Many of the top shooters in the Magnolia state are gathering in Meadville Thursday through Saturday for the Franklin County Invitational archery tournament. The invitational is coordinated by Archery in Mississippi Schools (AIMS), a division of the Mississippi Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks department.
Franklin County archery coach Todd Haygood said as many as 35 teams will travel to the high school to shoot in the competition, including the defending state champions and runners-up in the 1A, 2A, 3A and 4A classifications.
“Teams come for the strong competition and the beautiful setting,” Haygood said. “We (FCHS) have a beautiful gym, beautiful floors, and it’s a great setting for the event.”
Haygood, who has coached the sport for more than 25 years, discussed the sport’s tremendous growth in Mississippi over the last five years, which has gone hand-in-hand with the growth of the invitational tournament.
The coach said as recently as 2009, only about 300 Mississippi student-athletes were competing in archery programs across the state. That number exceeded 1,000 a few years ago and has now grown to close to 3,000 for this school year.
“As schools pick up the sport and become successful in it, it motivates other schools to get into it,” Haygood said.
The sport’s growth has been amplified in the southwest region of the state. When Franklin County hosts the competition as the defending 3A state champions, it will face steep competitors from Lawrence County (4A champs), Enterprise-Lincoln (2A champs) and Dexter Attendance Center (1A champs). Two other major statewide competitions coordinated by AIMS were hosted at Lawrence County and Dexter earlier this month.
Haygood said the beauty of the sport is that the athletes can compete for their team while also competing against themselves.
“Most shooters are competing against a personal best, trying to improve their own scores,” Haygood said, “And that’s something very rare in sports nowadays.”
The Franklin County Invitational is scheduled to begin at 4 p.m. today and Friday, and it continues at 8:30 a.m. Saturday. Festivities are scheduled to wrap-up at 8 p.m. tonight, 9 p.m. Friday and 7 p.m. Saturday.
Haygood encouraged any spectators who are interested in or curious about archery to stop by this weekend’s invitational.
“There’s no other sporting event where you’ll hear less fussing from the fans and more laughing, cheering, clapping. It’s a sport focused on doing your best and supporting an athlete’s best. There’s no other sport like it.”
