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HARRISONBURG - Avoiding Thursday’s rain by ducking inside the modest green shed that houses his team’s equipment, James Madison archery coach Bob Ryder pointed to all of the things the squad has purchased throughout the years without using a dime of university money.
The bows hanging from the ceiling? Owned by the individual archers. The target mats and target stands along the walls? All paid for either by Ryder himself or donated by the Shenandoah Valley Target Archers Association. The arrows and bow cases in the back? Half are owned by the athletes themselves, half were paid for by the SVTA.
“The broken tri-pods belong to JMU,” said Ryder, who was at the shed near the team’s hillside field to prepare for the Adam Wheatcroft Memorial Tournament at JMU, which begins Saturday. “That chair is mine. That wheel is mine. That tri-pod’s mine. These boxes are mine. The stools are mine. The grill? Shenandoah Valley Target Archers Association. If you ever came to the U.S. Indoor and saw the 40 mats and stands up there, JMU has not paid a dollar for a mat or a stand since about 1976.”
The comparative independence of the men’s and women’s archery teams is one reason they are the least affected of the 10 programs James Madison eliminated as varsity sports in a Title IX-generated overhaul last September, a move that officially took effect this school year.
In fact, JMU’s archery squad - even though it now is a club sport rather than part of the university’s athletics department — can still defend the national collegiate championship it won in 2007.
That’s because archery enjoys varsity status at very few schools, so the NCAA doesn’t sponsor a championship tournament. The de facto national tournament, the United States Intercollegiate Archery Championships, is open to both club and varsity squads.

dailynews-record.com


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