Editor’s note: Kenny Haeffele is employed with The Signpost as a photographer. At the time the story was written, Haeffele was not yet employed with The Signpost.
All universities have sports. The schools have their football teams, basketball teams, soccer teams, tennis teams, and the list goes on. These sports get the most recognition, but Weber State University also currently has 25 club sports teams put together by students.
To get a club together, a student needs to go to the club sports coordinator, Kosti Efstathiou, with an interest and set up two meetings. The first meeting is for registration and leadership. The second meeting is to help gain members and brainstorm fundraising and ideas on how to have a successful club. A club needs at least five members to start with and 10 members after the club has been started.
“People join clubs to learn about the sport,” Efstathiou said. “. . . I am here to help clubs be successful; I help with marketing their club to gain members and put on fundraisers to earn money for competitions. Not all clubs use me as a resource, but if a club is struggling, I do seek the club out and try to help them.”
The Archery Club is one of the many clubs WSU provides for students. Archery might be a different sport from what people are familiar with because it is done solo. Each person has his or her own turn to shoot and hit the target. The sport is not only a competition with other shooters, but also a competition with oneself, as archers seek to top their last scores.
Kenny Haeffele, a 21-year-old computer science major, has been a member of the Archery Club since he was 18 years old. Haeffele started getting serious about the sport when he came to WSU.
“What is really cool about archery (is) you don’t have to be the strongest or in the best shape,” Haeffele said. “It’s not a sport of who can run the fastest or jump the highest. It is whoever has the steady hand, best anchor point and smoothest release.”
The Archery Club normally holds open practice for three hours twice a week. Club leaders let the members know they will have the facilities for a certain time slot and tell them to come whenever they can between those hours.
For those new to the club, it has equipment members can borrow during the practices. When a member becomes a regular at the practices, the club will lend out the equipment to him or her for the weekend.
The Archery Club normally competes in the spring. The fall is a time for members to practice and work on their skills.
“There is a certain romance to the sport,” Haeffele said. “It’s graceful, and I like that.”
Archers always practice shooting on the same target, the FITA target, which consists of 10 rings.
“Hitting the smallest ‘X’ means you’re awesome; this is used to resolve ties,” Haeffele said. “Hitting the dot in the very middle is called killing the spider.”
In a typical competition, there are 60 ends, or rounds — shooting three arrows in two-minute time periods.
The coach of the Archery Club is Mark Sage, who is also a coach for Hill Air Force Base.
“He is good at fixing what is wrong and a very supportive coach,” Haeffele said.
For more information about joining or starting a club, students can contact Efstathiou in the Swenson Building.
