YOUTH PROFILE

STEPHANIE HERZOG 

Imagine standing in front of a crowd of people, staring down an arrow at your target, trying to ignore the noise and your competitors long enough to take your shot. Once the arrow starts on it’s path, the effort is over and all there is left to do is watch to see if your arrow finds it’s target- making you the victor or leaving you disappointed before an audience. Intense, high pressure situations such as this are more than many of us could handle, or indeed than we have had to face.

At thirteen years of age, Caleb Lundeen has reached a level of skill in archery that has brought him into this very situation countless times, and he always excels, usually placing in the top five. It seems incredible that someone so young would want to put himself in a situation of this magnitude, but Caleb has enthusiastically pursued archery since he was a toddler. Having two professional archers as parents gave him a slight predisposition to the sport, no doubt, and at three years old Caleb was already playing with plastic and foam bows in the backyard.

As Caleb grew older, he began taking lessons from his parents on proper archery technique at around age six and entered in his first national archery competition at seven. Eventually he outgrew his Genesis mini bow and took up the compound bow (as opposed to the larger recurve bow). This equipment upgrade allowed Caleb’s talents to grow with him, and he began regularly competing in archery tournaments as he got older. Meeting with many successes both on the regional and the national levels, Caleb is fostering dreams of pursuing his sport all the way to the Olympics, and perhaps even Olympic gold. Judging from his accomplishments so far in his young life, such dreams are not out of reach.

One of the main characteristics that defines a truly great athlete is mental strength. Aside from the more obvious traits like aim and coordination, archery requires you to unplug from your surroundings, your competitors, the score and all other distractions. Once total mental focus is reached, only then can the archer make a winning shot- any distraction can thwart efforts and confidence, causing a good athlete to lose. Young Caleb spends tremendous time with his parents working on the psychological aspects of archery, learning from their experience in the family sport how to calm his thoughts during a tournament so he’s able to focus and perform to the best of his ability.

Another quality that distinguishes a serious athlete, and especially an Olympic hopeful, is complete technical mastery. This means proper safety, form and adherence to official sport rules at all times. Of course, Caleb has two advantages to that end with his mom and dad, who both coach and shoot professionally. It is well known in the athletic community that to ever be considered for the Olympics, technical perfection is absolutely essential, since that is what the athletes will be judged on. Archery is less common than other Olympic sports like swimming and gymnastics, so proper coaching is typically hard to come across. Many coaches teach bad habits to their pupils unintentionally, thus ruining any possibility of making it into serious competition.

Caleb’s parents developed their interest in archery about twenty years ago, but they had trouble finding knowledgable instruction so they slowly taught themselves proper technique over the years. After cultivating such interest in each other and then later in their son, they eventually became coaches themselves- Caleb’s father has even been to the invitation only Olympic Training Center in California to fine tune his coaching skills according to what is expected from an Olympic hopeful. The judges at the Olympics of course look for even minuscule errors in form, which is where the right coach can make the difference between success and failure. With his family’s support and skillful coaching, Caleb has reached new heights as a competitor in recent years.

At just eleven years old, Caleb won his first national championship, which had competitors from various different countries as well as from all over the US. Some of these athletes had more experience, possibly even a higher level of training, but Caleb utilized both his coaching and his mental toughness to take easily first place.

Now, at thirteen, this accomplished teenager has switched from the compound bow to the more advanced recurve bow, which is the type used in the Olympic Games. He dreams of trying out for the Junior Olympics, and someday making it to the US Olympic Archery team. Whether or not Caleb ever brings home a gold medal, his talents and his perseverance already put him miles ahead of the competition.