TargetTalk

I am looking to start a Varsity 3 position air rifle program for the Private High School / Middle School where I work. We do not have a JROTC program, and I am wondering if there are other coaches for 3p who could give me advice on locating other schools in Florida that we could look at.

A few questions I would have is what is the typical "season" that student athletes compete during. What is a good insurance option for the school, and do you typically train year round? Will JROTC programs compete with non-JROTC programs.

Also, if there are any questions I should be asking please do not hesitate to enighten me!!!

Thanks,

Matt

kuromatt wrote:I am looking to start a Varsity 3 position air rifle program for the Private High School / Middle School where I work. We do not have a JROTC program, and I am wondering if there are other coaches for 3p who could give me advice on locating other schools in Florida that we could look at.

A few questions I would have is what is the typical "season" that student athletes compete during. What is a good insurance option for the school, and do you typically train year round? Will JROTC programs compete with non-JROTC programs.

Also, if there are any questions I should be asking please do not hesitate to enighten me!!!

Thanks,

Matt

You can try getting insurance by an NRA insurance program:

http://www.locktonrisk.com/nrains/clubs.htm or you can be a 4H Shooting Program.

Thanks Randy. I will check into that. Any ideas on what a 3p season looks like?

Just reflecting a bit on this as a HS sport. If I were planning it, it should ideally go from October through April/May but for a school I would put it January through April using October-December for warmup/preparation much like football uses June-August.

This would give you, depending on your state, Junior Olympic Qualifiers (Air Offhand/Smallbore 3P)in January, Junior Olympic Championships in April, CMP Junior Olympic Air Rifle 3P Qualifier (April), NRA Sectional Competition for Air and Smallbore (March-April), American Legion postal 3P Air (Starting in January). All of this outside local PTO matches.

If you could swing the October-December training as a coach it would give you time to asses, work on skill development and properly plan so that the training schedule could ramp up to the important events.

Offseason is the National Championships, CMP National Air Rifle 3P Championships. Also programs such as 4-H pickup April-August which can provide valuable training additions to a core program so the shooter isnt idle for 3-5 months.

Thanks that is exactly what I was looking for.

I was hoping that Larry Pendergrass would chime in here by now. There is probably nobody in the United States more experienced in running a varsity rifle program than Larry.

He runs a very successful program in the state of Georgia. I'm not sure how many schools are involved, but I do remember the number being more than 100.

If he doesn't come on here in a day or so and admit how good he is, I will PM you his email address. In fact, I'm going to do that anyhow, as Larry is such a humble guy that he might not come on here to blow his own horn.

I wish you every success in starting this program in your area.
Marc

Thank you very much!!!

I am not going to say that our program here is the best.

In the Anchorage, AK school district we have a varsity program. Our high school season runs September-December. It is a super short stint and not really what I would like to see because training isn't optimum for creating great shooters. Sadly, our shooters only run a matched quarter course each week with a quarter course regional final early in December. None of our students can draw EIC points for these matches. We have 9 school with around 18 shooters each. 4 of the schools have dedicated ranges, though one only has 8 points.

I am trying to encourage dedicated students to go to 4-H and continue training. There I can do far more position training and have more time and staff to dig deep into the sport. through 4-H the students will do the State, JO, American Legion, and other postals we can get our hands on.

Like you, I would love to see how other districts out there run their programs. It would be great to learn how they run team squads and such. Also what rules they use to govern and set up wins for School District meets.

SailAwayAK wrote:None of our students can draw EIC points for these matches.

Why can't you get EIC points?

CMP has changed the system so that, unless a National Championship, it is no longer a percentage of the number of shooters who get points.

Specifically for small programs like yours, they have changed to hard cutoff scores ... all you have to do is sanction it as a cup match and your shooters fire above the cutoffs..
See page 49 in the new rulebook, it has the EIC cutoff score table.

We were told they had to be shooting half courses and the "coaches committee" won't do so. We are hampered by coaches who feel making the teens shoot half courses isn't healthy for their personal or shooting development. *insert laugh here*

O.... M.....G.

Could it be they are too lazy to stay the extra time?
Absurd

jhmartin wrote:O.... M.....G.

Could it be they are too lazy to stay the extra time?
Absurd

LMAO! I fear that is the larger issue. It is fighting an uphill battle. Hence the reason I would like to find out more on what is done in other school programs. Perhaps then I would have something to use in advocating for a program that benefits students wanting to continue shooting after high school.

Well, safe to say, most other programs follow the CMP 3x20 match program.

The way the CMP has the new format set, the difference between a 3x10 and a 3x20 is only 30 minutes.

If the coaches committee cannot be talked into 30 minutes, then what can you do? They are obviously not doing it for the kids.

There's a lot of work put into learning the sport by the kids and to cheat, yes, cheat them out of the awards and recognition that the CMP is willing to give is ludicrous.

I tend to agree with you on the recognitions. Currently there is a 4-H program here trying to get the kids going outside of school. It is fielded with adults who love shooting sports and want to see the kids get the recognition for their efforts. Hopefully, through this, the kids will be able to get the recognition, however it only services students with gear of their own as many of the coaches in the high schools are not willing to lend gear in order for the students to get off (high school)season development.

This is why it would be interesting to see what other school districts and schools do with their programs.

So I have been digging around and am still looking for information on how other locations rule and set up their varsity programs. I too was hoping that Larry or someone would step in and give us some more ideas.

Following up on my quest to get our matches sanctioned with EIC points, EIC points are only awarded on matches shooting a 3x20 3PAR. Looking through what Larry has shooters doing in GA for the State match, that too is a 3x10 3PAR.

Do any high school varsity programs shoot a 3x20?

At Sutter we shoot full matches all 3x20's and our season starts in October and will run through April .The same as most, we have a few matches before jo qualifiers and then into nra sectionals and cup matches , we do not have enough teams in the north to really have a league to shoot in, most of the teams out here are sporter and are in the central valley or in the south land L.A. area. Lincoln and our team have about 20 -25 kids that shoot most of the matches Dean Peterson how has a full team from
San Jose area but that’s a 2 hour drive. So we have the larger weekend matches , we shot about
16 matches this season and then take a 2 month break and then get ready for nationals
We to use 4h as a feeder for the High school team and insurance, Jaycee Carter , Justine Nissen and all of the Ochsner’s have come through 4h
It is a lot of time and work to get a program up and running and you cannot do it by yourself, you have to have a good crew to help, I believe that is a great part of our success we have a lot of people that give end less time to the program and a great community that supports us with donations as we get little money from the school, some but very little, but they are very supportive to the program
And we have been blessed with some great kids over the years , these kids are some of best people I have ever meet so that will offset our great pay