‘It’s all for the kids'

Head coach Bill Newbury says the reason he’s so involved in archery at Nodaway Valley centers around the kids he and the other coaches get to make a positive impact on through their time together. These impacts have a tendency to last a very long time.

It’s that very reason a charity shoot the archers took part in at practice Thursday, Feb. 6 was such a good fit for the program. The cause was St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital. A virtual event, the charity shoot combines teamwork with giving to a good cause, which ends up being a good life lesson for those who participate.

“It’s like archery, archery is all for the kids. The kids know that and they want to give back too,” Newbury said. “When there’s an opportunity like the shoot for St. Jude’s, that’s a way for them to give back to other kids in other comunities. They like doing it and being a part of it so it’s a great opportunity for everybody.”

Nodaway Valley has over 60 archers on the team this year. The sport is open to fourth-graders through seniors. The sport has blossomed in participation numbers in Iowa over the last several years.

A positive about the sport is that it doesn’t always matter if you’re the strongest or most popular kid, you can be successful in archery.

Seeing kids progress at the pace they would like to requires a lot of adult help, which Nodaway Valley’s team has. Though on paper coaches are Newbury, Mandy Breheny and Denise Bridges, there are many other adults who are willing to pass their experience and knowledge on to others. Focus, patience and self discipline are both key components to excelling in archery.

“Even experienced archers can have a bad shot. The mental discipline teaches them that I had a bad shot, but if I come back and adjust a little bit here, I can get the placement that I want. The mental discipline is probably the hardest part and that carries them through life,” Newbury said. “The physical discipline is about muscle memory, trying to get them to understand that they don’t necessarily have to be the strongest person in the room, but holding a bow out there to aim and still hold still, there’s a certain physical discipline that has to be there also. It takes a lot of mental and physical discipline.”

The Wolverines are preparing for the state shoot, which is Feb. 28-March 1 in Des Moines. Going into the final qualifying tournament on Saturday, the team already had several team and individual qualifications earned. For the first time, Nodaway Valley has qualified a high school team for state. Coaches were meeting Monday to set state shoot entries.

The team’s seniors this year, including Shannon Newbury, KayLynn Virtue and Dakota Hall, have improved a lot during their time in archery, Coach Newbury said.

“Every one of them, you can see the difference in their attitudes from when they started to what they are now. Watching them progress over the years, becoming the young men and women that they are now, it has been amazing to watch them grow up,” the coach said. “The way they carry themselves now, I think it has a lot to do with archery and their skills. I think they’ll be successful in the future in whatever they decide to do.”