Young Redmond archer’s eye on the prize
It seems that everywhere you turn in Central Oregon, there’s an athlete doing something noteworthy — even those just entering their teenage years.
Jesse Clayton, 13, of Redmond, recently was selected to the U.S. Archery Junior Dream Team.
Clayton never picked up a bow until two years ago, but that hasn’t stopped him from beating the competition.
“I’ve been training really hard to get to this point where I am now,” Clayton said Saturday.
Where he is now is one of 12 boys in the country representing the United States in archery on the Junior Dream Team. But he couldn’t have made that jump in just two years without a relentless work ethic.
“There is a point in my archery career where I was shooting about 200 arrows a day,” Clayton said. “It was about five hours of shooting, and I’d keep shooting and shooting and shooting until I got it right.”
Clayton’s mom. Dawne Clayton. said it’s been that way ever since he picked up a bow for the first time at a county fair in California.
“For my husband and I, it was the hours that he put in on his own,” she said. “We’ve never had to demand him to go out and do it. It’s all been on his own.”
Practicing many hours isn’t so difficult, when you love the sport.
“It’s relaxing,” Clayton said. “It’s calm. It’s not stressful. It is in certain situations, but it’s kind of a low-key kind of sport.”
Unlike other sports, it’s not about physicality or athleticism. Archery is won from the neck up.
“If you’re thinking like, ‘Oh I’m going to miss, I’m going to miss,’ you’re never going to hit it, because you’re so down on yourself that you’ll never hit it,” Clayton said. “Archery is more mental than it is physical.”
It also helps when you have your biggest fan always in your corner.
“In the beginning, I was a typical archery mom who looked at the target constantly,” his mother said. “And now I just sit back and relax and let him do his thing, because he doesn’t need me — other than to look at me once and while and know that I’m still sitting there.”
The next time Dawne Clayton watching her son compete will be in Las Vegas in February for Jesse’s next competition.
You can learn more about the USA Archery Junior Dream Team at this Web page.
