Their banners don’t hang in the gym with the other Churchill County High School Champions, but the CCHS Archers hold their own, living up to the tradition of winning, bringing home seven state titles over the past ten years.
Dean Schultz coaches the club team, teaching two sections of archery at the high school each term. Archers take the class during the school day and during club, the season runs from October to March, with practices at night as the team works toward the state tournament.
Schultz started the program ten years ago and regularly coaches a team of 24. Rules for the National Archery in the Schools Program limit the team to 24, taking the top 12 shooters, with four of those required to be of the opposite gender.
“When kids come into other sports at the high school very often, they come with at least six years of experience. Ninety percent of the kids I have every year, have never touched a bow,” said Schultz. And that’s a good thing because they have no bad habits, no bad muscle memory. On the downside, he said kids’ physical ability now is shocking.
“I always reference when we were back in school – we did the pushups, we did the sit-ups, we ran. I have kids who can’t run a lap on the track without stopping,” he said. “It’s a challenge to get those kids to have the right muscle memory to do everything correctly, it just takes time.” But his students put in that time, and it has been paying off.
“The kids I have for the most part are kids who aren’t in any other activity, they have all these walls built up,” he said. “About a month in they get comfortable, and I start seeing them really enjoying themselves and we just build on that.” For many, it is the first time they belong to a team.
Churchill County was one of the first schools to shoot virtually, even before COVID happened. Schultz said NASP first started in Nevada in Las Vegas. After the first year of taking the team down for competition, he went to the league and said, “I have a lot of kids who are interested, but they can’t afford to do this, it’s not a one-day thing, like getting on a bus and going to the place and then going home.”
He proposed doing the shoot virtually, setting up the range, and videotaping the shoot. “I did that for two years. We were the first in Northern Nevada and since then several schools are involved in the virtual shoot.” He said it gets more numbers in the program and gives more kids the opportunity to participate and compete.
“It’s really good because kids know at the beginning of the year, they can be in the state tournament no matter what. They don’t have to spend the money and go down to Vegas.” Creating that “experience” is also important to Schultz in spite of missing the travel. He sets up the virtual shoot to make the students feel special, bringing parents in to watch and providing a culmination to their season that is something worth working for.
Schultz says this is the culmination of his archery career. “Seeing the kids who have never won anything or been a part of anything, when they win and get their medal, it’s pretty cool.”
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