Now and then in every sport, development seems to arise spontaneously. Perhaps it is the result of conversations between those interested in the topic, or perhaps it simply is time for the particular sport to grow and mature.
Whatever the reason, the resulting golden age brings to the fore a few individuals who emerge as leaders in the field.
So it is with archery. Fifty years ago, archery was just another minor field sport. Anyone who bowhunted pretty much had to build his or her own equipment. Few, if any, states held archery seasons.
But a handful of men, in workshops scattered across the country, foresaw that archery could become a major sport. They had the creativity to design and build bows and to develop archery traditions in this country.
Many of those men are gone now--Saxton Pope, Art Young, Fred Bear--men who made giant contributions to our sport. But others from that golden age of visionaries still are making contributions to archery. Several still stalk through the autumn woods, still lend their particular brands of inventive genius to bowhunting.
Tom Jennings
Tom Jennings saw his first "real" bow in 1935 when he was 11, when a friend showed him a hand-built bow made of hickory and finished with spar varnish. Until then, young Jennings had played cowboys and Indians with sticks and string, but he never had seen the real thing.
With the help of his friend, Jennings made his first bow of hickory and called it the "Jennings #1." Before long, he was making bows for his friends. Soon he began bowhunting small game. After World War II, Jennings returned to his home in California and took up archery again. But the first time he drew the bow he had made, it shattered.
Spurred on by a friend who had just taken up bowhunting, Tom bought a brand new recurve, made by Bear Archery. He became active in the National Field Archery Association, joined every archery club he could find, and began experimenting with his own designs for recurves and longbows.
In 1950, Jennings hooked up with a partner, M. R. Smithwick, and the two opened S&J Archery Sales in North Hollywood, California. By 1956 business was good enough that Jennings could buy out his partner. During the next 10 years, his company produced more than 25,000 recurve bows.
In the early 1960s Jennings became technical editor of The Archer's Magazine, a position which eventually led to his nickname: "Mr. Compound Bow." He wrote a technical evaluation of a compound bow, calling it "the first new concept to come into bow design in the past thousand years." He was so convinced of merits of the compound bow that by 1966 he had changed the name of his company to Jennings Compound Bow. The same year he stopped making recurve bows all together.
By 1970, Jennings's compound bows had become so popular that the company was 18 months behind in production. He moved from a 2,000 square foot shop to a 43,500 square foot office and manufacturing facility in Valencia, California. With an annual production of more than 75,000 bows in 1976, the sky seemed to be the limit for Jennings.
Then disaster struck. In late 1982, an unfavorable court ruling on a patent case left Jennings and Jennings Compound Bow without a license to build compound bows. The company closed its doors. But in April 1983, Bear Archery bought the assets of Jennings Compound Bow.
In retrospect, it was a marriage that seems almost destined. The only marketing mistake Fred Bear ever made was to brush off the compound bow as a fad and stick with recurves; Tom Jennings was making nothing but compounds. By joining forces, the two men controlled a large portion of archery manufacturing in the U.S. Today, Jennings serves as a research and development consultant to Bear Archery.
Frank Scott
Fred Bear is widely regarded as the father of modern bowhunting. But standing behind Fred Bear was a cadre of loyal employees who aided his efforts.
One in particular, Frank Scott, was both an employee and a friend for almost 50 years, and still works at Bear Archery. You might say he is the company's unofficial historian and wise man rolled into one; colleagues call him "the Britannica of archery."
Scott met Fred Bear in 1939, when Scott was 17 and Bear was in his mid-thirties. Scott was in show business with his family, and traveled around the country doing a rifle-shooting act.
"He asked me if I'd help him in his booth," Frank recalls, "and I said sure. I thought he wanted someone out in front selling arrows, 12 shots for a quarter. What he wanted was somebody to blow up all his damned balloons!"
After the third year of this, Bear asked Frank to come back to Michigan with him to work at the factory. Frank accepted, and worked in Bear Archery's leather department for the rest of 1941. But that meant more than just working with leather. Scott helped run the retail store, took care of the shooting lanes, did just about anything that needed doing. Like many other young men of his time, he went off to war in 1942. But once the war was over he returned to Detroit, and asked Bear for his old job back.
Except for a stint from 1958 to 1965, he has worked for Bear Archery ever since, in a number of capacities. Several years before the company moved to Gainesville, Florida, in 1978, Bear became dissatisfied with the operation of the museum that was associated with the company's manufacturing plant.
"He wanted someone who had a knowledge of archery, him, the products, and the history of archery in general," Frank says. "I sort of filled the bill, so he asked me if I would like to move to Grayling and look after the museum for him."
Scott jumped at the chance. Today, he still presides over the museum, which is upstairs from the main Bear Archery factory in Gainesville. Though he is in his 70s, he shows no sign of slowing down. To the dismay of some of his colleagues at Bear, he continues to hunt alone; a couple of years ago, he killed a 375-pound black bear from a treestand--with the same 50-pound recurve he's been shooting for almost 25 years.
His latest project is the development of a "Blue Book" of values for archery equipment now old enough to classify as antiques. In January, Scott was inducted into the Archery Hall of Fame.
Gail Martin
Gail Martin didn't get seriously interested in archery until he got out of the service after World War II. When he got home, he bought a bow from his brother and started shooting it. He hunted and shot competitively for several years, and quickly became interested in the archery business.
In 1951, he opened Martin Archery, which sold a number of accessory items. During that period, the company was one of the largest string manufacturers in the business.
Then Martin became friends with Damon Howatt, a bowmaker who experimented with fiberglass very early on. Martin started selling Howatt's bows. When Howatt retired, he sold the business to someone else; in 1976, Martin Archery bought Howatt's old business and began manufacturing Howatt's bows under Martin Archery's trademark. At that time the company made a lot of traditional bows, so Martin added a line of compounds.
Gail Martin still is at the helm of Martin Archery. His sons play an increasing role in the business, and he says that at some point they will take it over.
Tomorrow, in Part Two, we'll look at the remarkable careers of Earl Hoyt and Chuck Saunders.
Copyright (c) 1997 Carolee Boyles-Sprenkel. All rights reserved.
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