In the fall of 1988, the archery club at the University of Arizona was born in the basement of Bear Down Gym and Pima Community College’s outdoor range. Head coach Lawrence Brady comes from a fifth-generation Tucson pioneer family.
“I was hoping to grow up to be a strapping young man about six foot two,” he said. “A big guy that could go and play football for UA, but somehow I got the short end of the stick.”
Brady went to Pima and tried out for the archery team. He remembered walking onto the range with his rickety compound bow and a handful of little hunting arrows. These bow and arrows ended up qualifying him for the All-American National Team in his second year on the team. From there he transferred to UA where he helped to found the team along with Diana LaBeau, who was one of his teammates at Pima and is now one of the assistant coaches for the team.
UA Archery offers something for everyone, with both a recreational and competition team. Both faculty and staff can take a stab at handling a bow. Three free practices are offered to everybody. Brady encourages all participants to try the sport and possibly gain a life skill or two.
“Archery is a lifestyle, you can shoot recreationally just to hunt or just shoot for the sake of shooting,” said Brady. “But enjoy something that is really a beautiful individualized sport where the growth of an individual is just amazing.”
The atmosphere of practices at the Oro Valley Archery Range is full of opportunities and one that welcomes all experience levels. Athletes build personal confidence through mastering the bow and arrow.
“We just want to teach you to love a sport and really enjoy it and have some knowledge about it,” said Brady. “We teach students how to make string, how to tune their bow, look up information and be a smart consumer and a smart athlete.”
President of the recreational team, Brynn Atonna, fell in love with archery their freshman year when their roommate was itching to try out a club sport. Atonna’s friend quit the day after the first practice but they stuck with it.
Atonna enjoys being hugged by the beautiful surrounding mountains in Oro Valley. They use archery as a stress reliever and enjoy being backed by a team that has become a family.
“A lot of people think it’s an individual sport but in actuality, you have a team behind you and they are always cheering you on and making you want to do better,” they said. “There is nothing really demanding about the sport, we all just want everyone to do their best.”
Brady talked about one of the biggest challenges among the UA archery community is building athletes’ confidence enough to get them inspired to join the competition team.
Competition team president, Natalianna Ferrara, has enjoyed watching the roster double in size this season. She has watched the new members grow and come to practice day after day with an eager mindset, picking up the sport quickly.
“There are people who want to join the comp team, we used to struggle to get people to join,” she said. “It is so refreshing to see people interested in the sport.”
Ferrara is from Hawaii and grew up playing archery. She remembers being in awe of archers in the Olympics and on television shows, hoping to emulate them one day. Today her speciality is Olympic Recurve. For Ferrara, the archery club is just a good place to be.
“When Brynn and I both became officers last year the environment drastically changed, it’s so fun and bubbly now,” she said. “We see the same familiar faces every week and I think that is just the best thing because it makes everybody feel so comfortable with each other.”
Brady hopes that as this season progresses more up-and-coming archers will join the family and find a home away from home in their tight-knit community. UA Archery hopes to get even more athletes to collegiate nationals in May, where the team will travel to Michigan to play at Michigan State University. This summer some athletes will also be preparing for the World University Games in Germany.
Follow the Daily Wildcat on Instagram and Twitter/X
