…Continued from the previous post.

It’s pretty easy to see how archery came into existence as a sport.

Long, long ago, in a time that predates even ESPN, people had to eat. They noticed that animals that just might fill that express need seemed to be running by with regularity. Somebody decided to take a curved tree limb, stretch some twine between its ends and use it to propel pointy sticks at these animals.

Poof. Instant supper. After which they invented beer to wash it down.

Naturally there emerged some down time between animals running by, so the enterprising among these folks began to proactively venture out after them. They decided to call it hunting. Somewhere in there green tights and pointy leather hats came into vogue, but that’s a different story.

Here’s the point. In every group of people there’s inevitably somebody who says something like “I bet I can shoot my pointy stick closer to the middle of that tree over there than you can.” In this particular case, that guy’s name was Archie.

I’m really, really sorry, but you have to admit it – that joke was just sitting there for somebody to use.

I was pondering the advent of archery because I happened to find myself at the USA Archery SoCal Showdown tournament recently, where the beauty of the day and the languid rhythm of the competition had produced in me a Zen-like state.

Much like golf or tennis, there is a national archery “tour” of sorts in which tournaments take place at different venues across the country, drawing a cadre of elite competitors. And at each venue there is a local organizer – in this case it was the Roadrunner Archery Club, based right there in Chula Vista, in the shadow of the host site, the ARCO Olympic Training Center.

The organizers of archery events enjoy a benefit that doesn’t accrue to golf or tennis organizers – they can have their own club members take part in the tournament. It would be kind of like having all the golfers with the lowest handicaps at Firestone Country Club play along with the pros in the PGA Tour’s annual tournament there.

Here’s one other small detail that differentiates the two sport’s tours:  The total purse for the SoCal Showdown was $16,500, and it was the largest on the 2010 USA Outdoor Archery tournament circuit. That’s about 2% of the average purse on the ATP tennis tour. As for the PGA Tour…well, they don’t make calculators that can process that numerical comparison.

But here in Chula Vista more than 100 serious archers had gathered to battle it out for the love of the competition. And perhaps the off chance that supper might wander by.

Ranking rounds had taken place the previous day, and today consisted of the head-to-head single-elimination portion of the tournament, culminating in the medal rounds involving the surviving four finalists in the men’s and women’s Recurve and Compound competitions.

While the initial elimination rounds were all conducted on the main range, when it came down to the medal rounds we went upscale. The venue shifted to a separate, self-contained two lane range that offered the ultimate in spectating advantages.

The shooting area was surrounded on three sides by open-air bleachers with canopy tops. There were scoreboards stationed a few yards in front of the archers, displaying points earned on a real-time, shot-by-shot basis as well as the updated match score. And the best part of all? The video monitors underneath each canopy that displayed simulated close-ups of where each shot landed on its target.

It was all unofficial data of course, but it was instantaneous feedback. We Sports Fans like that kind of thing. It was the equivalent of sitting in a luxury suite at a ballpark or arena, but with a low, low, low ticket price of…well, nothing. We Sports Fans love that kind of thing.

Getting back to the whole sport comparison thing, if this were a golf or tennis tournament, the marshals and officials would have gone bonkers – and I had to admit that the golf tournament microchip imbedded in my brain caused me to flinch as well. Why?

Well, despite the extreme focus and concentration required of the competitors, many spectators and even officials thought nothing of moving around and chattering away while the archers were in the middle of their shots. People uttered words of encouragement, multi-shot cameras were clicking away – a cell phone even rang at one point. The only thing missing was somebody yelling “Noonan” just as shots were being released.

While I sat poised for a team of burly security guards to swarm the area, nobody else was the slightest bit fazed, least of all the archers. Somehow they were able to maintain their focus under these conditions, but a golfer standing over a putt can’t possible concentrate if somebody standing in line at a concession stand 200 yards away clicks out a text message?

As was to be expected, the four remaining archers in each competition were all elite practitioners of the sport – and many were actually athletes in residence there at the Olympic Training Center. And interesting personal profiles abounded.

There’s Khatuna Lorig, for example. Now a U.S. citizen, she was a member of Team USA in the Beijing Olympics of 2008.  But Lorig grew up in the former Soviet Union, where she won a bronze medal for them in the 1992 Olympics. Then after the breakup of the USSR, she went on to compete for her native land of Georgia in both Atlanta in 1996 and Sydney in 2000. Three different Olympic teams in four different Games. And where does she now live? West Hollywood, of course.

At the SoCal Showdown, top-seeded Lorig was upset with a one-point loss in the Recurve semi-finals, and wound up in the bronze medal match – which she won over fellow London Olympic hopeful Kristin Braun, due at least in part to a perfect 10-10-10 score in one end.

The Boy Wonder of archery is Arizona’s Brady Ellison, who, just a few days shy of his 22^nd birthday has already won World Championships in both Compound and Recurve. Bounced out of the semi-finals by back-to-back ends of 30 points on the part of Jacob Wukie, he calmly rebounded to defeat Mexico’s David Marin in the men’s bronze medal Recurve match – much to the vocal delight of the young ladies in attendance. 

But Ellison is ancient compared to Paige Pearce of Ogden, Utah. The 15-year-old Pearce not only advanced to the gold medal match in the women’s Compound competition, but she extended Ohio’s Jamie Van Natta to a one-arrow shoot-off for the gold medal – which Van Natta coolly won by splitting the “X” in the very center of the target.

Youth was rebuffed, but only temporarily, I’m sure. Because you can bet that somewhere out there is a pre-schooler named Archie…