By GLEN WERLING
Multiple loud thuds pierce through the din of crowd noise in the Southern Wells Elementary gym.
Those thuds, though, not made by children dribbling basketballs. No these sounds are the noise of arrows finding their mark on a target 45 feet away from each of the students.
This is the Southern Wells archery team members practicing on a chilly morning last Saturday in anticipation of the upcoming state competition in Indianapolis.
“We have a shoot at Anderson Prep Saturday (tomorrow),” said coach Mike Carter, who with the generous aid of White Tails Unlimited started the archery team. That practice, at the preparatory academy, is a tune up for the state competition March 11.
“We use the Anderson shoot to get ourselves mentally ready for the tournament,” said Carter, who is the SWES physical education teacher.
The archery program is in its fifth year at Southern Wells and features students in grades three through 12.
“Most of our kids are in elementary,” he added. “The elementary level is grades four through five. The junior high level is grades six through eight and right now we don’t really have a nine through 12 team but we do have four individuals in the high school who shoot at the individual level.”
The high school individuals were among those who have been with the program since it started.
Third grade students can participate also, but they do not compete as members of the elementary school team.
There are around 80 participants in the sport from Southern Wells. Archery is not a sanctioned sport by the Indiana High School Athletic Association sanctioned sport, but it is part of the National Archery in the Schools Program, sponsored in Indiana by the Indiana Department of Natural Resources.
Southern Wells participates in four to five competitive meets annually. Carter hopes to be able to host a meet at Southern Wells in the Raiderdome next school year, but since the program’s inception, the archers have had to shoot on the road.
“Archery instills confidence, ” Carter added. “We have a lot of kids the very first day who leave frustrated and say to themselves, ‘Is this really for me?’ But when they come back that second or third time and start seeing their arrows hitting their targets, then they turn around and give me that smile. It makes them feel good to experience that success. It makes me feel good.”
It also teaches competitiveness to children who might not be in any other sport, he added.
“There’s a lot of life skills that can be learned from archery. Maybe the shot isn’t what I wanted, but I always have another shot. They learn that somedays they may have a bad day, but there’s always a tomorrow.”
Southern Wells competed at Jay County High School and Blackford County to earn the right to make the state tournament. Only scores from one qualifier are considered and that qualifier has to be designated by the participating school at least 14 days in advance.
The scores from the tournament at Jay County were sent into the Indiana NASP. “At the end of the day, we really didn’t know if we qualified or not,” Carter said. “It all depends on what the other clubs or the other schools shoot.”
All of the participants from Southern Wells shoot at the qualifier and then the host school — in this case Jay County — took the top 12 scores from each level. There must be a minimum of four boys or four girls on each of the 12-member teams.
NASP compiled all of the records and Southern Wells made it.
Southern Wells’ first participant shoots at 7 a.m. Saturday, March 11. The state tournament is held at the Indiana State Fairgrounds. The elementary and junior high teams will be shooting later in the afternoon.
“We learned a lot about setting up flight times this year from participating last year,” Carter said. “Last year all of our kids shot at 7.”
There will be nine flights, each with 240 participants, for a total of 2,160 students shooting at the state.
“Isn’t this great?” Carter says, motioning to the students lining one side of the elementary school gym to the other. “We started out with 20 to 25 kids our first year. Now look at it. This is why I’m doing this.”
glenw@news-banner.com
