Editor’s Note: Levi Morgan says, “I've been wearing Mossy Oak since I could walk, and I wear Mossy Oak on my TV show ‘Name the Game’ on the Sportsman Channel where I hunt a wide variety of game animals and also show tournament archery. I come from a bowhunting and competition archery background.” Morgan has built his reputation by winning some of the biggest archery tournaments in the world. He has proved to be consistent by winning the ASA (Archery Shooters Association) Shooter of the Year title for 8 consecutive years, breaking Jeff Hopkins previous record of 7 consecutive Shooter of the Year titles. Morgan also competes in the IBO (International Bowhunting Organization) and shoots in-the-field archery tournaments. Morgan shoots all the recognized disciplines of tournament archery, and he's an avid bowhunter.
Although I’ve had an extremely-successful career in tournament archery, most people don’t know where the love of archery came from for me. I was very fortunate that my dad, Mark Morgan, started me hunting when I was just a kid. When I was about 3, I can remember him dragging me through the woods, and I loved every minute of it. When I was 5-years old, Dad started taking me to archery tournaments - and I would win. I think Dad realized early on that I had some type of talent for shooting the bow. He started taking me to bigger and bigger archery tournaments, and I kept winning. However, I never lost my love of bowhunting. More importantly, I never lost my love of bowhunting with my dad. We still bowhunt together every year, and I bowhunt with my brother every year. Bowhunting always has been as much a part of my family as sharing meals together. Of all the things I do, I really look forward to hunting with my family - almost more than anything else I do.
Because of our TV show “Name the Game,” I get to hunt a wide variety of animals. For instance, my little brother and I are heading to the Arctic in 1-1/2-weeks to hunt two species of caribou. Then, I’ll hunt blacktail deer, Canadian moose, black bear, musk ox, cougar, (mountain lion) and free-range buffalo, and I've got several whitetail hunts scheduled. I really enjoy shooting my TV show, “Name the Game.”
I turned down scholarships and great job offers to follow my dream of being the best tournament archer I possibly could be. When I started on this quest, I knew I had to win to meet my house payments and other financial obligations. I've always kept the paper that I wrote as a first grader in elementary school. The teacher asked us to write about what we wanted to grow up to be. I wrote, “I want to be a professional archer and have my own TV show.” When I was about 19 or 20, I started talking to my sponsors for competitive archery and asked, “Will you sponsor me, if I start a bowhunting TV show?” Most of them said they would sponsor me. However, the first 2 or 3 years of producing the TV show we really struggled. The TV show was costing me more money than I was making, and I was really getting stretched out financially. That’s when I admitted to myself, “Having an outdoor TV show isn’t what I thought it was going to be.” I really had a difficult time managing my time and money between being a professional archer and trying to get the TV show off the ground. However, by the third or fourth year, the show began to grow, and our fan base increased. Now, our TV show has made it to the 8th year, and we have an awesome group of fans. I have a lot of fun doing it, and it’s finally providing a great living for me and my family. We were real fortunate to have some great partners to work with, and Mossy Oak is one of the best partners ever. Our show airs July through December on Fridays at 9:00 pm EST, Saturdays at 12:00 am EST and on Wednesdays at 10:00 am EST. We’ve decided we’re going to try to hunt as many different species as we can with a bow on the show.
I still plan to keep up my competitive archery career, but I also plan to spend more time with my young son. He wants his daddy to be around to play with him, and I’m not going to miss those times that he wants me to be there. Since an eight-time Shooter of the Year title was a goal that I had set for myself, and I’ve achieved it, in coming years, my competitive archery won’t be as intense as it has been in past years. Now, I plan to spend more of my time hunting and with my family.
I'm not saying I won’t shoot the best I can shoot in every tournament I attend. Yes, I would like to win another Shooter of the Year title and another World Championship. I'm still a competitor, and I'm going to give 100 percent in every competition that I shoot. I’d like to go to a tournament just one time and be able to shoot relaxed, instead of having to shoot with so much pressure and so much stress. Having said that, I don’t know if I could shoot without putting pressure on myself. I enter competitions to win. I'm the one who puts the pressure on me. I believe that pressure to win is what helps me to shoot my best.
To learn more about Levi Morgan, visit https://www.facebook.com/pages/Levi-Morgan/308973412532654?sk=info.
Day 2: Levi Morgan: How Long Can He Continue to Win 3D Archery
Tomorrow: Levi Morgan: Stress Doesn’t Kill – It Helps You to Succeed
