TargetTalk

So what colleges have pistol teams? I was at a PPP match with my juniors this weekend and one of the other coaches and I were discussing how there are so few collegiate pistol programs. How can we get the colleges to start/continue or expand their pistol programs? Or are we doomed to decline and the way of the dinosaur!

Ohio State, M.I.T., North George State, West Point, Naval Academy, Air Force Academy, Coast Guard Academy.

MIT's only has club status or such no?

I think the Air Force Academy had reduced it to club status now,. Also Texas A&M has a pistol team but I don't know if it is club or NCAA. Isabel

I believe that the USMMA also maintains their International program as of the present. "Doc'

The University of Utah.

see http://www.upms.org/

The team participants in the 2010 NRA Collegiate Pistol Championships were:

Mass. Institute of Tech. (club)
North Georgia College and State Univ. (club)
Ohio State Univ. (varsity)
Oregon State Univ. (club)
Texas A&M Univ. (club)
The Citadel (club)
US Coast Guard Academy (varsity)
US Merchant Marine Academy (varsity)
US Military Academy (club)
US Naval Academy (club)
Univ. of Utah (club)

The complete list of colleges that say they have pistol programs is at:

http://www.nrahq.org/compete/college_lo ... te=&Disc=3

Many of these are ROTC only and some say they shoot pistol but might only do it on an infrequent recreational basis.

Have to put in a plug for my program at the University of Virginia. We shoot rifle, pistol and shotgun on a club basis and are as active intercollegiately as the current members want to be. We receive good financial support (more than $10K this year) through the student activities fund (coming up we are sending 8 people to college shotgun nationals in San Antonio). We have sufficient equipment to support 2 or 3 four person teams in each discipline. Our very out-of-date website can be found at:

http://www.student.virginia.edu/riflepi ... b/main.htm

Pistol is far less popular than rifle at the collegiate level. As I do my research, the rationale for this is that rifle is NCAA sanctioned while pistol is not. The University of Utah is also a club and has been since inception. We are lucky enough to have a nice indoor 50 foot range to complement our 10 meter air stations.

Oz

PaulB wrote: Have to put in a plug for my program at the University of Virginia. We shoot rifle, pistol and shotgun on a club basis and are as active intercollegiately as the current members want to be. We receive good financial support (more than $10K this year) through the student activities fund (coming up we are sending 8 people to college shotgun nationals in San Antonio). We have sufficient equipment to support 2 or 3 four person teams in each discipline. Our very out-of-date website can be found at:

http://www.student.virginia.edu/riflepi ... b/main.htm

I will second the plug for UVa. I shot on the pistol team there back in the 90s (Paul was my coach) and the coaching, equipment, financial support, facilities, and regional competition are all first-rate.

Plus, you get an Ivy League education at a Virginia Tech price ;)

The comment about pistol team being less popular is not quite accurate. I ran both UT-Arlington 1990 - 1991 and UT-Dallas 1991 - 1995 pistol teams and it has more to do with perceived liability as well as not being NCAA. Administrators generally do not want to fund teams where there is an increased liability. For some reason pistol is perceived by some administrators to be far riskier than having a skeet or rifle team. I know at UT-Dallas the administrators had no athletic program at all when I started and had no funds or structure for such a program, but the administrators at UT-Dallas really let the team members have it affiliated with the school and were happy that we were representing them at intercollegiate competition. At UT-Arlington the administration was not supportive and completely dismantled the program after I left in 1991. Keep in mind that in 1984 their team actually won collegiate nationals. A very sad state of affairs. UT-Dallas disbanded after we all graduated and Texas Tech disbanded after their top shooter left. I don't know if Texas Tech even has a program at this point.

About 30 years ago I was on the pistol team in college and it was a club sport and we had constant battle with the recreation sports people over schudling and received minimal funding. We didn't shoot international, we just shot conventional pistol. The Navy ROTC unit also had a pistol team and they too were conventional pistol (hey, this is America!)

We got fed up with the hassles dealing with the recreation people so our president and the staff advisor went to talk with the athletic director. There was some conversation about staffing and how much money we would need to run a program. The AD's response baffles me still. We were told that we would cost enough money to justify making it a varsity sport program.

john bickar wrote:

PaulB wrote: Have to put in a plug for my program at the University of Virginia. We shoot rifle, pistol and shotgun on a club basis and are as active intercollegiately as the current members want to be. We receive good financial support (more than $10K this year) through the student activities fund (coming up we are sending 8 people to college shotgun nationals in San Antonio). We have sufficient equipment to support 2 or 3 four person teams in each discipline. Our very out-of-date website can be found at:

http://www.student.virginia.edu/riflepi ... b/main.htm

I will second the plug for UVa. I shot on the pistol team there back in the 90s (Paul was my coach) and the coaching, equipment, financial support, facilities, and regional competition are all first-rate.

Plus, you get an Ivy League education at a Virginia Tech price ;)

I'll third the plug for UVa. I shot pistol there back in the late 70's/early 80's. Paul was my coach back then, too.