RAVENSWOOD — Growing up in Spring Grove, near the Wisconsin border, Sam Michaels admired the comic-book character Green Arrow, and wanted to emulate the bow-slinging hero. But until this past year, he never had the means.
Michaels, a student at Northern Illinois University signed up for an archery course in September and fell in love with the sport.
"It's zen. Very zen. That's actually why I picked up archery. It's very relaxing," Michaels said.
On Sunday morning, Michaels made the trek from DeKalb to the American Indian Center in Ravenswood for the center's inaugural intercollegiate archery tournament.
The center, 1630 W. Wilson Ave., invited collegiate archers of all skill levels from across the state to compete and learn about the art form of competitive archery.
"This is ideally what I wanted Archery Club to be like: people getting tips and keeping score. Because if no one's keeping score, you'll eventually get bored and quit," said Michaels, 23, adding the university's club has only a few consistent members and no funding from the school.
Al Eastman runs the center's all-ages archery programs, and said Sunday's competition was another way to give those interested a friendly opportunity to learn about the sport.
"It's really about the art of archery. You have to be patient. You have to discipline yourself perfecting your form. It all takes time like anything you do," Eastman said.
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Eastman, whose family comes from the Lakota Tribe, began teaching archery when he was an educator at the center years ago as a way to encourage kids who were struggling in math and science.
"I thought I could do archery to teach them physics. Plus, it was our tradition and a part of our culture back in the buffalo days, as I call it," Eastman said.
In recent years, he's seen a boost in interest as archery has become more mainstream in pop culture.
"Since 'The Hunger Games' and 'Brave' came out, the kids love it. Hollywood is showing all this stuff and getting people interested again," Eastman said. "And it gets the kids back into the culture, which is really what I'm trying to do."
The tournament, which brought in nearly 20 competitors from NIU, Northwestern University and the University of Chicago, acted as a fundraiser — and a logical step for the program.
"It was the natural progression of the program to start offering tournaments in the city," Eastman said.
"It's time for archers to start to come together, and since the universities are coming together to compete with one another, we offered the space."
But the inaugural collegiate tournament could just as easily be the last at the center, which is housed in a Masonic Temple built in the 1920s. Recently, the building's boiler broke, as did its radiators, Eastman said.
On Sunday, competitors marched up three flights of stairs, following signs reminding them "to keep doors closed" because of the lack of heat.
Thanks to Eastman's bartering, competitors didn't have to wear a jacket while shooting Sunday. He traded a month's worth of lessons to a parent that helped him install garage heaters in the competition room, which was recently redone using a small donation from the Chicago Blackhawks.
"We're possibly going to have to move if they can't get funds for the building. I hate to see that because it's been here for so long, but what can you do as a nonprofit?" Eastman said.
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