Attention: TDR Forum Junkies 
We ended our High School Trapshooting season with the SCTP State Championship and the Iowa High School State Championship last weekend. Two days of wind & weather extremes and shooting all day. Our little team alone fired at 4,480 targets in those two days. We spent last season, our first, as a part of a larger school's team. This season, we were completely on our own and completely unfunded except by the few sponsors I had time to drum up and by my own personal credit card (ouch!).
For a small upstart team (there are 125 high schools and 1325 shooters represented on 92 teams in the sport in Iowa), many of which have been established for up to 26 years, we did fantastic. When the smoke cleared after the final competition rounds and eighty-plus teams had gone home empty-handed, our team was still in it, and in a head-to-head tie breaking shoot-off with a perennial powerhouse and multi-time champion team. It was very exciting, and our best squad really stepped up and met the challenge, winning the showdown 117 to 113 against a very admirable team.
We did not win the State Championship, all 3 of our state awards were for 5th place, but 5th place All-State as a team sure felt like the championship to us. Even if we outshot the other top teams in the Championship, and we did in many cases, there is simply no mathematical way we could beat the cumulative season scores of the most powerful established teams, many of whom rolled up in multiple school buses per team. We don't even have a shooting range to host events and rack up official score after score like they do all season long. We train in a borrowed corner of a cornfield over a portable machine I bought and have to search for and travel to all competitions with room for us to compete.
We did, however, crown the Individual State Champion, named "Captain of the 2011 Iowa All-State Team" as the overall season and tournament 'best-of-the-best' shooter. He also placed 2nd in the state for regular season scoring just one point behind his best friend from a different school but the same hometown.
The SCTP (the national sanctioning body) state championship on the first day saw competitive classes from high school all the way down to grade school. I personally scored a squad of 2 girls and three boys who were in 4th and 5th grade. Let me assure you, they are very good and racked up some impressive scores with their little 20 gauges! One little guy nailed 40 out of 50! Imagine how good he will be once in high school!
My 71 year old mother worked long into the the nights for weeks to make all of our team vests by herself. The print shop finished printing our shirts just hours before we left for state. For the first time, my little band of homeless redheadedstepchildren looked like a real team. And boy did the kids all step up to a whole new level just when it mattered most.
The first and only girl on our team, who had never even fired a gun three months ago, and who finished her very first competition of the season 0 for 50 while fighting back tears of frustration and humiliation (she had only had two practices and I'm not allowed to coach while they are competing) was only outshot by 3 girls in the entire state, setting all new high scores for herself, including one near-perfect round of 24/25, that proved she has earned her rightful place standing shoulder to shoulder with the boys on any squad.
One of our best shooters was out all season, battling for his life in the hospital undergoing months of chemotherapy and bone marrow transplants. He's a graduating senior and fought hard to regain enough strength to get medical clearance to rejoin his teammates for one last time. He's the brutally emaciated 6'6" young man in the photos and he borrowed my son's old 1100 outfitted with a hydraulic recoil-reduction stock and knocked down 89/100 for the day, including a nearly perfect 24, with only that last doggone clay refusing to break. He's the kind of kid that when he got to go home from the hospital for a week between all his chemo and his transplant, and while the weather here was very cold and nasty still, he immediately slipped out the back door, germ mask, hairless head, shotgun and all, and disappeared into the woods and bagged a huge spring season gobbler. Nothing keeps him down.
Every single team member shot new personal bests. When you are among the top 6 trophy-level teams in the state, there are very few points separating the winners from the losers. The 1st place team at the tournament only outshot our 5th place team by 10 broken targets out of 500. That's only 1/2 clay per round of 25 per shooter.
These kids will finally get some recognition from the local paper after being ignored all season in favor of little league scores and Aunt Sadie's gardening tips. I took our trophies straight to the few businessmen that even knew we existed and who supported our team and showed them what these kids had done with that support (it personally cost each team member over $150 in ammo & entry fees just to compete in the state tournaments). Then came an invite from the American Legion to speak at their board meeting. A couple of those community leaders apparently then took a very direct approach and asked the newspaper owner/editor why he had not published a word about our team and if he wanted their advertising dollars how that had better change. I had already stopped in to see him myself and found him to be a nice enough guy who seems quite supportive; just too busy. He showed me an article they had written over a month ago about our team after doing an extensive interview & photo session, but he had never published it. It was a very good article and I sure wish he had. He promises to make up for it with 'a big front page splash' in the next issue.
I'm very proud of these young people. It is much harder to start a brand-new sport at your school and pay for it all yourself than it is to join an established and funded sports team or activity. I'm also exhausted; I have made myself and the trap machine available 5 to 6 days per week so every team member, busy in many other activities and jobs, could try to make at least two practices per week. I was able to coach smaller groups and work around all their busy schedules that way. It paid off, but it is time to get back to my own life, and even back here to TDR.
My phone is already ringing with parents wanting to sign their kids up next season. After doubling in size this season, it looks like we will at least double again next season, and I have no idea how I will be able to handle 30 to 40 kids without even a facility and with no coaching help. I do have some great volunteer parents, and I will need to convince a few to get certified. Youth shooting sports are booming here in the cornpatch. Now we just need the facilities and support for them.
For a small upstart team (there are 125 high schools and 1325 shooters represented on 92 teams in the sport in Iowa), many of which have been established for up to 26 years, we did fantastic. When the smoke cleared after the final competition rounds and eighty-plus teams had gone home empty-handed, our team was still in it, and in a head-to-head tie breaking shoot-off with a perennial powerhouse and multi-time champion team. It was very exciting, and our best squad really stepped up and met the challenge, winning the showdown 117 to 113 against a very admirable team.
We did not win the State Championship, all 3 of our state awards were for 5th place, but 5th place All-State as a team sure felt like the championship to us. Even if we outshot the other top teams in the Championship, and we did in many cases, there is simply no mathematical way we could beat the cumulative season scores of the most powerful established teams, many of whom rolled up in multiple school buses per team. We don't even have a shooting range to host events and rack up official score after score like they do all season long. We train in a borrowed corner of a cornfield over a portable machine I bought and have to search for and travel to all competitions with room for us to compete.
We did, however, crown the Individual State Champion, named "Captain of the 2011 Iowa All-State Team" as the overall season and tournament 'best-of-the-best' shooter. He also placed 2nd in the state for regular season scoring just one point behind his best friend from a different school but the same hometown.
The SCTP (the national sanctioning body) state championship on the first day saw competitive classes from high school all the way down to grade school. I personally scored a squad of 2 girls and three boys who were in 4th and 5th grade. Let me assure you, they are very good and racked up some impressive scores with their little 20 gauges! One little guy nailed 40 out of 50! Imagine how good he will be once in high school!
My 71 year old mother worked long into the the nights for weeks to make all of our team vests by herself. The print shop finished printing our shirts just hours before we left for state. For the first time, my little band of homeless redheadedstepchildren looked like a real team. And boy did the kids all step up to a whole new level just when it mattered most.
The first and only girl on our team, who had never even fired a gun three months ago, and who finished her very first competition of the season 0 for 50 while fighting back tears of frustration and humiliation (she had only had two practices and I'm not allowed to coach while they are competing) was only outshot by 3 girls in the entire state, setting all new high scores for herself, including one near-perfect round of 24/25, that proved she has earned her rightful place standing shoulder to shoulder with the boys on any squad.
One of our best shooters was out all season, battling for his life in the hospital undergoing months of chemotherapy and bone marrow transplants. He's a graduating senior and fought hard to regain enough strength to get medical clearance to rejoin his teammates for one last time. He's the brutally emaciated 6'6" young man in the photos and he borrowed my son's old 1100 outfitted with a hydraulic recoil-reduction stock and knocked down 89/100 for the day, including a nearly perfect 24, with only that last doggone clay refusing to break. He's the kind of kid that when he got to go home from the hospital for a week between all his chemo and his transplant, and while the weather here was very cold and nasty still, he immediately slipped out the back door, germ mask, hairless head, shotgun and all, and disappeared into the woods and bagged a huge spring season gobbler. Nothing keeps him down.
Every single team member shot new personal bests. When you are among the top 6 trophy-level teams in the state, there are very few points separating the winners from the losers. The 1st place team at the tournament only outshot our 5th place team by 10 broken targets out of 500. That's only 1/2 clay per round of 25 per shooter.
These kids will finally get some recognition from the local paper after being ignored all season in favor of little league scores and Aunt Sadie's gardening tips. I took our trophies straight to the few businessmen that even knew we existed and who supported our team and showed them what these kids had done with that support (it personally cost each team member over $150 in ammo & entry fees just to compete in the state tournaments). Then came an invite from the American Legion to speak at their board meeting. A couple of those community leaders apparently then took a very direct approach and asked the newspaper owner/editor why he had not published a word about our team and if he wanted their advertising dollars how that had better change. I had already stopped in to see him myself and found him to be a nice enough guy who seems quite supportive; just too busy. He showed me an article they had written over a month ago about our team after doing an extensive interview & photo session, but he had never published it. It was a very good article and I sure wish he had. He promises to make up for it with 'a big front page splash' in the next issue.
I'm very proud of these young people. It is much harder to start a brand-new sport at your school and pay for it all yourself than it is to join an established and funded sports team or activity. I'm also exhausted; I have made myself and the trap machine available 5 to 6 days per week so every team member, busy in many other activities and jobs, could try to make at least two practices per week. I was able to coach smaller groups and work around all their busy schedules that way. It paid off, but it is time to get back to my own life, and even back here to TDR.
My phone is already ringing with parents wanting to sign their kids up next season. After doubling in size this season, it looks like we will at least double again next season, and I have no idea how I will be able to handle 30 to 40 kids without even a facility and with no coaching help. I do have some great volunteer parents, and I will need to convince a few to get certified. Youth shooting sports are booming here in the cornpatch. Now we just need the facilities and support for them.
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(almost cost me my marriage, once!!
) Don't forget, it's serious, but it's also supposed to be fun!!
