Paralympic archer’s message hits the bullseye at Newton Christian School fundraiser

Dropping a pin would have shattered the still silence last Friday night during Newton Christian School’s annual benefit dinner in Community Heights Alliance Church’s cacophonous gymnasium-like sanctuary.

Almost 370 people gathered around long banquet tables hushed as silver medalist of the 2012 paralympic games and record-holder of the Guinness World Record for longest accurate archery shot at 230 yards, Matt Stutzman, drew back his bow and concentrated at a target a few meters away from him on the stage.

Unlike most archers, Stutzman draws his bow with his feet. He was born without arms in 1982 and since 2009, has been honing in on brightly colored targets.

“Thinking about it is kind of surreal,” Stutzman said. “The bow sits between my legs. I load it with my right foot, and then a grab the bow with my right foot, cross my leg and put my leg up to my chest. I have a strap that goes across my chest and hooks to the bow. I sit up and push my foot away from my chest, so that draws the bow.”

The harness attaches to a release aid, which Stutzman designed himself using a welder and grinder. A slight movement of his jaw triggers the release and shoots the arrow through the wind at 200 miles per hour.

Each November, the Newton Christian School hosts a benefit dinner to raise money to cover administrative expenses of operating the school. Debby Pence and Teresa Wermager, co-chairs of the benefit dinner committee, explained the annual event usually includes a speaker, musical entertainment and a meal prepared by families whose children attend the K-8 school.

“In years past, we’ve had Christian comedians. Last year, we had Van Harden from WHO radio. We sometimes have Christian educators come and speak. It’s usually someone who incorporates faith into their own individual story and shares that,” Wermager said. “Usually, it’s a very moving story. Obviously, Matt’s is above and beyond.”

Stutzman shared his journey from stay-at-home dad struggling to find a job and support his family to champion athlete Friday evening.

“I was always bugged that people wouldn’t give me the chance to prove that I could do things,” Stutzman told the crowd of his job hunt. “If you were to go to my house, besides a picture on the wall, you would not know there’s a guy with no arms that lives there. I have no modifications in my house whatsoever. I drive a car. I drove here today. I put my right foot on the steering wheel and my left foot on the gas and the brake. For $10, I’ll show you how to drive a stick shift,” Stutzman laughed.

As he sat at home one day watching his sons, he flipped through television channels. A man hunting with a bow popped up on the screen, and Stutzman, who grew up on a farm hunting with his brothers, thought he might try archery for himself.

After he purchased his first bow to the bewilderment of the store clerk, he taught himself to shoot.

“I actually Googled how to teach an armless man how to shoot a bow, but there was nothing,” Stutzman said.

Instead, he watched the techniques of record-setting archers on YouTube.

“I don’t see a foot holding the bow,” Stutzman explained to the audience. “I see a hand. I visualized I was doing it exactly like the guy I was watching on YouTube.”

His method worked.

“I go out that year, and I shot a deer. It actually is kind of mind blowing, because it was literally like from here to the drum set.” Stutzman pointed a couple feet away to the band’s collection of snares and cymbals behind him. “I’m pretty sure the deer was like, ‘What’s an armless guy doing with a bow?’ He just walked right out in front of me.”

When hunting season ended, a friend encouraged Stutzman to travel from his home in Fairfield, to an arching tournament in Mason City.

“That’s where I got the bug,” Stutzman explained. He started practicing eight hours a day to prepare for competition.

Stutzman has an adventurous spirit and a lifelong love of sports. When he was eight years old, he wanted to be a silver-buckled, hat-wearing cowboy. Stutzman convinced his younger brother to go to the pasture with him and feed their family’s most fearsome bull, Billy, while he climbed on Billy’s back to practice. A concussion and a ruined flannel shirt later, Stutzman realized he should channel his athletic energy into another outlet. Although he works on race cars, from sleek BMW M6s to vintage Camaros, and drives them on drag strips as well as steering Dodge Neons through Redneck Rally — which he describes as “a demo derby but with ramps and jumps” – Stutzman knew he wouldn’t be competitive in NASCAR. He could make three-point shots and free-throws in basketball, but he couldn’t dribble.

“Anybody can do archery,” Stutzman said. “All the other sports kind of stereotype the athlete: You’ve gotta be tall, fast or be able to dunk, all of those things. Archery doesn’t care how big you are, how tall you are, how strong you are. It doesn’t care, so I can compete against the best in the world at archery, even though I have no arms, and still beat them on a good day.”

His journey has taken him throughout Europe — from England to the Czech Republic — and to Mexico and Brazil. After winning the silver medal for Team USA at the paralympic games in London in 2012, Stutzman became the first person with a physical disability to shoot a perfect score — which requires hitting a bullseye the size of a quarter 120 consecutive times from 20 yards away — in 2014. He earned his place in the Guinness Book of World Records for the longest accurate archery shot in 2015. Last year, Stutzman won the Outdoor Nationals, an able-bodied professional archery tournament.

Throughout his travels, Stutzman began to realize his success in archery carried a greater message.

“When I was out there competing, people would come up to me all the time saying, ‘Hey, I struggled today, and I watched you shoot. I now have nothing to complain about.’ I realized that being an archer is just an avenue of helping me get into places where I can actually tell my story and help people where it really matters versus just being a competitor,” Stutzman said.

Since 2011, Stutzman has given motivational speeches to a wide array of audiences, from school children to corporate executive boards.

When Pence and Wermager began planning the benefit dinner this past summer, Wermager’s husband suggested they reach out to Stutzman and ask him to speak.

“It just so happened that it worked out, and I didn’t have anything else going on,” Stutzman said, and he agreed to make the two-hour drive from where he lives in Stockport to Newton.

Stutzman shot three arrows during his speech Friday night. All three missed their target.

“I didn’t have my Wheaties today,” Stutzman shrugged.

Someone in the crowd wondered if he was shooting at too close a range.

As he continued to tell his story, Stutzman detailed why he didn’t allow others’ doubt to deter him from archery:

“God has a plan for every one of you. You may not know what it is. You may not trust the process. He may put you on a bull to fall. He may throw you into a basketball tournament with no arms, but there’s always a lesson to be learned from it. As long as you keep trusting Him, you’re never going to have to worry about the end result because when it comes true, it’s going to work out,” Stutzman paused. “Let me show you what I’m talking about.”

Stutzman walked to the target, a padded block covered in a paper containing three blue, red and yellow bullseyes. With his toes, he peeled back the paper. Beneath it lay another paper with three more bullseyes, each slightly offset from the top layer. The three arrows stuck squarely in the yellow centers of the bullseyes.

“All those times in our own lives where we’re going through a trial and we can’t see the future, but God already has that in His hand,” he said.

The Newton Christian School exceeded their goal of $30,000 that evening and raised $31,644 to cover school costs.

“It’s an incredible blessing for which we are very grateful,” Wermager said.

Contact Phoebe Marie Brannock at 641-792-3121 ext. 6547 or pbrannock@newtondailynews.com