When it comes to the announcements of high school sports, one mostly hears about football and their season record, times for basketball games, or the upcoming volleyball season. But what happens when those smaller yet high-achieving extracurriculars don’t get the same coverage? The lack of recognition can frustrate students and cause them to become annoyed.
Take into consideration the archery team. They have not only made it to State this season, placing 13th in Bullseye with a team score of 3299 and 15th in 3D with a team score of 1648, but they have also made it to State for the past ten years. They will also participate in the NASP Eastern Nationals in early May in Louisville, Kentucky, for the fifth consecutive year.
To put it into perspective, some challenging schools the team faces include Prairie, Alburnett, and Center Point-Urbana. Prairie was ranked first at State, Alburnett seventh, and CPU sixth. The archery team competes with these groups almost every weekend during the tournament season.
A scoring team of archers consists of 24 for Bullseye and 16 for 3D. The requirements for such a result mean that, as an individual, one must have two scores of 265 or higher for both tournament styles. The group had 22 individuals for Bullseye, with two other archers who did exceptionally well to complete the team, and 12 individuals for 3D, with four additional members to fulfill the remaining spots. They’ve also been doing exceptionally well this season, placing first in their initial and final tournaments while shooting against some of the state’s top-scoring teams. Guler said, “Our archery team is currently ranked 65th out of over 500 teams nationally.” With all these top-notch milestones, one would expect these significant achievements to be noted a decent amount. But these triumphs are rarely mentioned in daily announcements. Savanah Pope, junior, said, “When we made it to State, I believe I only heard it mentioned once in the announcements. But with other things like basketball, I think when they made it to State a couple of years ago, it was mentioned every day leading up to it.”
With archery being a winter sport and sometimes overlapping into early spring, most of the team is involved with other activities, which can cause issues when trying to participate in the tournaments. With an increased number of high school extracurriculars taking place on Saturdays, the group must find a compromise for those in show choir, wrestling, cheer, and anything else one might partake in. Despite these problems, the archery team has achieved its best season yet. The time and dedication of the members have prevailed. However, it’s upsetting for the students when it isn’t recognized like all of the other sports. The announcements should include all extracurriculars, no matter the season, and be inclusive of all.
