Paralympic archer Matt Stutzman puts family first as he chases his dreams

Matt Stutzman’s goal was more practical than aspirational. Having a hard time finding a job and watching his wife work two, Stutzman thought he could best contribute by hunting to help feed their family.

That he has no arms hardly seemed to matter once he decided he wanted to pick up a bow.

He harvested three deer near the family’s Iowa home that autumn. And while he still enjoys hunting, archery has become much more to Stutzman since he taught himself to shoot in 2009.

He’ll head to the Paralympics in Rio in September as a favorite to medal and as the Armless Archer, a moniker he has embraced as he has made a name for himself in the sport and broken records held by able-bodied archers.

“I feel much better now as a person because now I’m doing what, in my mind, I thought was what I dreamt of doing when I was little,” says Stutzman, who has three sons with his wife, Amber. “So now I’m fulfilling those dreams and influencing my family along the way, which is ultimately what you’re trying to do.”

Stutzman, 33, has approached archery the way he has everything else in life — by adapting himself to it rather than the other way around. Leon and Jean Stutzman had raised him that way after adopting Matt, who was born without arms, when he was 13 months old.

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The Stutzmans treated Matt as they did their seven other children. The world would not be modified for him, so the Stutzmans did not modify their home. Matt tied his own shoes. He tried basketball and bull riding. He even learned to shoot a gun.

“I was going to move out of the house, and they wanted to make sure I was ready for the world,” Stutzman said of his parents’ approach. “They wanted to make sure I was totally self-sufficient.”

So when he sought to learn to shoot a bow in 2009, he had everyone clear the room in the outdoors store so he could try shooting with his feet. (Although he knows how to shoot a gun, Stutzman sought to hunt with a bow because archery season is earlier in the fall than shotgun season and therefore warmer when he has to hunt without shoes.)

It took a bit to learn, but by January 2010 he had entered himself in a tournament with 550 able-bodied archers. After signing a waiver, Stutzman asked a woman working there where the other armless archers were.

Stutzman was the only one, and within days he had picked up a bow sponsor. It’s because you don’t have arms, a friend told him, and not because you’re good.

“The reality is that was true,” Stutzman says. “I wasn’t that good, and I wanted to be the best in the world at that point. All my life, I wanted to be good at something.”

He started training eight hours a day, slowly perfecting the method he’d adapted. Stutzman sits in a chair to shoot, loading his bow by leaning it against his left leg and using his right foot to put the arrow in. He then lifts the bow with his right foot, latches a release aid over his right shoulder to the string and extends his right leg forward to draw the bow. With the twitch of his chin and stiffening of his back, he releases the string and looses the arrow.

The practice paid off, and at a tournament in early 2011 someone suggested the Paralympics to Stutzman. It hadn’t been a consideration, but about 18 months after that, he would go to London and come home with a sliver medal.

“In London, I was just trying to make a name for myself,” he says. “I just wanted people to know who Matt Stutzman was and who they were up against.”

He’s done more than that since his first Games.

Before heading to London, Stutzman set the Guinness World Record for the farthest accurate shot with a compound bow at 230 yards. By comparison, his Paralympic event is at a distance of 50 meters, or about 55 yards, and Olympic shooters hit a target from 70 meters, or about 77 yards away.

He broke that record again in December, hitting the target from 310 yards.

Heading into Rio, he’ll be favored to medal, if not win gold. No longer is he worried about making a name for himself. He hears from his competitors, who say they are gunning for him.

“The shooting is down,” he says. “It’s the mental game that’s going to help me with this time in Rio.”

Stutzman continues to hunt to help feed his family, although archery has become much more since he persuaded their landlord to let him put off paying the rent so he could buy that first bow seven years ago. It has paid off, in more ways than one, and Stutzman finally has found the thing he could be the best in.

“It’s been an amazing roller coaster ride ever since,” he says. “Now my wife is the one who stays home and takes care of the boys and now I take care of the family. I feel awesome now because i feel like I’m contributing to the family now, and because of archery I can do that.”