The MU Student Recreation Complex might offer paintball and shooting as club sports for those who enjoy working with guns, but it also sponsors another option for those who prefer shooting with the basic bow and arrow.
Bryan Sather, Cory Cawthon, Drew Montague and Marissa Jo Daniels founded MU’s Archery Team in the fall of 2006 as a group of friends who wanted to shoot.
“Bow hunting is huge in Missouri,” Sather said. “We started out wanting to network, then we figured we could get competitive with it.”
Between 15 and 20 shooters with a varying skill sets are participating this semester.
“We don’t require people to have any prior skills at all,” President Jami Turner said. “We’re willing to teach.”
Caitlin Jones, junior and former Maneater staff member, grew up shooting because of her grandfather’s archery shop. She said team members help each other improve at practice.
“(Turner) helped me so much in shooting,” she said. “Before, I couldn’t fit my grouping of arrows on a paper plate. Now, I could fit them all on a teacup.”
Turner started shooting 11 years ago after her father won a bow at a silent auction. She shot for a 4-H league as a child and spent last summer teaching children archery at a camp in New Hampshire. She said she likes the different skills required for archery than for other sports.
“It’s not about being fast or strong,” Turner said. “It’s a game of repetition, concentration and focus. All I have to do is be willing to work hard.”
The archery team has always competed in local and state competitions and began competing at the collegiate level last year. Six members traveled to Lansing, Mich., in the spring for their first collegiate competition, which involved shooting indoor targets from 20 yards away.
“We didn’t get ranked because we didn’t know it was supposed to be a two-day shoot, so our scores were only half of what they should have been,” Jones said.
They will participate in their second collegiate competition, the 3D United States Intercollegiate Archery Championship, Oct. 21 in Nelsonville, Ohio.
“We’ll hopefully be able to get ranked and also place individually,” Jones said.
When the team is not preparing for competitions, members help local youth organizations with archery. They have worked with Dream Outside the Box, and last semester members taught children in the Boys and Girls Club how to shoot.
“You could tell they were nervous at first, but they had a blast,” Jones said.
The team also assisted with the Missouri 4-H Shooting Sports State Match a few weeks ago. They served as line judges, determining whether arrows touched or cut the line, and helped pull arrows from targets.
“We help out wherever an organization wants us to,” Jones said.
Sather said archery helps shooters in other aspects of their lives.
“You use teamwork and patience,” Sather said. “It definitely teaches communication skills, skills you’re going to use no matter what you end up doing.”
Turner said she encourages others to try archery.
“I believe it’s very fun,” she said. “In a setting such as ours, you’re exposed to a whole new network of people. You make new friends, travel to new places and acquire new skills that happen to apply in everyday life.”
The team practices 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Mondays at Powder Horn Guns & Sporting Goods.
