The University of Central Missouri Archery League is a six-week, tournament-style archery program run through the Student Recreation and Wellness Center. The league is open to all students and staff starting in March and runs through late April every Thursday from 6-8 p.m. for six consecutive weeks. It’s not a formal club; it is a structured league, different from the more casual open archery sessions. 

  “What gave me the idea to start it is that we run open archery on the last Friday of every month that school is in session and that is a large program for outdoor education. In the fall, I think we had 70 and 80 shooters for our first two months,” said Assistant Director of Outdoor Education Jeff Rehm.

  According to sophomore student workers Elliott Golden and Asa Dureka, all participants in the archery league must receive brief instruction and sign a waiver to compete. Anyone can join the competition at any point during the tournament.

  “You don’t have to have any archery experience, either. It’s for new people and people experienced all can come and we’ll teach you how to shoot, teach you the basics and then you can just shoot and have fun,” said Dureka  

  According to Golden, he and Dureka are certified in the National Archery in the Schools Program, a program that gave them the fundamental baseline of the steps of archery.

  “Archery has actually given me a lot of inspiration to pursue other forms of archery, like bow hunting and things like that,” said Golden. “The open archery we’ve been doing since last semester, I personally have been on the team, helping out, so that’d be my prior experience to the league. So I feel like that’s a good foundational word for being around archers and being around, helping out with the fundamentals of archery.”

  The league consists of the top four rounds being scored. Those who would want to shoot can either sign up online or come in person to the Student Recreation and Wellness Center basketball courts.

  “I think the most challenging thing that we’ve worked out is just how to run the league, because it’s a little bit different than open archery, and so getting into a groove in a system that keeps everybody safe and then runs the league effectively, especially just because it’s a brand new thing as of this semester. So we’re kind of filling stuff out, seeing what works best, so that we can effectively do it next semester as well,” said Dureka.