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It didn't matter where you looked during last weekend's 9th Annual National Archery in the Schools Program (NASP) National Tournament held at the cavernous Kentucky Exposition Center in Louisville-you were bombarded by numbers, and lots of them.

When the doors opened at 7:30 on the morning of Friday, May 11, and the first wave of buses bearing license plates from 35 different states began filling the parking lot across from the historic college hoops venue of Freedom Hall, organizers were prepared for the record 8,171 registered student archers.

http://www.theoutdoorwire.com/image_archive/2063301.jpeg> 8,171 registered archers were expected for the 9th Annual National Archery in the Schools Program (NASP) National Tournament. The crowds didn't disappoint. J.R. Absher photo.

And not just your run-of-the-mill record, either. In fact, observers from the Guinness World Record Book were on hand to certify the 2012 NASP National Tournament was indeed the largest gathering of competing archers on the planet-ever!

More than 30,000 enthusiastic coaches, parents, relatives and friends accompanied the archers to help support and cheer them on. Just qualifying to compete at the tournament was no small feat, as the teams not only needed to post winning scores, but in most cases were also challenged with raising the necessary money to travel and stay overnight Louisville-holding bake sales, car washes and other fund-raising events.

http://www.theoutdoorwire.com/image_archive/2063305.jpeg> The competitors used everything from bake sales and car washes to raise the money to get to Louisville. When they arrived, they were not only ready to compete, they were quick to let everyone know their sport. J.R. Absher photo.

The shooting range itself posed its own physical and logistical challenges. The shooting lines stretched 1,350 feet and included 270 lanes, with room for 540 archers during each of the tournament's 1-hour flights (rounds). A total of 200 volunteers were on hand to help with all aspects of safety, line coordination, registration, scorecard certification and other necessary details.

Naturally, other important tournament numerical data includes the scores, which have risen exponentially each year the national competition has taken place as its national participation grows. Nationally, some 2,055,000 boys and girls in 4th through 12th grades participated in 10,373 NASP school programs during the 2011-2012 school year.

This years' high individual scores were posted by Maysville (OH) High School freshmen Tyler Finley and Harrison County (KY) High School student Matt Wiglesworth, each tying the NASP world record score with 298 points (2 points shy of a perfect 300).

But perhaps the most impressive numbers of the entire tournament and those most indicative of the magnitude of the how archery is truly impacting young lives in school programs throughout the country were those preceded by dollar signs.

http://www.theoutdoorwire.com/image_archive/2063303.jpeg> This is what 270 lanes of archers look like. J.R.Absher photo.

Until this year, the highest amount of total scholarship money awarded to overall winners of the NASP National Tournament was $14,000. In 2012, as major supporters from the archery and outdoors industry stepped forward like never before, scholarship awards totaled $50,000. Those companies providing the scholarships (and the amount listed in parenthesis) were: Mathews Archery ($10,000), Gordon Composites ($10,000), Bass Pro Shops ($7,500), National Field Archery Assn. ($7,500), Muzzy Archery ($5,000), Rinehart Targets ($5,000), NEET Archery Products ($2,500) and Saunders Archery ($2,500).

The scholarship funds will be placed in an interest-drawing account for each of the top-scoring eight boys and girls, and will be paid directly to the institution of higher education chosen by that student when he or she graduates from high school.

And it's those numbers-representing the archery industry's commitment to the personal improvement and education of young people-which truly are the most revealing of what the National Archery in the Schools Program is all about.

--J.R. Absher

Absher is a longtime outdoor journalist, creator of TheOutdoorPressroom.com, and the newest addition to The Outdoor Wire Digital Network as editor of The Archery Wire, a new service which will officially launch to the archery industry in late June.