Derek Davis to Lead U.S. College Archery Team in International Competition
6/11/2007 12:00:00 AM | Archery
The tournament commemorates the 1821 Battle of Carabobo, which solidified Venezuela's claim to independence from Spain.
The U.S. team, sponsored by USA Archery's College Archery Program (CAP), will also be led by Stanford coach Sheri Rhodes. Not coincidentally, Rhodes and Davis coached the Women's Recurve archery teams that finished first (Stanford) and second (Columbia) in the U.S. Intercollegiate Championships last month in Sparta, Ill.
The tournament, designated a world ranking event, extends from June 19 to 24 in Valencia, Venezuela's third largest city, 180 kilometers from Caracas.
“I'm very excited about this trip,” Davis says. “It's an honor to be chosen. It will be my first international coaching assignment, but hopefully not my last.”
Davis was pleased to be paired with Rhodes, a former U.S. Olympic coach. “I look forward to working with Sheri,” he says. “She has a depth of experience that I can only gain from.”
The two coaches will work with 14 archers, seven women and seven men. There will be two four-person teams shooting with the the Olympic Recurve bow, and two three-person teams shooting with the Compound bow. Strangely, none of the 14 archers attend either Columbia or Stanford, the two coaches' teams.
“I wish that the Columbia archers who qualified could have made the trip, but unfortunately the trip was put together on very short notice,” Davis notes, “and our archers already had previous commitments. But I know many of the archers on the team, including Tina Jeon of Yale and Desiree Sparano of Atlantic Cape. It will be a nice change to work with them, rather than competing against them.”
Davis has completed three years as Columbia's head coach. In that time, he has lifted the Columbia archery program to the highest level of collegiate archery, and has become one of the nation's most respected coaches of the sport.
Davis's first team, the 2004-05 squad, won the U.S. Intercollegiate championship in Women's Recurve, Columbia's first national title. His 2006-07 team went all the way to the Recurve championship match before losing to Stanford by just four points. He has produced a number of All-American and All-East honorees, as well as a host of USA Archery All-Academic team members.
Davis, 43, came to Columbia in the fall of 2003 as an assistant to his long-time friend and fellow archer, Larry Brown. When Brown left in 2004, Davis was named to succeed him.
In 2006, Davis was named a Regional High Performance Coach, under the auspices of USA Archery's High Performance Plan, and underwent intense training with Kisik Lee, USA Archery's National Head Coach.
The USA Archery CAP team in the 25th Battle of Carabobo:
Women's Recurve: Tina Jeon, Yale; Danielle McCullough, Westminster (Pa.); Tami Raffaelli, Texas A&M; Desiree Sparano, Atlantic Cape (N.J.) Community College
Men's Recurve: Ken Downey, UCLA; Ted Harden, Arizona State; Nate McCulliough, James Madison; Jacob Wukie, James Madison
Women's Compound: Cassie Raffaelli, Texas A&M; Josahan Jaime-Santa Cruz, Texas A&M; Michelle Wright, Penn College of Technology
Men's Compound: Steve Gatto, Atlantic Cape (N.J.) Community College; Eric Mamo, Western Michigan; Ryan Rambo, Penn College of Technology
