Cottey College to add Archery for Fall 2024 

Nevada, MO—Cottey College is pleased to announce the addition of collegiate archery to its athletic program. Beginning in the fall of 2024, archery will be offered as the twelfth official sport at the College.

“We are very excited about the addition of archery and being able to provide students an opportunity to continue competing in this sport beyond high school,” said President Dr. Stefanie Niles. “There are over 70,000 students in Missouri alone participating in archery programs and very few colleges or universities who offer this sport through their athletics department or provide scholarships to student-athletes in this program. We see this as an opportunity to attract more students to Cottey and offer them the outstanding academic and co-curricular experience our students receive.”

To accommodate the archery program and support additional athletics growth, the former swimming pool space inside the Hinkhouse Center will be renovated into an auxiliary gym space. This additional space will be used by all athletic teams and will double the practice and competition space currently available. The funds for this project were all privately donated. The renovations are scheduled to be completed this fall.

“This is an exciting time for our athletics programs,” said Athletics Director Dr. Maryann Mitts. Over the past few years, Cottey Athletics has grown tremendously, doubling the number of student-athletes at Cottey since 2018. This additional gymnasium will give our teams more dedicated space in which to practice, compete, and will enhance our overall student-athlete experience.”

Cottey’s archery program will be coached by Sarah Trout. Sarah comes to Cottey after teaching kinesiology and sports and recreation management for seven years at Missouri Southern State University. Sarah is certified as a Basic Archery Instructor and a U.S.A. Olympic Archery Level Two Instructor. She has also been the Coordinator of the Missouri Southern State University/Academy Sports Archery Tournament for the past six years, a state qualifying event of over 1000 elementary, middle school, and high school participants. Sarah will begin full-time at Cottey on May 31.

“I am thrilled to help launch the archery program at Cottey,” said Sarah Trout. “I have been involved in the sport for many years and I have seen first-hand the participation increase of young girls in archery. To now get to provide scholarships and opportunities for women to compete on the collegiate level and continue their education is a dream and I can’t wait to get started!”