Haley Doublin’s archery career started with three words, “God’s got this.”
Those words guide every time that she pulls back a bow, takes aim at a target, and lets the arrow fly. Those words guide her drive and ambition of becoming a nurse. Those words guide her faith walk.
Those words began when Haley, now a senior at Marshall County High School, was at an archery tournament at Graves County High School when she was a fifth grader. Tornado sirens blared as they were told to take cover and she noticed a man acting stressed. She walked up to the stranger and told him, “God’s got this.” That stranger happened to be Tom Patterson, an archery coach at Trigg County.
From that moment on, Patterson took Haley under his wing and encouraged her to shoot. Now, as a high school senior, Haley won the Scholastic 3-D Archery national championship and the Kentucky state championship this summer, and she has received dozens of scholarship opportunities to continue her archery career.
Haley began shooting for a school archery team through the NASP, the National Archery in the Schools program. In those competitions, archers line up with Genesis bows and aim at a target. She then moved to S3DA competitive archery, which offers divisions in barebow, Olympic recurve, pins, and open. It also has 3D outdoor target competitions.
Haley shoots 3D outdoor targets and pins. These targets resemble hunting decoys, but with a series of small circles as the target. Each circle represents a set of points: 12, 10, 8, 5. The goal; get the most points, but those come from the smallest circles. Archers have a determined distance from which to shoot, such as 30, 35, or 40 yards.
For Haley, archery allows her to spend time in nature and concentrate. “I don’t need to worry about anybody else around me,” she said. “It’s just me and my bow. It’s the peace of being out in nature and being able to do what I love.”
When she first started shooting in late elementary and middle school, Haley said she only imagined archery would be a passing phase. Little did she know the direction archery would take her life.
Five days a week Haley shoots for roughly two hours after school at her own range on her family’s property. Her range animals include deer, wolverine, javelina (like a hog), turkey, boars, and more.
Haley shoots for Martin Archery Next Generation and the Western Kentucky Bowhunters. She competes in the S3DA and the Archery Shooters Association leagues. The tournaments happen all across the country, from the bright lights of Las Vegas to a wooded area in Foley, Alabama, near Gulf Shores. Outdoor tournaments don’t stop for rain, but they do stop for severe weather. Archers have to anticipate their shots in rain and wind, as well as beautiful days with clear skies.
The tournaments have brought friends into the Doublin’s circle that have become like family. Her mother, Candie, recalled when an archery family met Haley and picked her up to travel to a tournament. Haley’s father, Brad, had had surgery and the family couldn’t travel. Another time, a family on the tournament trail asked the Doublins if they needed anything and offered Haley a camper to stay in on the road.
“It’s just amazing what kind of family it is,” Candie Doublin said. “You have your blood family and then you have your archery family.”
Tournament weekends can only be described as “really, really crazy,” Haley said. She can never anticipate the weather conditions for outdoor shoots or distractions in the woods, like snakes or bugs. She recalled one instance when a friend had a shoot in Texas and a rattlesnake had perched near the course. The match had to stop so officials could remove the snake.
“And every tournament is different. Like, you might have a mindset of something and then you go there and it just goes completely wrong,” Haley said. “Because I’m going to tell you right now, I’ve been to so many tournaments where something goes wrong with the bow. And some people are like, ‘What can possibly go wrong?’ Well, my sight has completely fallen off (the bow).”
Or she would have a good run of hitting 12s and 10s and then the next arrow completely missed.
Archery requires intense focus, posture, and strength. Haley described how she has to make sure that she has her feet positioned correctly because a shift in stance could throw off her shot to either the right or left. She also has to make sure not to get distracted by anything in nature. Tree limbs can hang down on the path or some targets are wedged between trees.
Some tournaments are also live streamed on Facebook, so people filming zoom in on the competitors.
But most of all, archery requires focus and a good attitude.
“You can’t get mad at the arrow you just shot because if you do, you’re going to mess up on 20 more targets. You’ve got to keep a good mindset the whole entire time,” Haley said. “Because 90 percent of the time, it’s a mental game. Archery is a big mental game. You have to keep a really good attitude.”
Haley should know. She has overcome target panic that caused her to not be able to pull back her bow or shoot. Every time she pulls back her bow she’s pulling about 55 pounds.
“Whenever I’m pulled back and in my zone, I’m like, just don’t let go. Stop. Go. Stop. Let’s ease through this. Come on, God. Let’s take this out to the target, me and you. And then I’ll let go and it would be perfect.”
In those moments, Haley remembers that promise she made to her now coach, Patterson. “God’s got this.”
“It’s literally just me and God, and we’ve got it.”
The reminder of that day and those words are tattooed on the inside of her left arm.
“God is my No. 1,” she said. “If you don’t have Him as No. 1, what do you have? He’s done so many things for me and He sent so many people into my life. If I wouldn’t have had archery, then I don’t know what I would have done. It’s just crazy how God sent this fifth grader up to an older man and told her to say, ‘God’s got this.’”
As Haley concludes her high school career, she’s looking ahead to college. Several schools have offered archery scholarships and she’s evaluating her academic options plus her archery options. Her goal is to become a nurse. She’s observed her mother working in home health with cancer patients.
Candie recalled when one of the patients wanted a deer, so Haley hunted one, had it processed, and gave it to him. “She’s always been like that,” Candie said. “We’ll see people on the side of the road, and she’ll ask if they need anything, and she’ll go through the drive-thru and get two burgers, French fries, and a drink and give it to them. I’m like, that’s dangerous, but she’s like ‘Mom, if God leads me to it, I’m just going to do it.’”
All Haley has to do is to look at her arm to remember, “God’s got this.”
