I have spent the last 5 years or so seriously engaged in becoming a national champion in archery. I have been diligent in my practice and have attended most of the major tournaments during that time. I have been close, but have not been able to close the deal. This year had a different feel though. My field archery game has finally begun to mature into something very strong. I am beginning to shoot distance with some real expertise, particularly given my age. I grabbed a second at the Midwest Trail Shoot and came within 1 point of the state record for the American Round in Indiana(888). This is my last year in the senior division so my expectation is that my highest probability for success will occur after I turn 60 in December. Even so, I felt as if my field game was as good as anyone in the senior division if I get into my groove. I was not considering attendance at the field nationals (which also serves as the outdoor target nationals) as it is somewhat onerous in the commitment of time out of town. After some consideration, along with some encouragement from Paul Sherman, I decided to make the commitment in order to get a feel for what shooting in the field nationals would be like as a 60 year old.
I originally planned on traveling with Joe Kapp and Mike Leiter, but Joe had a family emergency and I ended up sharing a long drive and hotel room with Mike Leiter. Mike is a true champion of the sport. Any conversation I could have with him pertaining to archery was certainly worth paying attention and incorporating his ideas into my own formulas whenever possible. He was an easy companion and introverted like myself, so conversations were actually enjoyable and occasionally poignant. The tournament itself began with the field round. I’ve really mastered this round, but for some reason I was off. Not poor shooting, though it was mediocre, but shots that should have been true were far from the mark. It was hard for me to gauge the root cause as there was some wind, along with some vertigo shooting from tall heights. My numbers seemed like they were fine, but I was at a loss to explain the poor score. The explanation presented itself the following morning on the practice range. With about 15 minutes left until scoring my PSE exploded at full draw. It looks like a cable had been giving way and finally let loose. It created quite a spectacle and everyone on the line stopped what they were doing to see what the heck happened. After announcing to the crowd that I was okay (couple of dings on the wrist from flying parts)
I was now left with the prospect of starting day 2 of the shoot without a sight tape (the key to shooting varying distances) and a back-up bow. There was no time to delay and by the time I returned to the range with my bow, I had about 10 minutes to determine my sight settings at the different yardages. I made the most of my time and generated what I thought to be fairly good numbers given the short amount of time available. When I began scoring again, I saw that I was much closer to true than I was the day before. I spent the day experimenting on different yardages and gaining confidence in my numbers. I ended up scoring far better than day 1 and felt like I was back to being competitive.
Day three was the animal round which consists of a single arrow at half sized dots. I could tell right away that I was going to do well and I stayed pretty consistent all day long. I ended up winning the animal round (no trophy for that unfortunately) and felt ready for the outdoor target event that was scheduled for the second half of day three. I can’t say I shot as well as I could, but it felt like a decent round. After all was said and done I had an 11 point lead going into day four. That is an incredibly large lead and I was a little surprised. The memory that kept flashing through my mind was that of my bow exploding on the shooting line. I knew that I was going to win a national championship unless some catastrophic event occurred. A cracked nock, a rest malfunction or another exploding bow all passed in and out of my mind’s eye the next morning as I prepared to take the field. My first few shots are always the worst, but once I settled down my results normalized. On the second to last round I got really wobbly and ended up winning the national championship by nine points. It was very meaningful for me as a reward for a lot of effort. I was able to persist in my training always having a national as my goal. I still want to win an indoor national event, so I do not expect any letdown of effort. It is this effort, and the mental preparation that I think played the greatest part in this accomplishment. A story about me still converts into a story for my children. There are untapped reservoirs of effort that I did not know existed that also reside within them. Sometimes what you think it important (physical skill in this case) turns out to be secondary to something yet unseen (mental skill in winning).