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.
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