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FRANK PASTORSpring Hill's Reece Champlin wastes little time taking aim at a championship career.
SPRING HILL - When many girls her age were into Barbie dolls or Easy-Bake Ovens, Reece Champlin was playing Robin Hood.
Eight years later, Champlin's friends have turned their attention to cars and boys. But she contin ues to shoot a bow and arrows.
Champlin, 16, of Spring Hill, is an accomplished archer, among the best in her age group in the state, if not the nation.
A home-schooled student who will be a senior in the fall, Champlin won the young adult female bowhunting freestyle class in the Sunshine State Games this summer in Tampa.
Her father, Robert, was first in the adult male bowhunter freestyle limited division. But, in Robert's estimation, he is nowhere near his daughter's class.
"She can shoot rings around me any day," said Robert, 49. Champlin's mother, Julie, dabbles in the sport, serving as treasurer of the Aripeka Archers Club in Hudson, where the family shoots.
The Champlins' involvement in archery began when Robert took a junior college class in the early 1970s.
He was pleased to find a sport in which he could compete against himself and participate for most of his life. He passed on his interest - and a small bow - to his daughter when she was 7 or 8.
"I watched my dad shooting and got interested in it," Champlin said. "From there, he got me a bow and taught me how to do it."
Champlin first shot at a target affixed to a bale of hay 10 yards away at her family's home in Wisconsin.
She quickly took to the activity, improving her aim and equipment as she progressed. Champlin currently uses a high-grade Precision Shooting Equipment bow to fire arrows at a foam target balanced on a couple of sawhorses 60 yards away.
Champlin's first taste of competition came in 4-H events in Wisconsin, where her parents were shooting sports instructors.
She moved on to National Field Archery Association, National Archery Association and Florida Archery Association tournaments after her family moved to Spring Hill in 2001.
"I wasn't that good when I first started," Champlin said.
"I didn't have that good of equipment and I hadn't been to that many shoots, so I wasn't that experienced at the competitive aspect of it," she said. "I probably never would have thought I would actually do the state shoots and stuff."
Champlin didn't merely take part in state events, she ran away with them.
At her first competition in Florida, she set a record for high total while winning the youth bowhunter freestyle female class of the State Target in Hudson in September 2001.
She has dominated the young adult division the past two years, winning the NFAA Field Target in the winter of 2001 in Miami and eclipsing the 800-point mark for the first time in the Target portion of the Sunshine State Games in June.
Champlin practices about an hour per day when preparing for a shoot.
During that time, her father estimates that she pulls a 45-pound draw as many as 100 times, which can be exhausting in 90-degree heat.
But Robert said practice only partly explains his daughter's success.
Persistence and a willingness to take direction from others with knowledge of the sport are equally important, he said.
Champlin continually reads articles on archery to help improve her form and stays abreast of the latest equipment trends.
In spite of her tremendous talent, Champlin has no chance of qualifying for the Olympics, since she uses a different type of bow.
She shoots a compound bow, which is shorter, more accurate and has more accessories - such as sights, stabilizers and dampers - than the standard recurve bow used in the Olympics.
Still, Champlin plans to continue shooting even after her competitive days are behind her.
She will move up to the adult class in two years and hopes only to continue to improve with each outing.
"It'll always be a hobby," Champlin said, "if not a sport that I do."
Even when her friends are searching for early-bird specials.
- Frank Pastor can be reached at 800 333-7505, ext. 1430. Send e-mail to pastor@sptimes.com