Senior finds his sport in archery

Senior Derek Makeever owns a “35 lb. light Recurve.” It’s “not as long as a long bow, but it can be as powerful in a short frame.” Such jargon would confuse a typical high school student. But not Makeever, a practicing archer.

After picking up archery around eight months ago, Makeever has fallen in love with the sport. Makeever shoots at the local range Stevens Creek County Park, and he is part of the Bow Hunter’s Unlimited Club.

“Originally my [little] sister was doing it and I thought it was a really cool idea,” Makeever said. “I was like, ‘Whoa! Cool! Archery! I want to go check that out.’ And I went, checked it out and fell in love with it.”

Makeever said he has never favored team sports, and that he particularly enjoys the independent aspect of archery.

“It’s all on you,” Makeever said. ”100 percent. I’ve always preferred solo things. Tennis, golf, and now archery.”

Makeever said that although strength helps one shoot farther, unlike many other sports, it’s not necessary.

“It’s a pretty natural feeling,” Makeever said. “You’re standing there, you just aim, and pull back. It’s kind of like Lord of the Rings, in the movies and stuff like that. Once you just get that down, it’s just consistency from there. You just practice, practice, practice.”

“Practice” is two hours every Saturday. Lessons are around $120 a session. There is the spring session, the summer session and the fall and winter session. As the range is in a public park, there is no fee for using the facilities. Outside of Saturday practices, Makeever practices an average of four hours a week.

“I try to stick to schedule of going up there three times a week,” Makeever said. “I can just come home, dump my school stuff off, head up into the mountains and just shoot for a while.”
The longest Makeever has been up there is five hours.

“I was just in it,” Makeever said. “I don’t know why I was just shooting for that long of a time.”
Makeever’s goal is to work his way up to a better bow.

“I want to become physically stronger so I can shoot it,” Makeever said. “My personal dream is to be able to shoot one of those old English, ewe longbows. That’s like six feet of bow.”

Makeever also said would like to eventually become an archery instructor.

Contrary to what one might think, Makeever said losing arrows is not too much of a problem. He’s only lost four so far.

While retrieving his own arrows, Makeever sometimes finds arrows lying around.

“I’ve found a bunch of arrows,” Makeever said. “And you just take them up to the range: ‘Hey, I found an arrow!’”

Makeever has been successful in his attempts to get his friends involved in the sport.

“I’ve been trying to introduce them to archery,” Makeever said. “Sometimes I’ll just call them and like, ‘Hey, I’m going down to the range. Want to grab your bow and come along?” Because they all purchased relatively starter bows.”

Makeever said that archery is a past-time for him, something he loves to do.

“I’ll be shooting archery for the rest of my life, that’s for sure.” Makeever said.