As we all have slowly settled back in the groove of day-to-day life after celebrating another lap around the sun, we want to take a minute to self-reflect on all the things we as a club, together, have accomplished.
REFLECTION
On the competition circuit during the 2017 calendar year, we had a strong representation of archers of all ages and disciplines represent the Middletown logo proudly. Everyone who competed, whether in a local shoot in our backyard, drove cross-country to a national tournament, or even took their talents half way around the globe, we are thrilled with the way you all strived to shoot your best! A few standout accomplishments we would like to pay honor to are Gracie Hollywood and Chris Bellino for making the Regional Dream Team, Ralph Lawton for earning a spot on the Jr. USAT and achieving his gold olympian pin, and Gabe Karl for getting both his bronze and silver olympian pins. But it wasn’t just on the archery field where our team shined. In the classroom, many of you continue to excel. Also, many have balanced and seen success within hobbies outside of archery including other sports, music, dance, art, etc.
Obviously, a lot of changes have taken place for us these past few years. As most of you know, the indoor range and pro-shop themselves have gotten a relatively recent makeover. We continue to be beyond delighted with the new and improved look, and first and foremost would like to thank all of you who contributed and volunteered your time to help with the many different projects we needed help tackling during that time. I wish I could list names, but the true beauty of it all is that there are too many to write them all out.
PROGRESSION
The sport itself has seen the landscape change for the better as well. Coverage is at an all-time high thanks to NBC’s commitment to all Olympic sports. With their Olympic Channel available on cable as well as streaming platforms, they have regularly aired both compound and recurve finals at World Cup stages and World Championships. Even on their popular NBC Sports Network, they aired reruns/highlights of those events!
And it isn’t just viewership through television that saw a rise. The level of fans that came out to the World Cup circuit, specifically on our home soil in Salt Lake City, was inspiring to see. Fans like the father and son who flew out for the week as a birthday gift to cheer on Team USA. You couldn’t have found two louder fans chanting “U-S-A” during the matches than these two as they clapped their thundersticks in perfect rhythm! There was also a gentlemen who drove all the way from Colorado just to volunteer at the event. As a member of the Air Force stationed in the Rocky Mountain State, he drove through the night, volunteered for two days, then headed back for work the following day. With having to make his money stretch as well, he found a cheap place to sleep for just $12: the back of his truck in a parking garage. The sport of archery is at an unprecedented level of popularity and involvement, which has us motivated more than ever to continue to be a place where all ages and skill levels can come and enjoy the sport we have passionately learned to love.
THE NEXT CHAPTER
I want to wrap this up with a small glimpse into the future as we embark on the rest of 2018 and beyond. Our Quiver Quotes has been around for years as an organized and simple way to spread information about our club. This will continue, but we merely would like to expand upon that. With the digital age in which we live, we figured why not add more content for all our members and do our part to contribute towards the exposure of the sport. Quiver Quotes will transform into a blog on our site that will contain anything from club news, training/competition tips and tricks, recaps of events, pop culture/viral references, interviews/athlete spotlights, and anything and everything in between! And if you find anything interesting revolving around the sport, we would love for you to share those discoveries with us!
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Change can sometimes be scary and result in one becoming overwhelmed with anxiety. We want to thank you all again for embracing the change we have went through, and continue to, as a way to improve collectively as a club and gaining positive memories with us through the sport of archery. Here’s to another great year in the books and to the exciting outlook of another step forward here in 2018!