PARKERSBURG, W.Va. — The extreme popularity of archery among West Virginia youngsters has attracted the attention of the West Virginia Secondary Schools Activities Commission. Executive Director Bernie Dolan tells MetroNews the SSAC is ready to sanction archery as a school sport in West Virginia.
“We’re going to be working on it to roll it out in the next year or two,” said Dolan. “We want to see how quickly it can become a fully sanctioned sport.”
The framework for the sport is already in place through the Archery in Schools program run by the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources. The A-I-S has teams in almost all West Virginia schools, including elementary and middle schools and the popularity is what drew the attention of Dolan and the SSAC.
“All of our sports come about because of interest in schools,” he said. “We don’t drive the interest. If there’s enough schools doing a particular activity, often they will submit a letter to us to be recognized as a sport and that’s the case here with archery.”
Dolan said Elkview Middle School Coach Eddie Gray has been…
