‘It’s going to get better — no matter what’
One-eyed trap-shooter Ferguson is Sports Awards Courage Award winner
The first day Emily Ferguson tried out for the trap team at St. Mary's, coach Bill Quinlen was testing her for eye dominance like he would any other first-time shooter.
Eye dominance is an important variable in trap shooting because it can flip from one eye to the other.
But this particular participant didn't have to worry about that.
"She stopped us and said, ‘Well, I'm left-eye dominant,'" Quinlen said. "We said, ‘How do you know that?' And she said, ‘Well I don't have a right eye.'"
Ferguson was diagnosed with a rare eye cancer called retinoblastoma when she was 18 months old. Her parents decided to have her eye removed to reduce the risk of having the cancer spread.
Last year, she became the first female to win the Rudy Cup, which honors the best high school trap shooter in the state, hitting a personal-record of 199 out of 200 targets.
She will receive the 2020 Courage Award at the fourth annual Commercial Appeal Sports Awards presented by Farm Bureau Health Plans. The online event will be shown at sportsawards.usatoday.com/events/memphis/ beginning Thursday at 6 p.m.
"I've never seen anyone quite like this," Quinlen said. "I'm sure they're out there, but usually, if there's somebody who's sick or disabled they get in at the end of the game and shoot a three or something. But to actually compete and dominate and bring home the hardware is different. She's not in the Special Olympics, she's in the regular lineup with everybody else."
When she was 11, Ferguson was diagnosed with Ewing's sarcoma, a cancerous tumor that caused her to lose part of a lung and some of her ribs. At 16, the cancer returned, but she has been in remission for a little over a year after eight
months of chemotherapy treatments at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.
"The toughest moments would have to be watching the people that I love not knowing how to help me," Ferguson said. "I could do it again if I had to, but the hardest part would be watching the people around me suffer because they don't know how to make it better."
She stumbled upon trap shooting at a school activity fair and decided to give it a chance because it sounded fun. She was a natural from day one, hitting the first target she ever shot and making varsity by the end of her freshman year.
"I never thought I'd be the greatest at this sport," Ferguson said. "I did it because it was fun and I could do it with my dad because he's a doctor and he has to ration his time. I was like ‘Yes, I can do this with dad!' I guess I'm here now, but I never thought that to begin with."
The sport gave her an outlet, a chance to be part of a team, and something to keep her mind off of the treatments and surgeries. She said being out on the range brings a focus out of her unlike anything she's ever experienced.
"It's almost like TV static, it's very relaxing," Ferguson said. "I'm very focused, and for someone who has brain fog as a side effect of chemotherapy it makes it hard to think sometimes, but without fail whenever I get in what I call the zone nothing can break it."
The 18-year old's message to younger patients is to find the strength to persevere because she found that there's a lot to look forward to outside of treatments.
"When you get out of treatment and you start feeling good, for some of these kids it's the first time you've felt good in a very long time," Ferguson said. "It's going to get better no matter what. It can't be rock bottom forever. So when you get out the most important thing in life is to be happy."
She plans to take a gap year to train for the National Junior Olympics and compete in events across the country. She works as a COVID screener and plans to attend college after her gap year. She dreams of becoming the No. 1 trap shooter in the world.
"I was such an awkward and shy and easily intimidated person. Now I know that I am much stronger," Ferguson said. "I feel confident in myself and more confident holding conversations and I feel that I have something that I can control. It's really given me a new breath of life. It's really empowering.”