Saturday morning, I tagged along with Jackson Stephens as he competed in his first 3D archery tournament. The LOUISIANA FIELD ARCHERY ASSOCIATION State 3D Tournament. I thought the event turned out pretty well.
Mentoring through The JOAD Program
Mentoring is a huge part of opening the door to the outdoors. Brent Smith with Slingin Arrows in El Dorado, AR is doing just that with the Junior Olympic Archery Development (JOAD) program. In the JOAD program young archers compete and earn pins, much like merit badges, as they advance their archery skills.
In full disclosure, Brent and I were college roommates for a while so I’ve known Brent for some time. However, I’ve watched him a lot at slinging arrows on Tuesday nights as he works individually with kids to help them become better shooters.
Jackson has been involved in the JOAD program for about three months now and I’ve been very impressed with his ability to shoot at such a young age. He can be a very athletic kid when he finds something he wants to do and he has great hand eye coordination which results in some raw talent that just needs focused refinement.
LOUISIANA FIELD ARCHERY ASSOCIATION
The LOUISIANA FIELD ARCHERY ASSOCIATION is not a part of the JOAD program, so Jackson is not a member of LFAA. Therefor he competed in the guest devision. His flight was a great group of people who although they were competing, everyone was also learning along the way. At least in our small group, everyone worked together shooting and scoring their targets and had a lot of fun while doing it.
One thing that impressed me at the event is how many women were involved in the tournament. Nationally, hunting license sales and in turn conservation dollars are down as Americas hunters are aging. Statistics show that if a child’s father hunts, fishes, or is otherwise involved in outdoor activities, its about a 50/50 shot at whether the child will be involved also. Now, if a child’s mother is also involved in the outdoors, its almost 100% guaranteed that their kids will as well. So, Good Job Ladies!!! Keep it going!!!
At the end of the day, Jackson scored 107 which wasn’t enough to place, but I think it taught him some lessons. He had a great time at the event and I hope it encouraged him.
To view or purchase more photos from the event browse through my photo gallery online.
