Students

NASP Archery is an indoor sport that spans almost the entire school year! Archers shoot arrows at targets, usually bullseye targets and sometimes 3D targets.

Our archery team will compete in many local tournaments to prepare for the Texas State and Western National tournaments. The season begins in early September, with 2 weeks for new archers to try the sport. Official team practices begin mid-September, with our first intrasquad tournament in early November. The local tournaments are held from November through mid-March, followed by the State Tournament in late March. The Western Nationals are held in late April, marking the end of the season.

What happens at a tournament?

• Archers shoot 5 arrows at a time (called an end) at 2 different distances (10 meters and 15 meters).

• Archers shoot 3 end plus a warm-up end at each distance (4 ends).

• The 15 arrows at each distance are scored based on where they land in the target, earning different point values (0-10 per arrow). The maximum score for an individual archer in a bullseye tournament is 300.

• When an archer shoots their all 8 ends of arrows, we call this a flight. A flight usually takes 75-90 minutes, and an archer only needs to participate during their flight time. 

• A tournament may span an entire weekend to allow archers across many teams to participate in multiple flights. Typically a gym can only accommodate 20-40 archers in a single flight, and there are about 500 students on archery teams throughout Austin!

• Teams are comprised of 12-24 archers in a division (elementary, middle, and high). The team score is calculated using the 12 highest scores on a team. A school may have multiple teams within a division if they have many archers.

ANYONE can join the team! No prior archery experience is necessary. And in archery, no special skills are needed to excel! In some sports you need to be able to jump high or run fast or be strong, but anyone can learn how to do archery as long as you're willing to focus and work hard.

While anyone is capable of learning how to do archery, this is a competitive team. You don't need to have a minimum set of skills, but you must do the following to be part of the team:

• Keep your grades up.

• Adhere to the ARS standards of behavior.

• Attend one weekday practice each week, plus a practice session on Saturdays (times will vary and we will do our best to share them as far in advance as we can since we share gym space with many other groups and teams).

• During practice, you must be willing to try hard, remain focused, and be a positive teammate.

Students do not need to bring any equipment or wear special clothes (your school uniform with closed toes shoes is great). If you have long hair, you'll need bring a hair tie for safety reasons, and that's it! We will provide the equipment, such as bows, arrows, targets, arrow nets, practice packets, practice shirt, and tournament jersey. It costs a lot to get an archery program up and running, so if you're in a position to help establish our new archery team, please consider making a donation here: https://my.cheddarup.com/c/ars-archery-fundraising

Fall practices will be held in the small gym after school on Thursdays and Fridays until the late bus (4:40-5:50pm). We will also hold practice times on Saturdays depending on gym availability.

The first two weeks we will offer "try it out" sessions so that you can learn about archery and shoot some arrows if you've never tried before. This gives you time to determine whether you like archery before committing to the team. 

Students must commit to join the team by Wednesday, Sept 18th to continue practicing with the team. 

High school and middle school students will practice together - there is no difference in the sport based on age. Everyone uses the same equipment regardless of age and skill level. Most tournaments are open to elementary through high school, so you'll see archers of all age ranges. Scores are calculated by division (elementary, middle, high), so at the end of the tournament the team score will be tallied using the highest 12 scores.