When I was about 15 and in Boy Scouts I was introduced to the world of archery. I found that I was naturally adept at it and quickly became addicted to the sport. I joined the local JOAD (Junior Olympic Archery Development) club and was very blessed to end up being coached by the King family. I trained and practiced much of my free time and sooner then most I had reached the Junior Olympian level (archery is divided into two groups - juniors are those under 18, seniors are those 18 and older). I continued to train hard and achieved some significant titles - among them the State JOAD champion, Tri-state JOAD team champion, and even the National Team JOAD championship.

With my 18th birthday approaching I looked forward to continuing my training development and working towards a spot on the senior USAT (United States Archery Team), and perhaps even the 1992 Olympics. I was very fortunate to be coached by the some of the best in the world and I felt that I could do it. Surrounded by 3 Olympians (Mike King-1976, Katrina King-1984, & Glenn Myers-1988), another USAT team member (Lonny King) and a future Olympic coach (Mike King-1996), I had more expertise and experience at my fingertips then I could have ever hoped for.

Yes, I was full and spunk and motivation. But then life kind of gets in the way sometimes…

It didn’t take long after my 18th birthday, starting college, moving out of my parent’s house, and dating my future wife, that I found myself shooting less and less. Looking back I don’t necessarily regret not continuing my training, but occasionally I do wonder how far I could have gone if I had stuck to it.

Regardless though, I still have my bow and equipment from those days in the 80’s (jeez…it really has been that long, hasn’t it?!) and once in a great while I take it out to shoot. The last time I had it out was the spring of 2006 when I went out to an outdoor hunting range with a couple of business acquaintances. It was a bit odd walking through the woods with an olympic style recurve in my hands while the other two had compounds. However, I still nailed everything in sight…hehe!

Well, early this week I was in our basement looking for some dishes for our Thanksgiving feast when I spotted my bow case and had that familiar pang or longing to shoot. When I stood up with the dishes and looked around the basement it suddenly occurred to me that I could easily setup an indoor range down there! I wouldn’t have to go anywhere to shoot, taking time away from my family. I could just walk into the basement and shoot on a whim - no driving time, no fuss, no muss. WOW!! Why that hadn’t occurred to me before I don’t know, particularly since I’d already been roller blading in our basement because it’s so ridiculously huge.

Out came the tape measure and sure enough…I could shoot 16 meters! Suhweet!! Not quite the 18 or 25 meters for an indoor range, but close enough.

So today I got an early Christmas present. We headed out to the archery shop where I would shoot once every 2-3 years and picked up a target butt, set it up in the basement, and took aim. Wow, that felt so good! 3 ends (9 arrows) to sight in my bow properly and then I decided to see how well I could shoot a round after all this time.

10 ends and 30 arrows later I found I could still shoot - and pretty darn well I might add. My score was 286. Not exactly world or Olympic class, but still pretty decent.

Now my son is asking if he can shoot a bow too. Looks like I may have to pick him up something to start with for Christmas and see where that goes!

Here are some pics of my basement range.

The basement range - all 16 meters of it from the shooting line just north of the dual water heaters down to the 40cm 10-ring FITA target.

My equipment at the shooting line

My bow case. See how dusty it is?! I have both aluminum 2114 arrows for indoor use and some old but still suhweet Easton A/C/E (Aluminum Carbon Extreme) arrows.

If you look closely at the case near the handle, you’ll see an old impact style labeler with the words “Pa King” on it (it’s upside down in this pic). The case was given to me by Vance “Pa” King when I was training as a Junior Olympian at King Archery in Grand Rapids, Michigan back in the 80’s. I never removed the label in tribute to Vance.

My bow, a Hoyt Gold Medalist riser with Hoyt Gold Medalist limbs. These are my lighter 40# limbs for indoor use. I didn’t even attempt to put in my outdoor 45# limbs. I ached enough after putting just 40 arrows through that lighter set of limbs! hehe

Notice the beautiful color arrangement - grey and red. haha! Some wonderful Easton A/C/E stabilizers with a custom machined fork still works great for me. Of course, I’d guess that with almost 20 years of technology since then, there’s probably some pretty nifty stuff out now. But hey, I still shot a 286 after picking it up cold!

My target. You can see the 6 high arrows and the three lefties as I sighted in with my first 3 ends. The rest is all gold Baby!!

My first scorecard - 286! Now I have something to challenge me to shoot better - beating my own score, which should really be any archers best motivation.

Happy me after shooting.

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Posted: November 24th, 2007 at 7:06 pm.
Tags: Archery.
Filed under: Archery.
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