So at my former archery club down in Phoenix we has an annual Christmas party for our JOAD youth archery program. It's basically a fun night for the kids with pizza, cake, shooting at 3d animals, shooting ornaments off a Christmas tree, etc.

It kind of became a tradition with one of the other coaches and myself to try trick shots with the Genesis beginner bows. Things like the behind the back shot, shooting opposite hand, trying to get an arrow in the target at 45 yards with the Mini Gensesis bow. It was a definite, "Hey, hold my beer..." moment performed with a bow and arrow. We put it to rest last year when we realized that kids trying to imitate stupid stuff their coaches do might not be the best idea.

So I just got forwarded a video from this year's Christmas party. One of my personally coached students decided to pick up the baton. Nocking 2 arrows at once on a Genesis bow, shooting left handed he managed to put both on target at 20 yards!

The student has become the master. My young Jedi has done well...

Great story and congrats. Sure sounds like you're doing it right.

Having coached youth baseball for many years (ages 8 to 18), the past few years have been a huge part of my payoff as I've had the opportunity to follow a number of my players on their college baseball web pages as they reap the rewards of untold hours and days practicing with me in the Florida heat. I've received a number of personal thank you's from players for helping them achieve college scholarships and opportunities to play ball beyond high school. Of all the things I've accomplished over my lifetime, I think I'm most proud of all the boys I was blessed to coach.

quote:

Of all the things I've accomplished over my lifetime, I think I'm most proud of all the boys I was blessed to coach.

I grew to deeply, deeply respect one coach I had in high school football.
Always on the lookout for something that would make me a better athlete. Not only did he make me a better player, he made me push myself much, much farther than I ever thought I could ever be pushed.
Thanks Coach McGowen. You are a hell of a good man!
(the other ones I had...meh...not so much)

I'm glad 2000Z-71 can see his influence in his archers.
More often than not, coaches never get that feedback or perspective. NICE!

A lot of truth to what Mitch said above. As a coach, it's not about me, it's about my archers. I've been fortunate in archery in that tournaments and scoring provide feedback for how an archer is doing. While the score or the trophy is not the goal, it's the result of meeting many goals along the way.

My own philosophy in coaching is What, Why and How. Beginners the What is stressed, what to do; position of feet, nocking an arrow, drawing the bow, releasing the arrow, etc. Intermediates it's the Why, the reasoning behind the What, the physics and biomechanics. With advanced archers it is the How, how did the shot feel, how can we pick up an extra couple of points, how did an adjustment to form feel.

Christopher is always going to be a very special archer to me. He's been a part of our team and I've been his personal coach for 2 years now. He's gone from never shooting a bow to being ranked 32nd in the nation this past season. He's definitely in the How stage and it's been as much of an education for me as a coach helping him discover what works best for him.

Like I said, it's supposed to be the archers and not about me. But it did give me a sense of pride watching the video of his double arrow shot and hearing a teammate in the background yell, "We all know who he's been coached by!"