If you’ve ever found yourself wondering what 162 men and
women shooting arrows would look like, this weekend will be your
chance to find out in person.
And if history repeats itself, it may be your last opportunity
to do so for the next 43 years.
The UCLA Archery Club team will be hosting the United States
Intercollegiate Archery Championships starting Thursday. It will be
the first archery tournament held at UCLA since 1963.
The tournament will be on the Intramural Field and will feature
162 of the top archers from nearly 40 colleges across the
nation.
Following a practice day Thursday, archers will spend Friday and
Saturday competing in a bracketed team tournament to determine a
national champion.
The tournament will wrap up with an individual tournament to
determine an individual champion. The top three archers will earn
trips to the World University Games in Slovakia in June.
This year’s USIAC offers the Bruins an opportunity to
improve upon their No. 9 overall finish at last year’s
tournament in Georgia. The team is also looking forward to the
convenience and publicity its hosting duties offer.
“It’s great to have the tournament here at
UCLA,” said Bruno Maranhão, a third-year electrical
engineering student in his second season. “It gives us a lot
of exposure as a club team, plus it saves us some money from not
having to travel.”
Getting exposure is one problem that has troubled the team for
several years. Although the team is relatively new ““ formed
about six years ago ““ it has enjoyed some individual success.
Recent UCLA graduate Kate Anderson was the national champion in the
women’s recurve division for the past two years and is
currently training with the U.S. Olympic Team.
The Bruins frequently don’t have enough archers to
constitute a complete team.
Collegiate archery is organized by both gender and bow type,
resulting in four disciplines: men’s and women’s
recurve, and men’s and women’s compound. A compound bow
is a hunting-style bow with mechanical augmentation, while a
recurve is a more traditional hand-drawn bow.
The Bruins usually field a full team in men’s recurve and
one or two archers in women’s recurve but simply don’t
have any archers for the other divisions. This hamstrings them in
the team competition.
“(Not having a full team) hurts us as far as the end of
the tournament rankings go because we have no one in the other
disciplines,” Maranhão said. “So we’re not
scoring any points there.”
The team remains optimistic about this weekend and
archery’s future at UCLA. Several Bruins are expected to
contend for the top individual rankings, and the tournament will
hopefully raise enthusiasm for the sport around campus.
“I think it’s definitely something that
there’s an interest in,” UCLA Archery Club President
Michael Rael said. “People hear rumors, you know: “˜I
heard there’s an archery range somewhere on campus.’ I
tell them that there is. I’m there all the time. Come on
down.”
For anyone interested in getting involved with the archery
program, members of the club team teach quarterly beginners’
classes through UCLA Recreation. Sign-up information is available
online or at the Wooden Center.