Foley: 3D Season in the Winter is Difficult

Well, this came quickly this year. I’ve attended a lot of national events in the last 25 years, and I’ve never felt as unprepared as I did before we headed to Hartford, Conn., to catch our flight. Between spending a lot of time focusing on indoor shooting this year and the miserable weather in the Northeast, I didn’t spend any time preparing a bow to shoot 3D. I went back and forth between the bow I’ve shot all winter, which is the Dominator Duo 35, and my Shootdown Pro. Although both bows have the same cam (SE2) on them, they feel totally different to me. I like each one for a different reason. A week ago, I made my choice to take the Shootdown Pro because the arrows came off the rest well, and the bow was shooting well. At the last minute, I decided to give the bow I had shot all winter a chance since I feel comfortable behind it. Unfortunately, I was having a tough time with arrow spine and found myself in between two shafts, with neither of them performing up to my liking. The Duo aims better, and I know what to expect with it under pressure, so I threw that in the case the night before we left and decided I’d give it a whirl. In those situations, it’s like playing with matches in a dry hayfield in the middle of the summer, but I figured I had nothing to lose. 

                                                                       Practice Day

  We got onto the practice range before it became inundated with people. It allowed us to cruise from one end of it to the other without many interruptions. As we picked our way through it, my mind seemed to be in a distant place. I found it incredibly difficult to focus, which led to horrible lapses in concentration. When we finished, I didn’t feel bad or good about it. Something just felt distant – off. It did offer me some relief to see 3D targets since I hadn’t seen any in a tournament setting since the second week of August last summer. 

                                                              Day 1

  I felt confident going into the first day but didn’t know what to expect. I’ve always considered yardage judging to be relatively easy, even if I haven’t put any work into it. I also knew I was going to have a great group. Digger Cogar, Jamie Drouillard and Tony Tazza would share a stake with me for the day. I enjoy shooting with all of them, so I knew it would be a relaxing day. However, anytime I’ve ever shot with Jamie, my performances have been severely lacking, with all three times being the lowest scores I’ve ever shot. I’m sure there’s no reason for it other than coincidence, but I couldn’t hide from the memories. I’ve shot well with Digger and Tony in the past, so when the “Shoot’m up” came ringing down the trail, I figured it would give me a chance to break free from the curse of Jamie. 

  I started on a wolverine and made quick work of it, shooting a center 10. Five targets later, I was sitting at even with one 8 and one 12. My hold was a little busy, but my numbers seemed to be close enough to keep me close. 

  Going into the 9^th target of the day, I was holding my own but had barely missed a few uppers. The arrows were within two inches of the upper and had a good line. Unfortunately, they landed in the 8-ring. I knew the tournament would be a learning experience for me, as I wanted to shoot mostly uppers and see how that gameplan treated me. 

  When I got to the ninth target, the group in front of me had just called a proctor and needed something moved when we were shooting target 8. I didn’t pay any attention to it, but it was in the back of my mind. 

  After drawing my bow on the impala, I settled in. The shot went a little long, but when it broke, I expected the arrow to hit close to the upper 12. Then, I heard the arrow ricocheting through the brush. In amazement, I had no clue what had just happened. There wasn’t anything in the shooting lane that I saw that the arrow could have hit. As I sit here writing this, I still don’t know what happened to cause the arrow to go crashing out through the woods. Did the point pull out of the arrow, and I didn’t catch it? Did the arrow fall off the rest and I shot it off the shelf? Did it have a cracked nock and I never caught it? I’ll never know, but it was the turning point of my weekend. 

  Looking back on the day, I believe I mentally checked out at that point. I didn’t feel it as it was happening, but I believe I lost all interest in shooting my bow. Disappointed would be a word to explain what I was feeling, but I don’t think that would attempt to cover it. From that point forward, I think I checked out on the focus meter and just shot my bow without putting much into it. I can never remember this happening in my archery career. I never actually remember trying to judge yardage. I simply stood at the stake and guessed without doing anything to come up with my number. My normal routine was nowhere to be found. 

  After completing the round, I felt totally defeated. The feeling brought with it a sense of disbelief. Looking into the mirror, I felt for the first time in a long time like I was in a place I didn’t belong. I finished in fourth to last place. I’ve shot some clunkers over the years but nothing like that. I felt like I had possibly hit the wall and needed to reconsider the path ahead. 

                                                                      Day 2

 

  As I wandered down the road to get to my shooting stake, I didn’t feel good about it. I was in the last peer group of all my peers. However, I had great guys in my group. That would be the saving grace for the day. I always enjoy Jackie Caudle and Tim Roberts’ company. Tim is one of the most positive guys I’ve ever shot with, and I love shooting with him. He pays attention to all the small details and offers solid advice after rounds are done. I value having met him and learning from him. He’s one of the good ones out there.

  When the cards were drawn, I learned I would be leading off a long mule deer that had nasty shadows on it. I knew it would be tough to find a spot to place the pin, as the shadows were moving. After drawing the bow, the pin settled quickly. I was incredibly relaxed, and the shot broke with ease. It landed in the center 11, right where my pin was sitting when the release fired. I was off to a good start. 

  After shooting that target, target 10, we turned the corner and headed back up the road on the other side. We would now be looking directly into the sun. It was tough finding my pin on the targets, so I decided to make the best shots I could and see what happened. 

  I struggled for a few targets and quickly fell behind the 8-ball. Three 8s and a 12 later, Digger Cogar let us borrow an umbrella, and that changed my day. I never went out of the 10 ring the rest of the day, and I pounded the upper 12s. Unfortunately, I didn’t call upper 12s like I had the previous day. 

  Over the course of the last 15 targets, I executed the best shots I’ve executed at a national 3D in the last three years. My shots were effortless, relaxed and strong. I never shot an arrow left or right, and the pin had a calm float to it. I got off the course with a 198, the seventh highest score on the range for the day. If I had called upper 12s, I would’ve ended at +12. However, if ifs and buts were candy and nuts, it would be Christmas all year long.  I believe that’s the route I will take the rest of the year, as most of my peers follow the same plan. 

                                                      Final Thoughts on the Weekend

  I won’t lie and say I’m excited about what happened over the weekend. I’m pissed off, and it leaves a sour taste in my mouth. It’s the first time in my archery career in which I was thoroughly embarrassed about my performance. Although most shooters encounter similar things, I can tell you firsthand that it doesn’t feel good to know you’re sitting on the bottom of the pack. I could probably spin it in a zillion directions and not be far off, but when it comes right down to it, I own it. I simply didn’t perform. Am I losing the ability to compete? I guess I’ll figure that out as the year goes on. The second day proved to me that I still have a little bit in the tank. I couldn’t have asked for a better comeback. 

  I also won’t lie about my mind being filled with serious things that aren’t related to archery at all. With all the medical appointments coming up, I may only have one more 3D in me for the year. The fact that I might not be able to shoot the rest of the year is the least of my concerns, especially after being told the seriousness of what lies ahead. I guess I should be more thankful for having the ability to stink the joint up this past weekend more than anything else. After all, at least I was able to shoot and enjoy the weekend with many of my friends I rarely get to see. It also reminded me to never put much into anything when looking at the scoreboards from afar. You never know what battles people are fighting that could be leading to less than desirable results on the scorecard.

  Overall, I’d rate my shooting as solid. There’s not much I’d change about it. Although I didn’t hold very well the first day, the bow sat down nicely the second day. I never struggled getting through my shots, and I focused on trying to be relaxed. My execution was pretty good, although I still need to work on cleaning a few things up. 

  I learned I need to have a quiet mind while aiming. Lately, I’ve had a habit of thinking about my shot instead of aiming and letting it happen. When I let it happen rather than tell myself how to make it happen, I feel unbeatable. I’ll make that a priority moving forward. 

  With the possibility of Fort Benning being my last event for the year, I’ll approach it with a happy-go-lucky attitude, but I will also do everything I can to be competitive and walk away knowing I couldn’t have done more or tried harder. I will see what happens over the next month and address different things as they pop up. Until then, shoot straight and never leave anything on the playing field. 

The Journey So Few Know Nothing About

  I'm very rarely at a loss for words, but a few things that happened leading up to this moment have left me speechless, and it has absolutely nothing to do with receiving the actual award. Although I'd like to address a few of those things, I'll stick to briefly answering a few people's concerns, and I'll wait until the end of this to do that, so as not to ruin it for the many of you who have supported me for my entire archery career, whether I met you 35 years ago or even in the last few years. I owe it to you to tell my story, rather than entertain the haters. Heck, what's the saying... not my clowns, not my circus. I surround myself with people who support me, and I give my support in return. Archery is a very small circle, and there isn't much that doesn't come full circle eventually. 

  So where did it all start for me? My mom and dad decided to build a new house in 1974, and Dad spent countless hours constructing the house. He didn't own a construction company, and he didn't have a crew of people to build it for him. Instead, he managed his time, his family and his work to build a house for our family. The house was in the country, and the year it was built, I was in the backyard winging arrows. 

 My love for archery increased every year, and when I was finally able to take the test to get my archery license, I was all in. Dad began bringing me to Oneonta every year to go hunting in the Southern Zone, where I could see a lot of deer. We would practice shooting soda cans and apples in the ditch as we camped out in the back of his white Ford Mustang hatchback for the weekend. 

  As the years wore on, my love for bowhunting grew. Then, things began going sideways when I found myself missing a lot of deer. Finally, when I left home for college, I got into competitive archery, and the rest is history. 

  In 1993, I attended my first big event, the first leg of the IBO Northeast Triple Crown in Merrimack, N.H., and I couldn't believe the number of people at the event. It was also my first look at outdoor target archery, as I had gotten a taste of indoor target archery in 1991 after graduating from college and returning home to join Hudson Falls Fish and Game Club. 

  I have to admit, I was a little overwhelmed at the number of people and the equipment the shooters were toting around. After the results came out, I realized I had a mountain to climb and the mountain was higher than Everest. I was in the bottom 10%, so I made a goal of getting better. The next two shoots, I stayed at the bottom of the pack. 

  After the Triple Crown was over, I began getting any piece of information I could read about shooting. I slowly introduced myself to the mental game of archery and how to navigate different types of archery. In my sampling of different archery games, I found a passion and love for 3D archery. I felt like I was born to shoot 3D. I loved hunting, and it reminded me of practice for hunting. I decided at that point to throw all of my eggs into that basket. 

  Going into 1994, I never felt like I had a chance to win, but I had fully committed to shooting a Stanislawski hinge release and nothing else. Looking back, it was probably the best thing I ever did in my archery career. The results weren't much better in 1994 than 1993, but my thoughts on the year were totally different. I had learned to shoot a good shot, and I learned to never shoot a shot unless it was perfect. I let down a lot... and that carried on throughout my career. After the summer was over, I decided to change releases and bought a Carter Big Kid 3D release at Lemme's archery in downtown Albany, N.Y. That decision changed the course of my archery career. If I'm not mistaken, I bought the release from Al Arpin, a guy who was an incredible shot in the 3D game. 

  In the spring of 1995, I headed to the IBO Northeast Triple Crown with one goal in mind: I wanted to be competitive. After the first event, I was sitting in 7th place in the largest class, MBO. There were basically only two adult release classes at the time, MBO and MBR. After the second leg in Bolton Valley, Vt., I found myself in the top peer group at Pine Hill, R.I., for the grand finale. I would have Roger Thibault, Al Lane and John Brean in my group. Brean and I were tied and Thibault had a substantial lead on everyone else. Al lane had a 26 point lead on me and John, but there were piles of people in the top 10 that were right on our heels. 

  That tournament is where I learned how to deal with head games, as Thibault played them from start to finish. I held my own from start to finish and closed the gap significantly on Al Lane. When the dust settled, I had finished in 3rd place overall in the Triple Crown, falling just a few points shy of overtaking Al for the runner-up position. I went from an unknown in the 3D world to a person who got respect from the best 3D shooters in the Northeast. I had earned the respect from Thibault, the best of the best at the time. As time wore on in my career, I learned that having the respect of your peers is the only thing that really matters. The haters will always hate and the people who respect you and support you will always have your back, even when you're not around. Even this past weekend when I received the award, I saw that lesson I learned 31 years ago come to the front... the haters are still gonna hate. It warmed my soul to see that I can get under people's skin by doing absolutely nothing to them. I'll never figure it out. I just wasn't raised that way. I encourage others and I cheer for the success of others. On my journey, I have never once thought I was any better than the next archer or any worse... I am just an archer who loves shooting my bow. We all can be good or great at times, and we can all find ourselves at the bottom of the pack. It's just the way it goes. I also learned that if you want to be a shark, you must jump in the ocean and swim with the other bloodthirsty monsters. You can't be considered a shark if you stay in the kiddie pool and swim with chubs and shiners. 

  After that year, my archery career was a little bumpy for the next two years, as I allowed expectations to get in the way. I learned that to be at your best, you have to shoot with no expectations... just shoot your bow. In 1997, I attended my first national event, The Great Lakes Shootout... 2nd Leg of the IBO National Triple Crown. I went with no expectations. Looking back on that shoot, it may have been my best all-time performance in my career. There were approximately 1,000 shooters in MBO, and I finished in 5th place after shooting a zero due to an equipment failure on my second to last target. The trust dusty Big Kid 3D in the picture above decided to let loose at 3/4 draw. The spring that holds the latch closed broke, sending the arrow sailing through the woods for a zero. That is when I began seeing a string of bad luck, some of which continues today. I'll be the first to tell you that if you shoot archery long enough, anything that can happen... will happen. I've experienced may unimaginable and unheard of things. However, I also learned that I had the ability to compete with the top amateur shooters at the national level. That tournament lit a fire under me to see where it could take me. 

  I'll spare the year by year tracking, but the next handful of years brought me a lot of success on the 3D tour in both ASA and IBO. I was living the dream and making incredible friends while doing it. Along the way, I met some of my best friends in peer groups. I guess I was always one of those lucky guys who performed at my best in peer groups when I needed to. I learned at that time, once again, that it's easy to gain another's respect when you compete with them head-to-head and lay it down. Don't get me wrong, I had more than one clunker along the way, too. I finished in dead-last more than one time in my life, even when I was shooting well. I learned to be a good loser, and learning to lose is essential to growth. You can't emphasize all your wrongdoings in a loss. Instead, you have to analyze and find a way to correct whatever went wrong and held you back. You learn to focus on the positive, ignore the negative, and fix anything that needs fixing. I learned early on to be accountable for whatever happened. I still hear people make a zillion excuses and never hold themselves accountable. Being accountable will help you get over the hurdles and cross the finish line. 

  When life happened and I got married, bought a house and had no vacation time, archery took a backseat. Although I still participated, I never gave it what I had given it for such a long time. Shoulder problems seemed to come out of nowhere, and I was fairly certain I was done. The surgeons told me the archery career was a thing of the past, and I begrudgingly accepted it. 

  Being a range junky, I couldn't stay away from the range while rehabbing. I had gotten divorced, and life had taken another turn for me. That's when I met George Connors and Chuck Weeden. Those guys lit my fire and are probably more responsible for the majority of my success than anyone else. Showing them the things I had experienced and opening a door to something they didn't know existed allowed me to become rejuvenated. My love of the game came back, and I took a different approach this time. Instead of being a student of the game every day, I became a student and a teacher. This worked better than anything I had ever done, and I began seeing success almost immediately. 

  Both of those guys still play a huge role in my life, and I'll be forever thankful for their place in it. There are far too many others to thank, but without my dad none of this ever would have been possible. He gave me every opportunity to live a dream and all of my accomplishments are owed to him. He's a little more diplomatic than me, and I'm sure he's way more likable. Unlike him, I like to tell people off. I have limited patience for many people, and he has unlimited patience. I guess that's what makes people different. 

  I feel very fortunate to be a part of many different archers' lives, and I've tried my hardest to give back over the last handful of years. I think it's essential to carry on and show others the great sport of archery. I do my best to do that. I've never considered myself a role model, but I have one of the greatest kids who considers me that right now. It's my job to live up to my end of the bargain on that and show him how to conduct himself. He's already learning how to win and lose, and losing is tough. He's already learned how to listen to the noise and block it out... haters gonna hate, they even hate kids.

  I'd like to say thank you to NYFAB for electing me into the Hall of Fame. It's an honor to be in there with some of my friends as well as with some others whom I have always admired their accomplishments. I'd also like to say thank you to my club, Hudson Falls Fish and Game Club, for giving me a place to shoot during the winter months. Although indoor archery has always been a necessary evil for me, I still do it. Unfortunately, major shoulder surgery and limited mobility and lots of pain have a way of making accuracy difficult when shooting a lot of arrows. 

  Lastly, like a good radio talk-show host, I'd like to thank my haters and my followers. You both inspire me. Just like the radio talk-show host you love to hate. Although you can't stand the person, you still turn the radio on to hear what they have to say. Just as an FYI, my circle is large.... very large. I heard it all, and it makes me smile, laugh and carry on. 

On a side note, just because I'm not like my dad and can't keep my mouth shut when something should be addressed, I'll share a little story. I think the funniest thing I heard on my journey came when someone told me another person said that I made things up because they never remembered me winning things I told others I won, although I don't ever recall talking too much about things I've won. Some people must have thin skin is all I can come up with when I hear that. They went as far as telling people that I never even shot in a league in Clifton Park, but I claimed to have won the league. Well, Dave Badgley, who is one of the best shooters I've ever shot with and is a great friend, came to that league to lay it on me after the Hudson Falls Fish and Game Club pulled a huge upset at the annual Guan Ho Ha Team event in which the top 5 scores from every club were added and the highest total score won. Well, everyone knew West Albany would dominate the team shoot, as West Albany had many pros in the club, including Dave Badgley, who I didn't know that well at the time. Even I must say, their team was stacked, basically unbeatable. Well, the rednecks from Hudson Falls showed up and came away with the title that year, upsetting the club that nobody could beat. Until modern times, that one weekend when David beat Goliath changed the entire team event at Guan Ho Ha. The following year someone (believed to be the person who said I never shot in the Clifton Park League) recruited people that didn't even shoot out of West Albany and stacked the team even deeper than it already had been because they refused to be beaten my a bunch of redneck nobodies. Anyhow, back to meeting Badgley. Dave came to Clifton Park and we shot together in the league with many other powerhouse shooters. We had a phenomenal time and became good friends. We learned from each other, encouraged each other and supported each other. We were happy when our friends beat us and we were happy when we were lucky enough to win one for ourselves. Dave instantly gained my respect, and I gained his respect. He is still one of the first people to reach out to me after I have a good showing at a national event... He gets it. He has competed at the highest level and he simply gets it. Anyhow, a high scratch average award was given out at Clifton Park every year for the highest average. I have a few fo those clocks laying around, even though some people say I never even shot in the league. I even went as far as to take a picture of one of them today, as I didn't want to dig into the box to grab the other, as I only shot there a few years just to prove a point. Here ya go buddy. I know you're reading this, so have a look, heck you can even give Badgley a shout to confirm everything you have poo-pood about me along the way when you asked others why they think I'm "good." I simply can't imagine doing that to anyone, but different strokes for different folks I guess. Anytime you're free, you're more than welcome to stop into my archery workshop to validate everything else that never really happened, just bring a notepad because it might get a little overwhelming trying to remember if you saw it or not. Thankfully, I graduated with a journalism/communications bachelors degree, so I learned how to take great notes and documentation because those things would be my bread and butter for life. I'm not a lawyer, I'm not a doctor, and I'm not an engineer, I'm a writer who knows nothing is valid without documentation. That's why I save everything, and I mean everything. Here's a 22-year-old broken clock that was in a box I found today. The other one from the next year is in there too, but I figured one picture would probably prove the point about a stupid league that I never shot in. 

Thanks again for everyone who supports me. I wholeheartedly appreciate all of you.