Anschutz aims for targets not turkeys

USA Archery star Erika Anschutz has won World Cup gold. Twice. She won the U.S. Open championship, dominating qualifying and the head-to-head competition. She majored in psychology at the University of Nebraska and graduated with a 3.95 grade-point average.
 
Oh, and she shot a turkey.
 
There won’t be a second one.
 
“I did not like it at all,” said Anschutz, who has established herself this year as Team USA’s top female compound archer. “I felt terrible.”
 
Nerves of steel? On the shooting line in an international competition, you bet. But not in the forest.
 
“I’m done hunting,” Anschutz said. “I felt so bad. I almost cried afterwards.”
 
That is good news for the turkeys of the world because there is no doubt about the accuracy of Anschutz’s shooting, especially in 2010.

Since first competing in a national tournament at 8 and on her first junior world team at 13, Anschutz has won gold at almost every turn this year to become one of the world’s top compound archers. In June at Antalya, Turkey, she won her first World Cup gold, defeating Great Britain’s Nicky Hunt, 7-3, in the finals. It was a triumphant moment that Anschutz had been building up to since she turned professional at 16.

Anschutz will represent Team USA in China for the fourth and final qualifying stage for the 2010 Archery World Cup Aug. 31-Sept. 4.  The World Cup Finals will be held in September in Scotland.  
 
“I feel like I’ve been shooting really well this year,” Anschutz said. “I shot really well at the national level for the last five years or so. I’ve been to a few World Championships and everything at the adult level. I just felt like, I knew sometime soon I was going to break through at the international level. I just didn’t know when.”
 
She followed that by winning gold in the inaugural Nor’Easter USAT Selection Event in Carver, Mass., and then won a U.S. Open title in women’s compound at the USA Archery National Target Championships in Hamilton, Ohio, where her parents now reside. She also placed first in the qualification round at Nationals.
 
At the third stage of the World Cup, hosted for the first time by the U.S. in Ogden, Utah, Anschutz won gold again, but this time with the Team USA women’s compound squad in the team competition.
 
So what’s next for Team USA’s can’t-miss female shooter? The London 2012 Olympic Games?
 
That’s where things get complicated.
 
“I remember saying that I was going to the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. I said that when I was 8 years old or something,” Anschutz said, a look of belief coming into her eyes.
 
Problem is, only recurve archery is an approved sport in the Olympic Games, and there is little chance that compound archery will be added. Beijing came and went, and the London Games are just two years away.
 
“The compound is all I’ve ever known,” she said. “I really enjoy …”
 
Then, she paused.
 
“I don’t know, the competition of it (compound) and knowing what to expect. To me, the Olympics is only every four years. … Compounds make more money than recurves traditionally. Being a professional compounder, to me, has more perks than being an Olympic recurve archer.”
 
Yet, the dream still awaits. Anschutz says she has a recurve bow set up and ready to go. And there would be little persuasion needed on USA Archery CEO Denise Parker, a two-time Olympian herself. Do you think Parker would like to see Anschutz pick up the recurve bow?
 
“Of course I do,” Parker said, laughing good-naturedly. “I don’t think she will, but I would love it if she would. If we could put some public pressure on Erika to bring out the recurve, I would be in full support of that. We definitely need her on that.”
 
Even without the Olympic Games on her resume, Anschutz, 21, a resident of Texas, has grown into an archery version of a sports star who has enjoyed the international travel and the opportunities that come with her status. Now that she has completed a baccalaureate degree at the University of Nebraska, preceded by completing high school in three years, she intends on pursing a master’s degree in forensic psychology at the University of North Dakota.
 
But, really, she is an archer. The real world with a real job can wait because archery is her real world. It’s been that way since she was 6 in Nebraska. She competed in gymnastics and played volleyball when she was younger, but archery was always her favorite. And now she is also a leader in the sport, considering that Anschutz represents compound archers on an athlete’s committee that reports to the USA Archery Board of Directors.
 
“This is all I know,” Anschutz said, smiling broadly. “Archery is all I know. I wouldn’t know what to do with myself if I wasn’t gone every weekend to a tournament or going to China or Turkey or whatever. This is clearly the life that I know.”
 
That life has led her into strong archery friendships, including with U.S. men’s recurve archer Brady Ellison, who is ranked No. 1 in the World Cup standings. They first were on the junior national team together as teens. Now, every U.S. international competition features Anschutz and Ellison.

“It is gi-enormous,” Anschutz said of her archery friendships. “There’s my archery life, my archery friends and then my home life. Brady and I have known each other since we were like 13 years old.
 
“We’ve been on almost every world team together. We’ve pretty much grown up together in the archery world.”
 
Said Ellison: “We’ve both been able to stay on top of our games through juniors and then been able to step up and hang with the seniors, too. It’s good fun. We’ve always shot together on the international teams.”
 
Anschutz is hoping she and Ellison keep right on target.
 
“Things can change. In archery, you could be hot one minute and not the next,” Anschutz said. “I hope it continues. I feel like I'm shooting well right now.”
 
“The great ones can get on top and stay on top,” Parker said. “I think she (Anschutz) definitely has that capability to do that and just to really dominate if she wanted to internationally.”
 
You just won’t find her sitting around any forests trying to hunt down a turkey.
 
“You’re just sitting around all day, waiting for animals,” Anschutz said. “You could be doing other stuff. It didn’t appeal to me.”

Story courtesy Red Line Editorial, Inc. Paul D. Bowker is a freelance contributor for teamusa.org. This story was not subject to the approval of any National Governing Bodies.

Tags: archery, Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, Brady Ellison, Erika Anschutz, London 2012 Olympic Games