Imagine
a line of nearly 200 youthful archers all releasing their arrows toward
downrange targets at the same time. In 12 minutes, those archers will shoot a
total of 6,000 arrows in one of three flights that will comprise the 2019
annual Nevada National Archery in the Schools Program (NASP) State Tournament.
By
the time all flights are complete, 638 competitors representing 31 schools from
around the Silver State will have shot more than 18,000 arrows, all in just 36
minutes.
Sponsored
by the Nevada Department of Wildlife (NDOW), the tournament will take place
Wednesday in the Priefort Pavilion at the South Point Hotel Casino. Shooting
gets underway at 9 a.m. and should wrap up around 1 p.m. with awards to follow.
Teams
and individual students who shoot a qualifying score can move on to the US
Western National Tournament in Salt Lake City, Utah where they can compete for
scholarship money. That event will take place in late April.
“Archery
is a great sport for our youth because anyone can do it, and they can do it at
their own pace. You don’t have to be the fastest, strongest, or the most
athletic to be a successful archer,” said Holly Brisendine, Archery Education
program coordinator for NDOW. “NASP has a fully standardized program that
focuses on safety and fairness across the board.”
Students
in grades 4 through 12 can participate in NASP and compete in the tournament.
Though an archer from high school might shoot next to one from middle school,
the students compete against archers within their own age group – elementary,
middle or high school – and they all use the same bow and arrows to maintain a
level playing field.
Though
not an official part of The Vegas Shoot, which is considered to be the world’s
largest indoor archery tournament and begins Feb. 8, organizers of that event
provide the space and targets used by students during the NASP Tournament.
Currently,
there are 136 active NASP schools in Nevada and 89 (65.4%) of those are in
Clark County. In 2018, 74 of the participating schools reported that a total of
12,656 students participated in NASP programs that year. Of those, 10,548
attended Clark County Schools. Had the remaining schools provided participation
data, those numbers would have been much higher.