NOVEMBER 2003

TRAPSHOOTING THE OLYMPIC WAY

2003 JUNIOR OLYMPICS

Lester L. Greevy, Jr.

The 2003 Junior Olympic National Championships had the largest ever
turnout for Trap (57 boys - 14 girls) and Double Trap (43 boys - 8
girls). Held at the USA Shooting Fort Carson Range, near the US Olympic
Training Center in Colorado Springs, the Junior Olympic consists of two
days of instructional camp in International Trap and followed by a day
of organized training and a 125 target match plus a 25 target final in
Trap and a 150 target match and a 50 target final in Double Trap to
determine the National champion, second and third place, and in the J2 &
J3 age groups the Gold, Silver, and Bronze winners for both men and
women.

It is a great program. The athletes receive individualized coaching from
National Shotgun Coach, Lloyd Woodhouse and his assistant National
Coaches. After a full day at the range, evening programs deal with
mental issues relating to competition and preparation to compete.

Athletes who attend the Junior Olympic National Championships may stay
in the dorms at the US Olympic Training Center and take their meals at
the dining hall. This is a great experience for the kids, food is
excellent, and the choices are many as would be expected of a facility
to feed world class athletes. On any given day, there may be young
athletes from several sports and countries in attendance. It is a
cosmopolitan atmosphere with a common thread of elite athleticism and
sportsmanship running through all of the sports.

The Junior Olympics are an elite program. Attendance is by invitation
only. By ATA Standards and compared to the Grand American or a State or
Zone shoot, it is a small competition, but the shooters are of a very
high quality, the best their states can produce.

They are elite athletes. Elite shooters are different from recreational
shooters, that difference is sometimes easy to see, but very hard to
define. We can all name the champions who regularly appear on the trophy
list, but can we pinpoint what differentiates them from the others?

Many believe it is a God given talent, a special acuteness of vision or
speed of hand, but I don't. I believe it has to do with training and
with attitude and I believe attitude can be trained.

I have seen many shooters with great natural talent fail and I have also
seen shooters with more modest gifts achieve great success. The
difference is the training and the willingness on the part of the
shooter to accept the training, to be committed and to persevere.

Let me use the kids that I worked with this year, as an example. In
January I put out the word in the Central Pennsylvania Shooting
Community that we were starting an Olympic Double Trap Instructional
League at the Consolidated Sportsman's of Lycoming County Grounds and
any youths interested were invited to attend and find out what it was
all about. At that point, I had only two kids with any experience in the
International Clay Target games. About a dozen young men and women
appeared, all new to the game. We shot through the winter, on Sundays,
sometimes in the rain and snow, we did classroom exercises, including
vision work, and mental training, we set goals, long-term and short-term
goals'outcome and performance goals. Our primary goal for the year was
to shoot in the Junior Olympic National Championships and to win medals
in Double Trap. At that time we had only a 3 trap bunker in operation.

We shot more drills, including Single targets and repeat shots, then we
did rounds of Double Trap. It wasn't exactly fun and attrition reduced
the faithful to about a half-dozen, but they were a committed group.

We developed shooting diaries and performance profiles and training
plans and we continued to drill. We dealt with eye dominance problems
and equipment problems.

We shot the Fort Bennings Selection Shoot in April. For many it was the
first International Competition they had experienced. We had one
standout performance, the rest were only average, but for first time
shooters that was success. The new smaller group began preparing for the
USA Shooting National Championships in July.

About this time our new bunker was, if not completed, at least
shootable. We built on the Fort Benning experience and began to develop
confidence. We wanted to establish an unshakable, positive, confidence
attitude. We shot the PA State Junior Olympic Championships and the
Grand Prix of America and attended the NRA Advanced Junior Shotgun Camp.
Their proficiency increased, their scores rose, and their confidence
built. They were becoming a team.

We continued with classwork, affirmation directives, self-talk,
breathing and relaxation. We continued to shoot drills, but with
different purposes, paying more attention to the second target as
results on the first target improved.

We shot at the USAS Nationals and took second and third in the Men's
Double Trap Juniors, which resulted in one shooter begin reappointed to
the National Development Team. Three of our younger shooters set age
group National records, that was a great success.

We began preparing for the Junior Olympic National Championships now
only a month away. We did more confidence building. We fine tuned our
training plans. We learned how to use the break point of the first
target to set up the second target, to give us an easier shot. We
continued the evolution from preparation mode to competition mode, from
training to trusting.

The kids had showed great improvement from April to July. They knew what
they were capable of and what the competition was. They became more
experienced in and accustomed to finding their own Ideal Performance
State, their own Personalized Performance Programs. They had good
realistic, measurable, achievable goals firmly in mind. Their
Affirmation Directives were finely tuned. There were only six regulars
now. They were a team, each helping the others to perform.

We even practiced some Bunker Trap (singles) because we knew that the
Double Trap Competition was not until the end of the six day Junior
Olympic Event.

It all came together for them. They won Gold and Silver in Men's Double
Trap, with another appointment to the National Development Team and a J2
National Record. In the J2 and J3 age groups, they took three Golds and
a Bronze for Double Trap and one Gold and one Silver and a Bronze in
Singles. All six medaled and more importantly, all six shot their own
personal bests.

They are all certainly by definition elite athletes. With one exception,
they were not that in January. There was little that would have caused
them to stand out from the others. They had no remarkable vision or
speed or strength. They were just six teenagers who wanted to shoot in
the Junior Olympics. But they wanted it more than the others did and
they wanted to perform well more than the others did at the JO
Competition. And they were willing to work harder at it and longer. And
they shot sometimes boring drills and wrote out their goals and
memorized their affirmation directives and visualized their performances
and they ate wisely and stayed hydrated and got their rest and kept
their focus. And they won.

And that's why they are elite shooters, because recreational shooters
won't do those things. The key and the difference is the willingness to
do all of those additional things, to do them daily, weekly and monthly;
to be committed and to persevere.

Success is not restricted to a gifted few. Anyone with a realistic plan
and a willingness to commit and persevere can achieve it. These kids
that I coach are just one example. The very successful ATA/ASSA
Scholastic Clay Target Program is full of examples of small groups of
teenagers seizing opportunity, committing to a goal, training towards it
and achieving success. They are all elite shooters. God Bless Them.