TargetTalk

University of Kentucky Scholastic Pistol Program (SPP) Announces
Dates and Location of Recruitment Demo Day

Shelby Township, MI -The Scholastic Pistol Program (SPP) announced today that the University of Kentucky will be holding a Recruitment Demo Day on November 10th at The Bluegrass Sportsman's League located at 2500 Handy Bend Rd. in Wilmore, KY. The UK Scholastic Pistol Program Team was formed due to the popularity and success of the UK's SCTP Shotgun Team.

"The University of Kentucky SCTP Shotgun Team has been a very popular club here with the students," said Daniel Birkenhauer, SCTP/SPP Club Advisor. "We've had a lot of requests for a competitive pistol program so when we heard that the Scholastic Shooting Sports Foundation created a pistol program based on their SCTP, we knew SPP would be a great fit for us."

The Recruitment Demo Day will begin at 10 am and FREE loaner guns will be made available to participants by SPP Founding Sponsors Glock and Smith & Wesson. Discounted ammunition will be available as well.

"While we enjoy working with all schools, being in the heart of the Southeastern Conference, Glock has a special interest in schools in the SEC" said Ed Fitzgerald, Manager - Special Projects, Glock, Inc. "Kentucky will be a great addition to the growing number of SEC schools. I expect the SEC schools to be a powerhouse in SPP as they are in football."

The SPP provides the opportunity for young adults to participate in the exciting and challenging family sport of "speed shooting" in a safe and supportive environment taught by trained and dedicated adult coaches who are focused on teaching the safe handling and firing of handguns.

SPP is organized based on age, Junior Division (ages 12-16), Senior Division (ages 17-20) and Collegiate Division (no age limit, must be full time student). SPP is based on production center fire handguns firing at steel plate targets and offers an introduction to a lifetime sport that family members can enjoy together.

For additional information on the new SPP program or to register your team, contact Director Scott Moore via e-mail at jsmoore357@yahoo.com.

The Scholastic Shooting Sports Foundation (SSSF) is responsible for all aspects of the Scholastic Clay Target Program (SCTP) and Scholastic Pistol Program (SPP) across the United States, including participant registration, coaches, state coordinators, state and national championships, promotion, communications, websites, public relations and growth strategies The Scholastic Shooting Sports Foundation exists to raise funding and other resources for Youth Development Programs in the shooting sports industry.

SCTP and SPP are youth development programs, originally developed by the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), where adult coaches and volunteers model sportsmanship, responsibility, honesty, ethics, integrity, and teamwork while using shooting sports programs to teach these and other positive life skills to the athletes.

To learn more about SCTP or SPP call (586) 7397-SCTP (7287) or visit their website at www.shootsctp.org.

Wouldn't it be nice if there was even 1/10 the interest in promoting Olympic pistol shooting instead of spray and pray "action" pistol shooting. I was recently reminded in a very stark manner how far the interest in olympic shooting has fallen when I ran across a 1990's result sheet from the Texas State JO Qualification match which had about 30 juniors. I bet we don't have more than 6-8 this year.

dschaller wrote:I was recently reminded in a very stark manner how far the interest in olympic shooting has fallen when I ran across a 1990's result sheet from the Texas State JO Qualification match which had about 30 juniors. I bet we don't have more than 6-8 this year.

Back in 2006 & 2007 we would have a total of 8 shooters in the state shooting the JO qualifier (thats total, both air & smallbore). We pushed USA Shooting to reduce the overall cost of the membership (6 mo and no magazine) and match fee to less than $20. For many kids this is the only USA Shooting event they can attend. We've been able to build our number of shooters to almost 40 last year.

Now USA Shooting has raised the junior membership rate and the membership & match fee is again now almost $30. I expect our numbers to drop dramatically back to the '06/'07 levels.

Mike Theimer's response (Youth Pgms Manager) is

For those who have the dedication and desire they need to be junior members to receive all the benefits and a magazine that provides valuable information on how to achieve the Olympic dream.
We do realize that it’s a small number/percentage of all junior shooters that have an interest in the Olympic path. We are here for them.

dschaller wrote:Wouldn't it be nice if there was even 1/10 the interest in promoting Olympic pistol shooting instead of spray and pray "action" pistol shooting.

Yes it would. However,

... FREE loaner guns will be made available to participants by SPP Founding Sponsors Glock and Smith & Wesson.

AFAIK, neither S&W nor Glock make Olympic style guns. I also believe that neither make BE guns, which may be why, even though BE participants outnumber the run-and-gun crowd nationally, that is also not being supported. Too bad - UK has a pretty good small bore rifle team, so there are student shooters here interested in the fine art of accuracy.

But I guess I should be glad anything like this is happening at all - most of the athletics at UK are just a footnote to the basketball team.

Roger

Dave as you know we had a really good team at UTD with no funding, no equipment except our own and I had to run the entire program as a student. We did exceptionally well under those circumstances but the bottom line is that someone at the school has to be the champion for such a program. In 1994 when I graduated and 1995 when the other three starters graduated, the entire program disappeared since we had no school support. UTA completely killed their program off when I left for UTD in 1991 and they had actually won collegiate nationals in 1984. Now the range at UTA is completely gone, the top of the line equipment they had was sold off and the trophies that had been won over the decades are probably sitting in some case forgotten and the meaning is lost over who won them. Pretty sad to see programs like those go under as well as Texas Tech which used to have a program as well.

For the record S&W M-41's with 5 1/2" barrels would work fine for Free, Standard and Sport pistol. Many college teams would be very grateful to get such support.

Nick