By Lenaia Powell
What is the most dangerous sport we have at Apopka high school? Archery! Just kidding, the arrows aren’t quite as dangerous as the ones in the Hunger Games, nor the stakes as high, but they are still nothing to mess around with. Every year, Archery Club opens to anyone interested, as long as they learn and are willing to follow the safety rules. Mr. Trompeter, in his third year of sponsoring archery, has explained why he started the club.
“It was my idea in the first place. I picked up archery two years before, then- actually my significant other at the time was coaching an archery team at Windermere Prep High School, and she had never coached before and so I helped her, and I fell in love with the sport and when she stopped coaching I decided to bring it here.”
Trompeter also said how the club operates and how to go from the club to the team. “We hold practices three days a week, it is… we learn how to shoot initially and then eventually we get into competitive scenarios where we shoot against one another and shoot for the high score and those kinda things. Ultimately your ability, your scores and your ability to compete head to head determine who makes the ten-man team.”
Bruce Hicks, a senior, also explained his part personally in archery. “You have the ten archers that are on the archery team and then everyone else who’s in the club, and if you’re good enough you make the team – the competition team – and I’ve been on the team all four years,”. Bruce has also expressed how much he enjoys archery, not only the sport itself but the family atmosphere. “Archery is relaxing, but it’s also like stressful at the same time. I really like how competitive it is, it’s not like physically competing, it’s more mentally, it’s archery, it’s more a mental sport than anything. And I really like when we practice… it’s a family. We’re always hanging out together, even when we’re not practicing. It’s nice.”
While archery isn’t something not to be taken seriously, given the nature of the bow and arrow, there are some pretty unforgettable mistakes that Bruce and Mr. Trompeter enjoyed witnessing. “*Laughs* When Elise (former student), she graduated two years ago I think, but the first year, when our first range was between the buildings, she shot through the window, through Mr. Melon’s window. That has to be my most memorable moment,” said Bruce. Mr. Trompeter had a less humorous, but more epic memory from the archery team. “The most memorable moment was when two years ago our best female archer, Brianna Sanders (former student) – who is now at Florida – competed in a one-arrow epic shoot-off against the best female archer from Lake Highland and managed to beat her.”
Archery is a great way to let off some steam, and those who are currently participating in it would like to let people know that it’s a good idea to consider joining. “I would definitely [recommend archery], but I would also recommend getting your own bow before you get into it if you’re really serious about it because we don’t have a whole lot of school bows,” said Bruce.
But in order to actually make it, Mr. Trompeter has a few expectations and ideals of a good archer, so consider this before committing: “Willingness to be coached, and then the hard thing that I can’t really give you is weirdly enough an awareness of your body and how it moves, because one of the most critical skills of archery is the ability to recognize where you are physically wrong, ’cause it’s such a technical sport, and if you can’t recognize what’s missing, it’s kind of hard for you to feel when you need to fix things.”
If you’re a current athlete looking for more sports to try, or just want to try a sport in general, it’s a good idea to check out the Archery Club. There’s not a particularly daunting level of commitment, yet if you prove yourself a good archer you just may have a chance at making the team.