Two girls from Chattanooga’s Grace Academy are among the 7,270 students entered in the National Archery in the Schools Program national tournament May 7-8 at the Kentucky Exposition Center in Louisville.
Grace freshman ninth-grader Amy Fricks finished fourth in the high school girls’ division at the state competition in Murfreesboro in February, about six weeks after she started in the sport, and 10th-grader Jessi Callahan finished fifth.
“These two qualified with their individual scores,” said coach Brandon Baker, Grace Baptist Church’s youth pastor. “Our team qualified too, but I can’t take all 15.”
There were 15 middle schoolers also from Grace at the state tournament, where Van Buren, Bledsoe and Meigs and counties were strong as usual in the elementary through high school divisions.
Baker was a Grace Academy teacher when he started the archery program in 2006, and Grace won the middle school division at Tennessee’s first NASP tournament the following spring. But he got orders to Iraq and the school went without a team for two years, until his return and hiring by the church.
Callahan was on the initial Grace team and was glad to take it up again.
“It’s laid back, and it’s a fun way to hang out after school,” she said.
The Grace archers practiced before school three days a week during the winter, when they had to use the gym. Once they were able to get outside, they started doing longer workouts on Monday and Wednesday afternoons.
“Amy and Jessi have learned the fundamentals and techniques,” said Baker, who grew up hunting with a bow in Pennsylvania and became a pro staff shooter for Ben Pearson Archery. “The key is concentration and consistency, doing the same thing over and over again.
“Anyone can shoot a bow. It doesn’t take size or strength or athletic ability.”
Fricks is proof of that. She weighs about 110 pounds but quickly became one of the top student archers in the state and feels she’s even better with more practice the past two months.
“I wasn’t playing any sports, and I just thought I’d try it out,” she said. “I like the competition of it, and, yeah, I like proving that it’s not just a guy thing – that girls can compete on the same level.”