It has been a week as they say. It started with the news that one of the NBA’s greatest unexpectedly died along with his daughter and seven others in a helicopter crash. It followed with the 34th anniversary of the Challenger Space Shuttle, shenanigans in the Senate, a celebration in Britain on finally completing Brexit, and deafening legislative indifference in Virginia.
I admittedly am ignorant about much of Mr. Bryant’s life outside of the basketball court. To those who knew him and his daughter, he is much more than any of us could hope to enumerate. I know where I was when the Challenger exploded. We were called in from recess and Mr. Heflin had us stand at attention. He started out saying something had happened. Before he said anything else I whispered, “the shuttle blew up”. Upon hearing it, my friend Frank Rohr told me to shut up. After three years of waiting, Britain finally separated from the European Union starting today. Neither side of the aisle did much to win favor with the impeachment trial but both sides agree it was a “sham”. And despite the peaceful protest including the police chief expressing his gratitude for how clean the grounds were after the gun rights demonstration, lawmakers in Virginia still moved ahead with several bills.
Under Armour announced a new advertising campaign on January 14th, “The Only Way Is Through”. The timing of the campaign so near to Mr. Bryant’s departure is eerie. In all of this, the week’s events did give many of us some time to reflect.
Sometimes success leads to complacency. For example, in my senior year, our high school football team nearly had an undefeated season. We lost one game to Campbellsville High who later went on to be State Champions. It was toward the end of the season and we didn’t get beat as much as we didn’t come prepared. We had the talent, speed, and skill to defeat them but that week of practice, our own success caused us to relax and not push harder. It was a hard lesson and the team we faced the following week got a double dose of our frustration, disappointment, and determination. For example, the center who played opposite of me laid against our gym wall crying after the game. Their Head Coach told Coach Sphire that his center had never been hit so hard. My younger brother told me this story a year later when Sphire was trying to get the team psyched up again facing the same team.
My first ever bow hunting trip in South Central Kentucky was a success. In fact, it was almost too easy. As I have recounted before, I had a $60.00 Bear Whitetail II in my hand with aluminum arrows from Walmart. A year after that, I harvested two deer in 20 minutes with the same bow from a tree stand during Kentucky’s Zone 1 season. Then the drought hit, I wouldn’t harvest another animal with a bow for 8 years. During that dry spell, I went through two bows wanting more arrow speed. But all the while, I knew I needed to focus on learning to be a better archer and hunter. In September of 2006, I felt I had learned all I could learn and I stepped into a ground blind with my daughter in the Owyhee desert on a pronghorn hunt. On the second day of the trip, I arrowed a nice pronghorn buck but had spin shot him. In the excitement, my daughter jumped up to see and I had to quickly move her out of the way. I sent a second, as precision shot as I could, to his heart and ended it quickly. She asked me what happened, why did I make a bad shot. As others were getting out of their blinds to help, I told her that I looked before letting my arrow fly which pushed the shot back and high. I had to tell my eight-year-old I messed up. That was the moment I decided I wouldn’t be complacent again with my archery.
Over the last few years, I have improved my understanding of arrow spines, releases, proper form, grip, and consistent hold points. I understand why you should bend at the waist and how to make sure the shot goes where you want while under stress. Today I regularly practice standing, kneeling and sitting anywhere from 20 yards to 70 yards. I have used tools like Heavner’s Trainer-X to strength trainers like the Bow Fit. The next challenge in archery is my aging eyesight. The training and practice paid off this past Archery Elk Season as I took a cow elk at 27 yards slightly uphill while sitting next to a small pine tree.
My daughter has also begun to take up the sport of archery. This school year has been particularly difficult for her and she needed an outlet besides Taekwondo. Whenever possible she and I will be at Archery Central practicing indoors at a 20-yard range. As Dale Heavner told me, indoor ranges are the best environment for focusing on form and developing consistency. My daughter is enjoying her time at the range and we get to grow our bond together. If she so chooses, it would be my honor one day to call in an elk for her but we aren’t there yet and she certainly isn’t required to be a hunter. What I ask of her is to be the best she can in whatever she does.
For all the success we saw Kobe Bryant achieve, not many of us witnessed the amount of work he put into getting there. How many times did he fight against being complacent? What if he had stopped perfecting his shot? As a dad, the news of his daughter hit home and took on greater meaning when hearing her age. It contrasted with events the prior week near Steamboat Gulch. With so much access to information at any time we want it, we can really get caught up with things that aren’t important or be overwhelmed to the point of inaction.
Our lives here on Earth are short, we have one shot.
- L. Yarbrough, Bucks & Beers
