by Dennis Dalman – news@thenewsleaders.com
Longtime archer Doug Krebs of Sartell hit a bullseye without even trying when he was named “Volunteer Coach of the Year” recently by the USA Archery organization, based in Colorado Springs, Colo.
He didn’t expect the honor.
“I was surprised,” he said. “I found out about it through our head coach, Linda Beck. Then, I received the recognition formally a couple days later at our JOAD club meeting.”
JOAD stands for Junior Olympics Archery Development, a central Minnesota club based in Sauk Rapids and a member of USA Archery.
Beck, of Maple Lake, was also honored as Coach of the Year in the “Developmental” category. She has been a personal coach for two fine, award-winning archers from Sartell, Adam Wruck and Corey Muellenbach. The third Coach of the Year, in the “National” category, is Mel Nichols of Scottsdale, Ariz.
Krebs, in his award citation, was cited for his many hours of serving as a volunteer coach for JOAD members. Krebs is a production supervisor for Woodcraft Industries in St. Cloud.
“Doug is really good at finding what needs to be fixed in my archery form and then explaining it to me in a way that I can understand it,” said Kenny Cruze, 12, of Sartell, who had been coached by Krebs. “He is always positive and encouraging in his instruction to me and the rest of the archers. He is very patient and I respect him as my coach.”
Krebs and his daughter, Hannah, are dedicated archers. Even though Krebs has loved shooting arrows ever since he was 8 years old, he became very serious about the sport in 2007 when daughter Hannah, then 12, took up archery as a hobby. Hannah was introduced to archery at a Girl Scout camp and instantly took a liking to it, so much so that now she and her father take part in all kinds of competitions far and wide, and they also go bow deer-hunting together. Hannah, now 17, is a senior at Sartell High School. Both are members of Granite City Junior Olympics Archery Development in Sauk Rapids, and that is where Krebs has done volunteer assistant coaching for six years. There are about two dozen active members in the Sauk Rapids JOAD. His students come from all over central Minnesota.
Just last week, Krebs and Hannah returned from the three-day Voyageurs Cup tournament near Princeton. For other tournaments, they’ve traveled as far as Iowa, Ohio and even Sacramento, Calif. At the Voyageurs Cup event, Krebs placed 87th out of 100 archers, which doesn’t sound too impressive until Krebs says how happy he was, placing 87th while competing among the top archers in the world. Hannah placed 13th of 27 in the junior division.
At one time, Krebs took first place in the Minnesota State Archery Association tournament. Hannah has won first in a number of tournaments.
“I love archery because, in a sense, it’s really an individual competition in which you’re really competing with yourself,” Krebs said. “You’re always trying to improve. And on top of that, you meet a lot of friends and the camaraderie is just great.”
When asked how many bullseyes he’s hit in his years of archery, Krebs paused.
“Oh, let’s see, it would be thousands,” he said, pausing, mentally calculating, remembering. “Oh, yeah, tens of thousands. Easily.”
And many of those bullseyes, incidentally, were the size of a dime on a target 20 yards away.
