Saw him in Dublin, he had just won the world stage shoot and arrived next day for World Field champs, at 7pm he was on the practice range pounding the target, like after a win he needed to, that's serious dedication and love of shooting.
Zetabow makes a great point. The top archers all share one thing in common - they love to shoot. Add to that a tremendous competitive desire and singular focus and mix in a bit of raw talent/ability - and you get the Ellison's, the Wunderle's, and so on. It's that combination of passion for shooting arrows a great work ethic and fierce competitive drive that gets them to that point.
I've been watching/shooting with Brady since he was shooting against my junior archers in JOAD, right after he made the switch from compound to recurve. He's a good kid, although he's hardly a kid anymore. His parents and grandparents raised him right, and he'd be the first to tell you that's more important than how well he can shoot a bow.
I don't think many people can fully grasp the level of dedication it takes to get to the top level in archery, much less the elite level where Brady is. You basically give up everything else you do besides archery for years. And in order to do that - you have to love shooting archery.
Brady is a great person and a top level archer. As John says, few people will very realize the dedication it takes to reach that point.
I have posted this video before, but it's well worth looking at again. It's from the 1969 World Championship at Valley Forge, Pa. And before anyone asks, that was before the takedown bow era took off in competitive archery. By the time of our return to the Olympics in 1972 however, the metal riser was the bow of choice by most.
That is one reason folks have problems tuning an arrow to a bow. It is usually the persons form that screws things up. Love to see that old footage as well as the new! Shawn
