David Whitley: No arms, no problem for archer Stutzman.
Let’s take a break from the usual sports nonsense and head to a farm outside Stockport, Iowa.
There you’ll find Matt Stutzman spending much of his day shooting arrows at a target 55 yards away. He’s so good that he just won the U.S.A. Archery Outdoor National Championship.
“I just want to be the best,” he said. “I want to be known as the Jeff Gordon or Michael Jackson of the sport.”
Gordon and MJ have one advantage over Stutzman, however. They have arms. Stutzman was born without any 34 years ago.
His national-title win still barely registered on the sports radar fixated on the likes of Ezekiel Elliott and Hugh Freeze. Let’s face it, most people’s knowledge of archery begins and ends with Robin Hood.
But forget the human-interest angle and consider the sports anomaly.
Stutzman is believed to be the only disabled person to win a major championship against
able-bodied competition. South Africa’s Oscar Pistorius ran the 400 meters in Olympic-worthy times, but he did it on blade-like prosthetics that critics said gave him an unfair advantage.
Stutzman needs no engineering help.
“My feet are my hands,” he said.
Stutzman attaches an arrow to a shoulder harness and sets the bow with legs and feet. He releases the arrow with his chin.
In sun, rain or wind, it hits the bulls-eye about 96 percent of the time.
That’s the technical account on how Stutzman does it. The real explanation begins with Jean and Leon Stutzman.
They adopted Matt when he was 13 months old, after his birth parents were told their boy would need millions of dollars of around-the-clock care. The Stutzmans brought him home and raised him with one simple rule: Do it yourself. He grew up feeding cows by balancing a bucket on his shoulder. His feet would pluck chicken eggs from the coop.
He’d drive the tractor, shoot guns and roughhouse with seven siblings. He never considered his disability a disability, much less felt sorry for himself.
That changed when Stutzman went to get a driver’s license. His car wasn’t outfitted with driving aids, and the instructor wouldn’t let him take the test.
Stutzman could shoot pool, brush his teeth and shoot a penny from 50 yards away with a BB gun. That didn’t matter.
“You have no arms,” the instructor said. “You can’t drive.”
That began a spiral of resentment and rebellion. Stutzman ended up in jail for writing a bad check.
He could have gotten out for $500 bail, but his parents let him stay the entire three-month sentence to ponder his next move.
“I could be mad at the world,” he said, “but that would just get me in trouble.”
Stutzman got a job delivering pizzas, made new friends, eventually got married and had three sons.
They all live in a house that has no disabled accommodations. There’s nothing Stutzman can’t do — almost.
“I tell people all the time that I can’t do the dishes,” he said.
Stutzman took up archery in 2009 because he wanted to hunt deer to provide food for his family. He soon discovered an innate knack for hitting targets.
He became so good on the Paralympic level that he decided to try open competitions. The national championship win puts him in good position to make the next U.S. World Cup team.
“That’s pretty awesome,” Stutzman said. “I’m still trying to wrap my head around it.”
Try to do the same as we return to the daily sports world. But before we leave the farm in Iowa, the local hero has a few words of advice.
“Never give up,” Stutzman said. “Go for it.”
If you don’t limit yourself, you can do just about anything.
Even the dishes.