TargetTalk

Hi Rewert, congrats on the success of your daughter. She did great job indeed. :)

At the mean time, i have planned to sit down and talk with the coach. From every sources that I heard from, I found nothing that against my son from shooting precision and join his sporter team every now and then. That might be the best a solution.

My son, he really wants to compete in precision class for CMP state JO 3P AR and NRA state 3P AR, as well as his goal: USAS State JO 3P smallbore and intl AR.

With all the works from school, shooting, and his music activities (2 school bands and his own jazz band). He sure has a very busy schedule. But the thing is, he enjoys and works hard on all of them. That definitely counts.

I think you should hold him back so he gets frustrated, bored and quits!!

Something to think about but first the coach needs to think more about the student/Shooter than himself. Like one guy already pointed out about the ASPE course for Level 2 coach.

Okay back to the Jr shooter I know of three Jr's last year here in AZ that bounced back a forth to sporter and precision. Now what I'm going to say may through some. First ask your son if he does what to go shoot on a club team in the area if the JROTC coach refuses to let him shoot precision.
Now some may this maybe cold but what is the coach into trophy's or title of some sort and maybe cheating a Jr out of possible scholarship.

Now if you do this the coach sense your son is in JROTC may catch some back lash. Put it this way and I'm not telling what to do. I know what my son would be doing talking to his leader and if he says no to him and my son really wanted to shoot. I would ask him this sense they want to be treated with respect and a young adult. What would you want to do I would back you with what ever decision you make.

That if you can find a club here in AZ we have options like that and we have had kids shoot for both club and JROTC and club BUT NOT IN THE SAME TOURNAMENT. 3 of them are in collage today can you say Airforce and West Point.
you know the rest "pray" and have that talk.
Good luck.

After a brief talk:

The reason to keep my son in sporter class is because he wants "his team" to have a chance to win National match. He doesn't care much about individual match, nor anything that involves precision. So basically, he afraid of losing a chance to win, if my son moves on. He said clearly that he wants to be the coach of the winning team. So for him, it is all about "winning!"

He also said if my son move on to precision, my son's Air rifle practice session will be cut down to 1 relay/week, instead of 3 relays or more/weeks. He wants to have the slots for his sporter shooters. This is not a problem for us, my son can practice at home.

Now I'm pretty sure of where he's coming from, and I know what I'm going to do next.

Ya know, I'm gonna admit to a bit of competing vicariously thru the team too.

I try to keep the kids interests in the forefront , and have had some move onto precision when I thought it would be better for them to stay in sporter a bit more, yeah... some team, but mostly wanted their skills developed a bit more.

I learned a hard lesson one day when my own girl came to me and said she wanted to quit shooting .... just like that.
Asked her if anything would make her keep shooting .... she pointed over to the precision shooters. That was the last day she practiced ..... sporter.
We're a 4-H club and they don't shoot the P-Guns in 4-H ... so at our state match I leave it up to her if she wants to shoot a sporter competition. This year she declined and only shot the smallbore competition. She was happy, and it ended up giving another member of our team a chance to step up and win a buckle.

I've had many of my shooters want to try other guns ... shotgun, pistol, etc. .... I think that we as coaches have to give up some of our own ego in order to make sure that this is "A Sport For Life" with these kids.

Move your son on.

When I have coached I have certainly made reference to "my team" and when talking with the team used "we" and "us" but somehow I get the feeling this coach is really possessive about it.

The other thing I kinda have to ask, is the shot (pardon the pun) at the national trophy realistic or something that would require unlikely levels of improvement between now and the national match? I have seen that too, coaches who are convinced that the magic point fairy is going to visit and everyone is suddenly going to start shooting incredibly better in a few weeks time.

Sure, I like winning but honestly as both a competitor and a coach, I would rather lose by a few points and feel like it was a competition than win by a bucketload. Really, is about the competition, not just the winning. I digress...

I am a little bothered about the statement that your son will have limited practice time if he switches to precision. I was not there but from the way it comes across it sounds almost more like retribution than something that is a real problem. Maybe your club has far more shooters than firing points and this is a real issue but honestly except for really small ranges that hardly ever happens.

Yeah, time to move on.

"If you shoot precision then we have no place for you here.", That is how my son's situation sounds like. Sad, but true.

So, we move on. Fortunately, we have found "the" coach who listens, cares and looking out for athletes !!!

Thank you everyone.

Interesting thread and some interesting thoughts. As a coach I find the scenario dissapointing but not suprising. I can see where the original coach was coming from, but it looks like he had misguided loyalties. Anyway, it's good that you made the move and appear to have found a better coach.

Rob.

"If you shoot precision then we have no place for you here."

While the coach may simply be tapped out with his existing program, this is limiting and a bit short sighted. I personally think the sporter classes are a great way to introduce juniors to competitive marksmanship but for anyone interested in moving on and shooting in college, precision just about required. As has already been covered, collegiate programs will only have lukewarm at best interest in someone who has only shot sporter.

Best of luck to your son and you with your new path.