approximately a ½ inch.  Steve Schwade coached the mixed team through the matches and did an excellent job.

Gatto, Schwade and Zach shoot for Gold tomorrow!  Steve Gatto also shoots for gold in the individual men’s compound in the afternoon.

The recurve teams both won their first matches against Mexico and both lost to Korea in their second matches.  The women’s compound team lost to Russia, which puts them in the Bronze medal match.  

The team relaxed tonight by going to the Three Hats restaurant in Old Serbia.  The building sits along a scenic cobblestone street and is 175 years old.  The owner of the restaurant proudly explained that President George Bush (the first) ate there in 1987 and signed the guest book, which we had the honor of viewing. George declared the restaurant ‘excellent.’ The owner explained that security was tight that night with snipers on the rooftops and guards everywhere.  He was very proud that the President of the US had eaten there.  The USA team had a great dinner, but we were not asked to sign the guest book – go figure!  Did they not know that we had the Silver medalists from the Compound Mixed Team event in their midst?

Jimmy, Angel, and Maria Gatto are the only family members here and it was a lot of fun to meet them.  Jimmy has his monstrous camera with him… so the fact that I can’t figure out how to resize the pictures I’ve taken (for posting on the internet) will not be so much of a problem. 

It will be another long day at the field on Saturday – but promising, as the USA is guaranteed two more medals (either gold or silver).  And the compound women have the opportunity to bring home two bronze medals.

Lorretta

11 July 2009

Well, you all probably already know the results of the elimination matches …. After all, you are sitting in an air-conditioned office, drinking something refreshing and eating something good, while we are out on the field for 12 hours a day, either standing in rain or stuck in the muck that is the end result of a massive rainstorm…..  

But just in case you missed it – Steve Gatto is in the men’s compound gold medal match!  And Erika Anschutz is in the women’s compound bronze medal match.  The medal matches are set for Saturday morning.  Jenny Nichols also did very well, finishing in 7^th place.  Steve Gatto’s folks arrived in time to watch Steve shoot the elimination matches….  That was a lot of fun for them.

So…. If you’ve seen the results, you might be wondering what happened to Jacob and Glen as they were both doing very well in their first matches – Going into the final arrow on the 2^nd end, Glen had a great lead by 9 points – and then his string caught his shirt resulting in a miss, losing his match by 99 to 98.  A few targets down, Jacob was also in great shape and needed a good strong shot to take his match.  On his final arrow, he felt the point drag and thought he had pulled through the clicker.  No such luck as he shot through the clicker resulting in a miss.  It was a tough break for Team USA as we thought we were looking at all three recurve men moving into the second round. 

Today was pleasantly cool and sunny, resulting in sunburns for those of us who forgot to keep refreshing our sun block!  And thank goodness – NO RAIN!  A lot of mud though and we will all need new shoes.  The chicken sandwiches were again delivered to the field with more than half of them remaining uneaten.  I offered one to Jacob who said he’d take the chocolate sweet out of the lunch but that was all, so we dug through the box and found 5 or 6 of them for him to take back to the room. Marcia Barker accused us of ‘dumpster diving’ but Jacob was undeterred – besides it was our box of food so I don’t think it’s the same thing. Besides, Jacob eats anything.

I tried to send pictures to include in the blogs, but was informed that many of them are blurry.  Being clueless to most electronic devices, Jacob explained to me, ‘your pushing the button wrong.’  Umm….. what else is there to do on the camera than push the freaking button?  So, I got a camera lesson and hope to send some others…. But Jimmy Gatto is here with his monster camera, so I imagine he’ll be posting those on the web at some point.

Tomorrow the team rounds and mixed team rounds will be contested.  The mixed team round awards will be presented after the medal matches.  Both men and women recurve are ranked 8^th, while compound women are ranked 2^nd.  The men’s compound ranking was not finished when we left the field tonight.  Mixed team round, compound archers are ranked 3^rd, while recurve is 6^th.  Looks like tomorrow will be interesting.

Lorretta

9 July 2009

Our team is growing … we’ve adopted the Aussie team of Guy, Ricchi, Aimee, and Kathryn.  Traveling alone, without coach or team leader, team USA offered support to them if they needed it.   They can share our ‘great’ chicken sandwiches – which consist of a slice of cheese, a pickle, and ‘they’ say there is chicken in there, so that must be the case. 

It was thanks to Guy that we informed FISU that they had messed up the target assignments, which were already late – and that information caused an even longer delay.  Initially thrilled to find our compound women very close to our compound men, Guy was first to realize that there were six people on a target.   We figure we ‘paid’ for explaining the error in target assignments when we got the new assignments  with Erika, Brittany and Elissa on targets 1, 2, 3, — and Tim, Glen, and Jacob on 36, 37, 38 … the tail end of the line!  See…. Try to help out – and that’s what you get.

The recurve women ended up ranked 8^th for team round and the men’s compound could not be finalized until two compound women finished shooting.  FISU allows for a ‘combined’ team to go into men’s compound in an effort to include the smaller teams.  Combined teams can be men or women, and a configuration of compound and recurve, but they must compete with the compound men.  In order to do their team ranking, everyone needed to finish the qualifying round. 

In mixed team rankings, Jenny and Jacob looked like they would rank 6^th, while Steve Gatto and Brittany were sitting in 3^rd place. 

Unfortunately, it had rained the night before leaving the field soggy and muddy…. And then between the 10^th and 11^th ends, the rain started to fall again – and this time it was a torrential downpour.  Standing under umbrellas and tents with water up past our ankles, sinking in the soft mud, FISU cancelled shooting for the day, leaving the compound women and recurve men with having finished 11 of their 12 ends. The first two matches of mixed team round were also cancelled. 

Packing up was interesting as we struggled to get equipment in and keep the water out.  Water was pouring down the concrete steps and hillside and a rushing river replaced the road.

The storm was so fierce there were abandoned cars along the roadside, massive traffic jams, and  several of us have ‘bus rides to remember’ as the drivers were absolutely crazy trying to get around and through the traffic to take the overloaded buses back to the athletes’ village.  After covering my eyes for much of the ride, I declared to no one in particular, ‘this driver is crazy!’  The Japanese who were sandwiched in the stairwell in front of me burst out laughing as they were video taping our escape on the wrong side of the road with cars swerving around us to miss.  You might wonder if the driver would get pulled over by police – except the police were ‘escorting’ us in this adventure, so clearly, ‘rules’ did not apply.  Getting back to the village, we found that the storm had done it’s share of flooding there as well and the power was out for most of the buildings. 

The organizers were very slow to post the results and the promised electronic scoreboard that would make the event ‘media and spectator friendly’ was nonexistent.  Printouts lagged behind and I’m betting the scores were more readily available to those with internet access than they were to the athletes and staff on the field.

Jenny ended up ranked 6^th, while Erin and Amanda were 45th and 47^th.  Erika at the end of 48 arrows was in 6^th, Brittany in 5^th, and Elissa in 17^th[Updated later to 5^th, 4^th, and 18^th].  Steve Gatto finished 7^th, Zach 19^th, and Steve Schwade in 30^th place.  Jacob was in 6^th after 48 arrows, which was our last update, with Tim in 29th and Glen in 41^st [Updated later to 10^th, 26^th, and 38^th]. Overall the men’s recurve team was ranked 8^th while we waited for more updates.  You all probably know more than me at this point —

Tomorrow, the elimination rounds begin, the schedule has the recurve women warming up and shooting one match, then waiting for the recurve men to warm up and shoot their first match before moving on to the 1/16’s. 

The field will be interesting – as walking on the already soggy grass continues to churn it into deeper and deeper mud – and as I type, it’s sprinkling, with dark thunderclouds in the sky. Aquatic archery anyone???

Lorretta

9 July 2009

Last night we all went to a great Serbian restaurant called ‘Que Pasa’ and then walked down a few of the streets to one of the city squares to look at the local architecture.  The streets of Belgrade are alive late into the night.  The food and atmosphere were wonderful.  The team all had a great time. 

This morning the weather cooled with a nice overcast day and the USA team had a great official practice day.  The venue is beautiful with flags of the competing countries displayed along one side of the field.  The field was a bit soggy from an overnight rain, which could be interesting as rain is forecast again for the morning qualification round.

Jenny, Amanda, Erin, Steve Gatto, Steve Schwade, and Zach Plannick took off for table tennis matches this afternoon and all of the archery team members will join the other USA WUG athletes and staff for the USA vs Serbia  basketball game  tonight.  It’s great that the team is experiencing more than archery; they’re all getting a real feel for the World University Games.

The quote for the day came during the compound women and recurve men equipment/uniform inspection in the afternoon when one of the FITA judges told our women, ‘I hope you ladies shoot as good as you look.’  Decked out in the specially designed shirts for the WUG team, Erika, Brittany and Elissa are great ambassadors for our sport. Our guys look great too…. It’s just that nobody told them so.

Several press members were on the field this afternoon and the video team spent a lot of time filming the recurve men and compound women as they prepared for team round by competing against each other.  The video will be used for background on the FISU website. 

In an unusual schedule change, the recurve women and compound men will shoot the qualifying round in the morning and the recurve men and compound women begin in the afternoon after lunch.  The ¼ and ½ matches for mixed team will be shot following the qualification round. 

Elissa, Tim, and Erin at Practice

Sightseeing in Belgrade

The 2009 World University Team arrived in Belgrade, Serbia on the 4^th of July.  The Universiade games in Belgrade include 15 sports; all must be an Olympic sport in order to participate.  Serbia built a complex of apartments that are being used for the teams.  After the games, they will be sold to Serbian citizens for private use.  The village is really nice and includes café’s, laundry, bank and even a souvenir shop.  Typical European flats don’t have shower curtains.  In the men’s suite, they used a plastic U.S. flag for a shower curtain, while the women hung their flag off the balcony and used a sheet of plastic they found in their room for a curtain.   

It’s hot and humid but the food is better than anticipated.  The village serves hundreds of meals at a large cafeteria.  I’ve discovered that Jake Wukie eats pretty much anything.  

Erika Anschutz’s equipment arrived today after a delay in Atlanta.  While we were happy to have it finally make it, the SKB case was seriously damaged.  It looks like someone ran over it.  Bill (Coady) took her out to the field to check the equipment out. 

FISU (the international governing body for university sports) has been excellent.  A team of US FISU members have set up a great office where they help with everything from fetching lost archery equipment from the airport to arranging daily lunches on the field. 

The team went to an ancient fort called Kalemegdan.  It is situated where the Danube and the Sava meet.  Standing on the top, it has amazing views all the way around.  The highlight was listening to a guy playing his guitar in one of the tunnels, singing Bob Dylan in English.  Okay, that wasn’t a highlight – but it was funny.

After hanging out at the fort for a few hours, we went across the road to a little area that was part of the ‘old’ Serbia, shut off to all street traffic.  Outdoor café’s, craftsman, and music were all part of the ambience.  Souvenir shopping was done by all, and the ‘hit’ of the street was a man who made beautiful paintings from cans of spray paint.  Almost half the team (and me!) left with a painting that started as nothing, and turned into ocean scenes, or mountains, or trees, before our eyes by using fingers, a bent spoon and newspaper to make textures and scenes.

There are 41 countries and over 200 athletes competing in the archery event. Some of the best archers in the world are here, including 2008 Gold medalist Viktor Ruban.   The venue is at the military field and is set up nicely.  After two days of unofficial practice, the team is ready to go.  Official practice is set for Tuesday, 7 July, and scoring begins Wednesday.

Lorretta

6 July 2009

First a little non-archery news …

It’s been exciting at the 2009 USRowing Youth National Championships in Bethel, Ohio for Mick Ebert (Coach of the ACCC archery club), his son Justin, and the Men’s four plus lightweight crew team from Egg Harbor Township High School!  The underdogs won an important heat on Friday putting them into the semi-finals on Saturday.  They shaved 6 seconds off their time on Saturday to win their heat.  This put them in the finals on Sunday (14 June).  Good luck! It has been FUN being a small part of your effort.

The College Athlete Leadership, Skills and Training (CALST) Workshop at UC Berkeley is coming up soon!  Dennis Lieu, the workshop host, has planned some really great things, including a video presentation on arrow dynamics.  The staff members participating in this workshop include Rusty Mills, Mike Gerard, and Ed Eliason.  Together, we have a great, talented trio leading the workshop.  They’re also some of the nicest people I know.  We’re privileged to have them work with our athletes. 

Many people may have heard of Ed Eliason.  His resume is long, his years in archery extending into ‘forever’….   And there are many stories about him, especially ones about Ed and his ‘troubles’ at tournaments.  I have a few of my own stories from the years we lived in Utah, but I found another story to share —

In Robert Rhode’s History of the NAA, Volume 2, Glen Helgeland, wrote an article on the 1978 US National Outdoor Championships, where he chronicles the ups and downs of the champions through the tournament.  He described a series of misadventures: 

You remember Ed Eliason, from the Sports Festival.  You know, the fellow with all the rotten luck. 

“I shot a 60 with my last six arrows… one heck of a pressure and, because I thought I was tied for second.  Then a scorer told me they had given me a 39 instead of a 29 on three earlier arrows.  Earlier in the week my stabilizer had broken.  Not just in two, but in four parts.  Then I spilled Coke all over my white shooting pants.  My week ended like it began, like a crumpled up old buzzard, just lying there on the ground.” 

Eliason is used to this by now.  No doubt he will be able to laugh it off.  But if you’re hitchhiking through Charlotte, North Carolina, where he lives, and he offers you a ride, maybe you should think twice before accepting.’

One of Ed’s gifts to my family has been the ‘talks’ he gives on mental toughness and riding out the bad days….  Until I read through the History of the NAA, I just figured Ed had developed mental toughness as part of ‘the game,’ but really, Ed developed mental toughness because he’s seen and experienced it all…..  and the best part, as Glen Helgeland noted, “He’ll probably laugh it off’…. because Ed knows it’s really just small stuff in the bigger scheme of things. 

The College Archery Program (CAP) is honored to have ‘a crumpled up old buzzard’ working with our athletes – you all are in for a great week!

USA Archery (USAA) has announced a call for nominations to positions on the Nomination and Governance Committee, the Ethics Committee, and the Board of Directors (BoD).  The Ethics Committee is important to the USAA.  Its role is to ensure that all athletes, coaches, and members are able to bring concerns and issues to an impartial board.  

The position of Grassroots Director for College to the USAA BoD is up for re-election in August, per the bylaws.  Nominees for this position come from the current roster of college coaches.  Once elected, the Grassroots Director for College does not work on behalf of college archery, but rather, is responsible for the overall USAA organization along with their fellow BoD members.  This is an important aspect of the USAA BoD positions; the USAA Directors are primarily responsible for promoting the welfare of the overall USAA organization.  They must put personal and parochial issues aside.

The CAP Board of Directors, per the 1971 Charter that was granted by the NAA (aka USA Archery) BoD, is responsible for the welfare of the College Archery Program.

The Nomination and Governance Committee has many duties as outlined on the USAA website.  Chief among them is the responsibility for screening the nominees for the USAA BoD positions and preparing a slate of candidates. This committee must include a member of either JOAD or CAP. 

I encourage all college coaches and athletes to consider volunteering.  The positions on the Ethics and Nominating and Governance Committees are open to coach and athlete members.  The USAA BoD position is open to college coaches.  CAP members make up a sizeable voting block in the USA Archery membership.  As a fast-growing program, it is important that we have representation on the various committees that affect archery. 

More information and applications are located at this link: http://usarchery.org/news/article/13262

The purpose of the National Archery in the Schools Program (NASP) is to teach archery to grammar and high schools students.  The NASP organization has had phenomenal success and introduced archery to more than three million youths over seven years.

I’ve been working with national and state NASP coordinators this past year with the intention of transitioning NASP graduates into college archery.  I’ve also traveled to the Kentucky and Ohio state and the national championships to talk to current NASP athletes as well as some of the grads.   It has been a lot fun traveling to the different events, watching young archers have so much fun and listening to the swoosh of hundreds of arrows being shot at the same time.  My last NASP tournament for the year was in Louisville Kentucky for the National Championship where I met hundreds of students and parents who are hooked on archery.

Coming back from the record setting tournament where 4800 student archers competed for the title of NASP National Champion, I sat at the airport  reflecting on the myriad questions asked of me over the weekend while promoting college archery to anyone who would listen and everyone who asked, ‘Really?  There’s archery in college?  Wow!  That’s cool!’

Yep – it’s pretty cool.  And it’s even cooler that I get to be part of the catalyst for the growth in archery, especially college archery.  College Archery is my passion – it’s has the most genuine group of people I’ve  ever met – people who are there because they love archery, not because mom or dad want them there, not because they make money at it, not because they have to fulfill some school requirement – they are there because somewhere, sometime, someone gave them a bow and arrows and said, ‘open your hand and let it go.’  And that ‘whoosh’ of an arrow flying to the target and the feeling of utter delight as it hit the paper,  hooked a bunch of college students on archery.  To be part of that, to look for ways to increase opportunities or to offer support, or to help start a club, find a coach, or simply to be a listening ear as someone vents about their  grades, their frustrations in life, or their desire to get better at this wonderful sport, is indeed ‘cool.’

Over and over, I’ve heard the same questions and it makes me realize that one of the problems with archery in the U.S. is the lack of information, or the lack of venues to get the information to those that need it, or the inability of organizations to reach their audience.  In light of this, I answer the questions, again, but this time in print, hoping to reach more people, to help students who want to explore archery, to achieve in the sport they love, to find a place for themselves in college archery.

The most often asked question is,’ Are there scholarships?’ My ears are still ringing from the number of times I’ve been asked that question.  I’ll address it soon…. But first, one of the funniest questions (I thought).

So what do college archers do in college? 
First and foremost, college archers are students, attending school and getting an education (I hope).  Second, college archers shoot a bow and arrow either as part of a club for recreation, in an archery class for in-school credit, or as part of a competition team.  Some schools actually have archery class for university credit – talk about cool.  Who says school is boring –

The choice between club and competition is the student’s choice whatever works for them. 

Is there a club at my university?
I provide a list to the questioner of current clubs along with the notice, ‘If you don’t see your school of choice, no problem!  We’ll help you start a club!’  Getting the word out that any student athlete can start a college archery club is important to the growth of College Archery – so please, pass the word!  Also, see our website, www.uscollegiatearchery.org for our current club list.

Will I be able to shoot my bow?
Yep.  Clubs are open to all types of equipment and styles.  If you want to compete however, you need to shoot a compound or recurve bow as that’s what it takes to become a National and World Champion, or to make a World Team.  Don’t have a compound or recurve yet?  NO Problem!  We can even help set you up with bows for competition.

Do you have competitions?
Yes, we have local, state, regional, and national competitions and championships. We also send teams to international championships and World Ranking Events.

You’ll help me start a club?
Absolutely.  Any student who wants to start a club will find support from us.  Just contact your regional representative, student representatives or the Director.  See our website at www.uscollegiatearchery.org for contact information.

Also, under ‘Documents’ you will find the ‘Starting a New Club’ handbook.  It’s easy to read, has all the forms and will get you started.  More questions?  Let us know and we’ll help answer them.

Where do I find more information about college archery?
www.uscollegiatearchery.org

Is this NASP?
No, but we work with NASP and its archers.  We’re US Collegiate Archery, the national governing body for archery in the U.S. and we’re open to all archers.

Is this just in Kentucky?
We have college archery clubs throughout the U.S.

Can girls shoot in college?
Well, Brittany Lorenti (James Madison University) does and she’s a World University Champion! Jenny Nichols (Texas A&M University) is a three time Olympian!  Join Brittany, Jennifer, and all the women archers in our program – women make up about 50% of our program!

Is it sanctioned?
Several schools maintain varsity status.  College Archery is no longer an NCAA sport – which means it also doesn’t have all of the restrictions that go along with that – as the sport rebuilds and college archery grows, NCAA may be attainable down the road – but right now… the biggest growth is coming from sport club programs at the universities.

Is it hard to start a club at my university?
No!  The biggest obstacle for some students has been finding a place to practice.  If you can’t find an on-campus site – go to a local Pro Shop, Hunter Ed program, or city department and ask for practice space.  Other than that – a club can be started in 3 easy steps.  See the ‘Starting a New Club’ handbook at www.uscollegiatearchery.org under ‘Documents.’

Are there scholarships?
Ahhhh… the most oft asked question — and the most disappointing to some, depending on your point of view.  The fact is, there are not many archery scholarships.  I would love for top archers to receive full-ride scholarships to universities across the U.S. but until the program grows and college athletes are achieving at high levels in national and international competitions, I don’t foresee many archery scholarships. 

BUT, and this is a big but …. There is more money available for academic scholarships than for sport scholarships.  Do well in school, take classes that are appropriate for your degree, be a well-rounded student by participating in community activities and utilize your unique interest in archery as part of your school essays – and land some of the millions of dollars available each year for doing well in school.  For every $1 in sport scholarships, there is $21 for academics; and I would dare to say that doing well in high school will serve you well in life…. 

For information on Grants/Scholarships in archery, the link aptly titled, “Scholarships’ on the CAP website lists all of the scholarship and funding opportunities that we know of.  We keep adding to the list – so if you know of a grant or scholarship, no matter how big or how small, let us know and we’ll add it to our list.

I’ll address some of the other questions later….

On an international level, things are hopping!  I was asked to provide information to South American countries who are interested in starting college archery. While the Swine flu situation caused me to cancel my trip to Mexico, I hope to catch up on that later.  I talked to several Canadians who wanted to know if college archery can be started in Canada – I gave them the ‘Start a Club’ Handbook and hope that we can provide information to others and grow college archery to benefit all college students. 

The opportunity to be a part of this tremendous growth is exciting and I thank all of you for supporting the US Collegiate Archery Executive Council as we move forward, propelling college archery into a professional organizations throughout the Americas.

Lorretta Sinclair

8 June 2009

I’ve been doing a lot of research lately, and one of the items I’ve been reading is the 2^nd volume of the History of the National Archery Association by Robert Rhode, which covers the years 1946-1978.  A good part of the history is comprised of interesting, sometimes humorous writeups of the Outdoor Target Nationals.

Since this is a blog about College Archery, I’ll give you a snippet from the History about a former College Archer – who also happens to be a Three-time World Champion, an Olympic Silver Medalist, a 4-time All-American, and many-time US National Champion…. If you don’t know who it is yet…. Well, this guy also has one of the most interesting archery forms in the history of archery. 

Standing with feet forward to the line, and tipping, whipping, and snapping his bow and release arms, he still hits the 10.  Best of all – he’s always smiling —

In 1977, Rick McKinney was not yet a student athlete at Arizona State University, but he was busy rocking the archery world along with Darrell Pace.  That year, at Nationals, held at Miami (Ohio) University, Darrell finished second having shot one of the only four 1300+ scores in the history of archery, a 1302 and  a 1257 to McKinney’s 1288 and 1298.  I remind you – these were with aluminum arrows – not the carbon/aluminum X10’s or ACE’s of today… aluminum… the stuff that we eschew as ‘not for outdoor’ these days.

On pages 1304 and 1305 from the History of the NAA, Glen Helgelund chronicles the 1977 Outdoor National tournament:

“McKinney and Pace put on a good show in the Men’s division. Pace’s first FITA, a 1302, gave him a 14 point lead over McKinney at the halfway mark.

McKinney began drawing closer the third day, and on the fourth day it went like this:  Pace, 1918 to McKinney’s 1915, Pace 1943 – 1941; McKinney, 1969-1968; McKinney, 1997-1994; McKinney 2024-2018; McKinney, 2051-2044; McKinney 2076-2070; McKinney 2105-2096; McKinney 2131-2114, and from there Rick built his lead to the final 27-point difference.

He had been steadily picking up a point or two here and there, but one disastrous arrow for Pace sealed it.  Only nine points back at 2096-2105, he shot a rare two point arrow when the fletch tore off upon release.  “It was a  good power shot “ Pace said, “but as soon as I shot the tail did a roll, round and round in the wind.”

McKinney stated, “My whole archery thing is in better perspective these days.”  The Olympics taught me a lot.  I’ve gotten married, bought a house and am working two jobs.  All that wrapped together, the new responsibilities and perspective, gave me a personal confidence I hadn’t had before.  I’m handling it now.  I also realize someday it will end.  My tensions are under control; they help me shoot better now.  And I’m going to enjoy it.”

McKinney not only appears to stay loose on the line, he keeps the spectators loose.  Charlie Nicholas, Detroit, Mich., said, “He’s the most entertaining shooter I’ve seen in a long time.  That follow through of his is different every time.  He’ll let an arrow go, give it a little right English with his hip or body and … ten.  He’ll let another arrow go, give it a little low English by bending at the knees and … ten.  One time his string hand will be tight on his neck and the next time he’ll be waving at the crowd with it.  But as long as the arrows go where they’re suppose to go, that’s all that matters.”

Richard McKinney
NAA Champion 1977
Champion of the World 1977

 

Mothers, being mothers…. Have their own comments… and Rick’s is no different – when asked about Rick’s form, Betty McKinney stated, “He has two types of follow through – one that finishes cleanly and one that doesn’t.  But the one that doesn’t, that ends up who knows where, doesn’t affect the arrow because it’s gone by the time he gets into follow through, just as with any archer.”

So there we have it – the magic formula for world class archery — the ‘who knows where’ release developed and patented by Rick McKinney, one of the greatest archers of all time.

Lorretta Sinclair

27 May, 2009

For the short time I’ve been involved in archery, one of the most common remarks I’ve heard at awards ceremonies is, ‘Can’t they give us something that matches the achievement?’

Well, US Collegiate Archery has been in this category recently.  The program provides numerous awards, but many of them have seen better days.  When I took my son Dakota’s National Champion Plaque home on the airplane last year, it was with some chagrin as the duct tape holding in part of the plaque was loose, the frame was dinged, scratched, and cracking at the corners — and I knew that I could not expect it to last much longer.

I  wanted not just to replace the awards, but replace them with something so fine that the National and Overall Champions would have an award to bring back to the schools that would ‘wow’ not only our archers, but anyone who saw them.  And I set out to do something about it.

Chad Mansfield, Cal State Long Beach President and the 2009 USIAC host and I met with Don Rabska from Easton Foundations and described the situation with the awards.  Easton Foundations generously provided the funding for new perpetual awards and Chad set me loose with a catalog to choose from.  FUN! 

Helen Sahi, Assistant Director and I finalized our choices and Chad did a great job getting the CAP logo engraved.  I knew they would be nice and we decided to hide them until they were given out at the banquet. 

In the meantime, great minds think alike — or at least I’m going to pretend that my mind is as great as my mentor Bob Ryder —  

Bob, as Coach of James Madison University had possession of some of the other CAP perpetual awards and he determined their condition to be too beat up to return as well.  Without telling me, he quietly and generously replaced several of the plaques with nice solid wood and had them engraved with the names of past winners.

Also unbeknownst to me, the Women’s Recurve Team perpetual plaque was full with the addition of the Columbia women’s Championship in 2008, so Derek Davis also quietly and generously replaced it with a beautiful hardwood plaque …..  we were looking pretty good… except no one knew what the other had done!

As Helen, Chad, and I were setting up the awards before the banquet, with the new National and Overall Trophies hidden in the back, Derek and Bob surprised us with the new plaques that they had purchased for the program.

Bob realized something was up and kept asking me if he had done something ‘wrong.’  Uh no, nothing ‘wrong’….  No, this is really great, ummmm…. can we show you something? 

We took Bob behind the curtain and showed him the new perpetual trophies and also explained that the ones he and Derek had provided were awarded for different competitions than these were, so now through these combined efforts, we had a lot of new awards that we could proudly hand out. 

I’m not going to be shy about it though – the ones Helen, Chad, and I ordered are BIGGER!

Handing out those awards was a lot of fun! 

Penn College’s Danny Wido, National Champion, Men’s Compound asked me, “how do I get this home?’ 

I told him the truth.  ‘If I had won that award, I’d sit it on my lap and hug it all the way home on the plane.  But saving that, I have a box you can take it apart and put it in.’ 

Well, Danny didn’t take it apart and he did take it on the plane, and it apparently was a hit.  As Penn College Coach Chad Karstetter explained,

Let me tell you… We had more people come up and ask …….What was that trophy for? in the airport terminals than we ever did just traveling as a team. I think that is pretty dam cool. Also we did not have a problem getting ours home, just asked the airline if they had a place to stash it. All were very helpful and had a place for it.

Danny Wido, 2009 Men's Compound Outdoor Collegiate National Champion

James Madison University won the Overall Team award and apparently Bob Ryder immediately took custody.  When he first saw the trophies he told Helen and I that the wood on them was so nice he might not bring it back! 

Bob’s reply as to whether it was any trouble to get the trophy back to Virginia was,

Lorretta,

It was no problem. My team counted me as a checked bag…of course they had to pay the oversize & overweight bag fee…but then our trophy was able to ride home in my seat. 
No problem.

The wood is so pretty I don’t ever plan on sending it back to u.

Bob Ryder
JMU Archery

I love college archery, I’m pretty sure everyone knows that – but when you get to do really cool things for the athletes, and you find out that they really appreciate your efforts, that makes it even more worthwhile.

To James Madison University, the Overall Team Champions, and to our National Champions, Jacob Wukie, James Madison University; Danny Wido, Penn College, Jenny Nichols Texas A&M University, and Erika Anschutz, University of Nebraska, I hope you enjoy displaying those awards at your University.  They are awards to be proud of — and can sit on the shelf alongside the awards of the other sports.

I’ll make sure I send you a shipping container to get it to Texas in 2010 – because, Bob, you WILL have to give it back!

Lorretta Sinclair

26 May 2009