This past Saturday, the Winston Academy Invitational Archery Match was held at the Louisville Coliseum with 160 archers from six different schools expected to shoot.
Archery Coach Dawn Steed stated that Winston Academy has hosted a match each year, for several years and moved to the Coliseum this year in order to have more shooters participate. Schools scheduled to participate were Winston Academy, Choctaw County High School, Neshoba Central Elementary School, Louisville High School, Leake Academy, and Hillcrest Christian.
Archery as a sport has been in Mississippi schools for about 20 years, but only since 2016 at Winston Academy, and is the fastest growing sport not only in Mississippi, but nationwide, as well. Promoted through Archery in Mississippi Schools (AIMS) archery is an extracurricular sport with the MS Dept. of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks as a driving force.
The sport is seeing exponential growth with only 10 schools competing in 2011, and 500 schools in 50 counties competing today. The first statewide Archery Invitational was held in Mississippi in 2011 with 400 student archers competing, and that number has expanded to over 5,000 archers competing annually in the AIMS State Championships.
Mississippi students also rank at the highest levels in both National and International Archery competitions every year.
The sport is open to students in the 4th through 12th grades.
Archers shoot a total of eight rounds consisting of a practice round and three scoring rounds from both 10 meters and 15 meters, with five shots per rounds. A perfect score for the match is 300 points. Archers are required to use AIMS approved bows with no sights attached.
Choctaw County Coach, Shane Talley said the sport is definitely growing, and the kids at his school really seem to enjoy it. He added that it is an outlet for many youth who are not involved in other sports, and is an opportunity to be a part of something that they can contribute to.
This sentiment was echoed by Leake Academy Coach Billy Harkins who has coached for three years. He said, “My first year we were begging kids to shoot in the North Meet. I think we started off with 13 and most of those were girls, so we needed to find some boys.”
He added that this year he has 26 student archers.
Several years ago Leake Academy had an archer who was in a wheelchair and Steed added that at the State Meet there was a young man who has no arms competing, proving that this is a sport that is open to all who wish to compete.
