By Jason Emerson
Cazenovia resident Rick Gifford has had an eventful summer. In the past three months, he has won gold medals in archery in statewide senior Olympic games in three different states. But for the 61-year-old retired police chief, it’s not so much winning gold that he prefers to talk about so much as the road he took to get to gold.
Gifford, you see, is a cancer survivor, and he took up archery as a way to help his physical rehabilitation.
“It’s amazing to me that this is happening,” he said. “Not so much winning medals, but when you set your mind to do something — and I wanted to recover and I saw this is a way to get my strength back — and it’s been fun. There is life after cancer.”
Gifford, a lifelong Cazenovia resident, is a retired police officer. He worked for 22 years in the DeWitt Police Department, nine years part-time in the Cazenovia Police Department (from 2001 to 2010) and six years as chief of the Hamilton Police Department (from 2010 to 2016).
In 2011, Gifford was diagnosed with cancer. He underwent surgery to remove the cancer, got cancer again and went through chemotherapy and radiation therapy. “I was really sick for quite a while; I really struggled,” he said. “My son said you’ve got to have something to look forward to — he’s a big bowhunter — and I said if I survive this I’ll go bowhunting with you. Long story short, I lived, and I had to keep my promise and I went out bowhunting with him.”
Gifford found that he really enjoyed the outdoors and the experience of it, but he found the modern compound bow too mechanical and complicated. “It was like, this is not archery; it’s like some sort of machine you’re using,” he said.
That Christmas, his son bought him a recurve wooden bow — no sights, no cams or pulleys, no devices, just shooting with a bare bow, a string and arrow, use your fingers to pull back, and aim instinctively rather than use a sight. “It seemed more of an earthy kind of thing. I found it really helped me get through building my strength back after my illness,” Gifford said.
He started shooting about 90 arrows at a time at distances of 40, 50 and 60 yards — what is typical in an American 900 tournament — and found it gave him quite a bit of exercise. “I was doing it for therapy more than anything else,” he said.
Then one day in 2015, Gifford’s son suggested he shoot in some archery tournaments. So Gifford went to the Empire State Senior Games in Cortland that year and he came home with a gold medal. “It kind of inspired me,” he said.
Gifford did not compete in 2016 after injuring his shoulder from training too hard, but in 2017 he won gold in the Empire State Games again. He also happened to be going to Maine for vacation that year, and while there found that state’s senior Olympic games, competed and won gold there as well.
For this year, 2018, Gifford said he felt pretty good so he decided to try for a hattrick — three gold medals in three states: New York Maine and Pennsylvania.
In June, he again won the gold in New York and also set the high score for all bare curve bow divisions in all age brackets. He also qualified to represent New York in the national senior games in Albuquerque, N.M. in 2019. In July he won gold in Pennsylvania’s Keystone State Games and in August he won gold in Maine and also set a new state record for bare bow recurve.
“being sick like I was makes you really appreciate every moment of life,” he said. “It’s what got me into archery – it was something new I got to do. I’m just really enjoying it.”
