Posted by: lorrettasinclair on: April 27, 2009
The World University Games (WUG) will be held in Belgrade, Serbia in July this year. University athletes from around the world will compete in fifteen sports, including archery. You can find more information at the official website, www.universiade-belgrade2009.org. The website has information on the venue and city of Belgrade; the pictures of the venue in Serbia are beautiful.
The US WUG team is selected at the World University Game Team Trials which are held in conjunction with USIACs. The U.S. team will be comprised of the top 3 qualifying men and women in both the compound and recurve divisions.
Additional information for potential WUG team members will be sent to Club Presidents, coaches, and advisors this week. If you think that you’d like to make the team, you must fill out some required paperwork prior to USIACs (WUG trials). These mandatory paperwork requirements are necessary in order to meet scheduled deadlines by FISU, the WUG organizing body.
You may recall that last year there was an issue with the traditional dates for holding USIACs and the Executive Council moved the tournament to the next region in the rotation (West Region). The intent was to return the event to the South if bids were received that could accommodate the 3rd weekend in May. The bids are all in for the potential 2010 USIAC host. I think you all will be pleased with the selection… but you have to wait – because the last announcement at the USIAC banquet is the host for the following USIAC and I’m not going to tell before then!
In March, I was told about some beautiful silver platters that served as a perpetual award for the Individual USIAC Champions. Since I hadn’t heard about them, much less seen them, I assumed that they had been retired long ago. My curiosity was piqued and I began looking into it. It turns out that the platters are still around.
Helen Bolnick, the recently retired (at 80+ years of age) – longtime coach of ACCC, used to have a connection at Oneida Silver on the East Coast. The platters were purchased through Helen’s gracious efforts to secure outstanding awards for the USIAC Champions. Each year the platters were awarded to the USIAC winners to keep for a year. Their names were engraved on the platters, as well. In 1982, the last name that would fit on the men’s recurve platter, Rick McKinney’s, was engraved and the plaques were retired to the USAA office, where they are currently stored. At this point Helen unfortunately no longer had a connection at Oneida, and plaques succeeded the platters as the USIAC perpetual awards.
Another historical tidbit: each USIAC Champion used to give one of their winning arrows to the CAP. We tried, but failed (so far) to locate those arrows and, in the process, I realized that maybe we should bring this lost tradition back.
The CAP has been given a generous opportunity to display its history and artifacts in a visible, long-term location. While working to transition the CAP history and other artifacts from long-time historian Mel Leach (former coach for Cal State Long Beach), the CAP will pursue this opportunity. We’ll also look at other ways to bring visibility to the 43 year history of the CAP.
Lorretta
26 April, 2009
