At a very young age founder and head coach Frank McDonough was part of a program called Junior Olympic Archery Development. Around 8 years old Coach Frank’s Dad drove him to the Reading Archery Club to practice with their team.  At the time JOAD teams were few and far between and traveling 35 minutes to Reading, PA to be a part of a youth archery team was very much a worth while endevour.  Coach Frank traveled as a young competitor to James Madison University, Miami University of Ohio, and Atlantic City to name a few to compete. Today JOAD competitors travel all over the country competiting with the eventual goal of possibly winning a spot of the USA Archery Junior Dream Team.

Since the first conversation between Coach Sarah and Coach Frank the idea of becoming a JOAD program was discussed. However like everything else good things take time and in August 2017 GHA finally established themselves as a Junior Olympic Archery Development program.

Whats cool about JOAD is it recognizes the archers hard work through a scoring and pin system.  The pin system is set up to reward scoring achievments of the shooters as they continue to pursue personal archery goals.

1. Archers participating in the JOAD and Adult Achievement Award Programs will not be asked to re-earn any pins they have already been awarded.

2. Archers should earn pins one at a time, in consecutive order.

3. Archers progressing through the scoring matrices should use the new scoring guidelines starting with the next pin they are working toward.

4. If an award level has more than one distance/target size, the club leader will choose what target face to have the archer positioned at based on the skill level and experience of the archer.

5. To earn an a JOAD Olympian Award the archer will be required to shoot the distance and target face that corresponds to their JOAD Class at National Events (i.e. Bowman, Cub, Cadet, Junior).

6. The Achievement Program is not based on gender.