Hoover archery program thriving at new park
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Photos by Erin Nelson.
Veronica Walker, 14, of Trussville practices shooting at a target 50 meters away at the Hoover Archery Park. Walker competes with the Hoover Archery team and the Regional Elite Development team for the Southeast division through USA Archery.
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Photos by Erin Nelson.
Gene Gautro strings an arrow on his bow as he shoots at a target 40 meters away.
The city of Hoover’s archery program started in the summer of 2013 with about eight people.
Now, eight years later and two years after gaining a permanent archery park, the program has expanded to about 35 archers, instructor Toni Leo said.
The new archery park, which sits on about 5 acres next to the Inverness wastewater treatment plant, became functional in April 2019 and has helped give the program more credence, Leo said.
The park includes a covered concrete pavilion with shooting stations for nine permanent targets and additional room for portable targets to be lined up, Leo said. The permanent targets allow people to shoot anywhere from 10 meters to 50 meters.
The shooting field is grassed with a berm 4 to 5 feet tall behind the targets to help guard against stray arrows going too far. “Those arrows can fly a long way, going 250 mph when the bow is strung for 60 to 80 pounds,” Leo said, “but nearby homes are well protected. There also are portable restrooms that are cleaned weekly.
The city budgeted $50,000 to build the park, and the Hoover Parks and Recreation Foundation chipped in some money to assist. The Alabama Department of Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries provided some of the targets, and city workers built the roof over the concrete slab and frames and roofs for the targets to help protect them from the elements, Leo said.
The park is mostly used by the archery program run by the Hoover Parks and Recreation Department, but it’s a community facility that is open to the public. Currently, there probably are 15 to 20 people using the park other than those in the city’s program, but users are required to have a state bowhunting license, she said.
The COVID-19 pandemic cut down on the number of people in the winter program, which is held indoors at Hoover Tactical Firearms, but it didn’t have too much of an impact on the outdoor program, which runs from April to October, Leo said.
Everyone who starts in the archery program starts in a beginner class and then progresses to the more advanced classes. Classes are held on Tuesdays and Thursdays and last about an hour. The beginner class is at 5:30 p.m., and other classes are offered at 4 p.m. and 5 p.m.
The archers start with a basic compound bow but can advance to a recurve bow or more advanced compound bow. Each kind requires a different technique.
The archery program provides the bow and arrows, but most people who stick with the program decide at some point to purchase their own bow.
“The basic compound bows cost about $150 each, but the more advanced ones can cost more than $2,000’,” Leo said. “It’s a major commitment,” she said. “I tell people, ‘Make sure your kid really wants to do archery because it’s expensive.’”
The beginner classes cost $72 a month for Hoover residents and $80 a month for non-Hoover residents. That covers eight classes a month. The more advanced classes are less expensive, $56 a month for Hoover residents and $64 a month for non-Hoover residents.
But the program is still less expensive than lessons at Hoover Tactical Firearms, which cost $40 for an hour lesson, Leo said.
About 60 to 70% of the people in the program are ages 11-16. Another 10% are ages 9-10, and the rest are adults, Leo said. Children must be at least 9 to participate because those 8 and younger tend to struggle to hold the bow and stay focused.
People with typical athletic skills can make superior shooters because of the focus, control and discipline they learn in other athletics, but even people who may not do as well with more traditional sports can find a niche in archery, Leo said. It takes real skill, focus and discipline.
“It’s more difficult than you think, but it’s a lot of fun,” Leo said.
The program has frequent intra-squad competitions but occasionally has dual meets with archery teams from Clanton and Cullman. Each August, the Hoover archery team participates in the Alabama Parks and Recreation Association state tournament in Dothan. The past four years, every archer from Hoover has brought home a trophy from the state tournament.
“We have a really good program,” Leo said.
The Hoover team also is working with the USA Archery organization and in June plans to participate in an Alabama-Mississippi tournament in Gulfport, Mississippi.
Two members of the Hoover team were invited to participate in a USA Archery Southeastern team, which includes highly skilled archers from throughout the Southeast, and a third Hoover team member has applied for the Southeastern team.
Veronica Walker, a 14-year-old from Trussville, is one of those on the USA Archery Southeastern team. She first got a taste of archery at a Girl Scout camp and asked her mother if she could find a team with which to participate, and her mother found the Hoover program.
Walker said she likes the improvements made at the Inverness park by the city. Before the canopy was built, they had to stand out in the hot sun for an hour while they shot, and before the permanent targets were built, the temporary ones would fall down when it got windy, she said.
Hoover’s archery program started at Sertoma Park, behind Green Valley Elementary School, in 2013, but the archers had to move when the field was re-sodded. They went to Wildflower Park in Riverchase, but other park users there did not welcome them, so they only practiced one time there. They moved to a spot between the Finley Center and Hoover Metropolitan Stadium until the archery park could be built in Inverness.
“It’s so nice. It’s so wonderful,” Leo said.
For more information about Hoover’s archery program, check out the Hoover Archery Facebook page or email Leo at hooverarchery@gmail.com.
