Author: Tom Davis

During this year’s SASP National Virtual Championships, athletes from 17 states competed from home ranges to help their state become the top state in pistol or rifle and have bragging rights for the next year.

Athletes of their respective SASP State Championships were considered in the following disciplines:

• Rimfire Pistol Iron
• Rimfire Rifle Iron or Optic
• Centerfire Iron
• PCC

At the National Virtual Championship, the 2020 All-State Athletes not only competed for the National title with their team, but also represented their state in Rifle and Pistol teams to crown the top states in the nation.

The Missouri All-State Pistol Team, edged out Tennessee by just over one second to become the top state in the nation for SASP pistol disciplines.

Ohio All-State Rifle Team members claimed their title by over four seconds, becoming the top state in the nation for SASP rifle disciplines.

2020 SASP All-State Finals

The sound of bullets ringing steel were heard all over the country over a three week period in July, during the 2020 SASP National Virtual Championship. Over 248,000 rounds were sent down range as SASP athletes competed virtually from their home ranges in the midst of an unusual season.

Just last year, the SASP National Championship surpassed the Glock Shooting Sports Foundation (GSSF), to become the largest Action Shooting Match in history. Despite a heavily altered season, the SASP community continued to break records for participation with 1,656 event entries for the National Championship in 2020.

Traditionally held at the Cardinal Shooting Center in Marengo, OH, the decision to hold Nationals in a virtual format for 2020 came as a difficult but necessary decision by the SASP national staff. “In order to protect the safety of our athletes, coaches, and families, we had to proceed with a virtual format for the National Championship this year,” said SASP National Director, Rick Leach. “The nature of our sport puts athletes and range officers in close proximity, which we could not in good conscious do with thousands of athletes in Ohio this year. We are incredibly fortunate to have such a wonderful community and are constantly inspired by the SASP athletes, adult volunteers, and families. We received hundreds of photos and videos from teams competing in Nationals from their home range. Almost all gave shootouts to our program sponsors and our National staff on social media and thanked us for giving them the opportunity to compete.”

The silver lining of moving the in-person event to a virtual format was accessibility. “This year we saw participation grow to states that are not always able to make the journey to Ohio each year for Nationals,” said SASP Director of Development, Kelvin Walton. “Although the spectacle of teams converging on the Cardinal Center to compete is part of the Nationals experience, the SASP community made the most out of an unusual season. The ability to compete at Nationals from their home range gave teams all over the country the opportunity to finish the season as a team, competing for the national title.”

Media from member-submitted photo and video can be viewed on Facebook or Instagram by exploring #saspnationals2020

For scores and leaderboard information from the 2020 SASP National Virtual Championship, please see the following link:

https://app.sssfonline.com/nationals/sasp
 

The Scholastic Action Shooting Program is happy to announce your All-State Team members for 2020! Athletes who participated in their SASP State Championship were considered for the 2020 All-State Teams in the following disciplines:

• Rimfire Pistol Iron
• Rimfire Rifle Iron or Optic
• Centerfire Iron
• PCC

All-State Team members will receive a designating jersey, sponsored by GLOCK, CZ-USA, and Ruger. Athletes on the respective All-State Teams who shoot in the 2020 SASP Virtual National Championship will have their scores compared to other All-State Teams to determine the top Pistol and Rifle teams in the nation. The winning Pistol and Rifle team athletes will receive medals for their achievement of best in the nation.

Virtual Series Matches:

-Can be set up by coaches and open to invited teams or all teams

-Can be set for weekly, bi-weekly or monthly competitions.

-Can run up to 52 competitions in a series (if you run weekly events for the entire year)

-Uses team scoring where the top 4 athletes, regardless of classification, on your team are selected to be the team score. There are no set squads.

-When you enter your team into a league it will list all your registered athletes. You only enter scores for the athletes that shoot in a round/match. DO NOT ENTER 0.

-Each round’s/match’s top 4 athletes per team are combined for a cumulative team score at the end of the series.

-Scores you enter for each athlete are the stage scores (best 4 of 5 strings). This can be done on paper or using a tablet to record them and then entered in SHOT system (or SHOT).

-Scores are entered by the coach for everyone into the virtual scoring module in Shot. This must be done by the end of the grace period (date is listed in the match for each round/match).

-Shooting can be done on your home range or at another team’s range if they can host you for a little head-to-head action for the virtual.

-There is no fee for the virtual series matches. (If teams want to run virtual leagues of their own and do awards they can charge a fee outside of SHOT.

-The stages for the match are set by the match host. Those are the stages that must be shot.

-Disciplines to be shot will be based on the match host’s selection and listed in the match.

State and national championship virtual matches (if run):

-These matches will be run if in-person championships are not feasible due to restrictions in place because of the pandemic.

-Matches will be built in Shot by national staff and administered with the assistance of state advisers.

-Matches will be shot at your home range, or possibly at another team’s range if they can host a team, based on restrictions in place.

-This is a onetime match that will be shot over the course of a week or several weeks.

-Disciplines to be shot will be selected by the match director and provided to all teams.

-These matches will be done with traditional squadding (4 athletes in the same classification) as noted in the rulebook.

-State Matches Scores will be entered in tablets if possible and emailed to the state adviser. Paper scores can be sent if a team does not have scoring tablets.

-There will be instructions on how to set up the tablet with the PractiScore file if we do any of these matches.

Nationals virtual if held, scores will be submitted via PractiScore to back to SASP National staff. All four stages must be shot back to back just as they would be at the nationals match. They cannot be split up over multiple days.

We have created a video tutorial on how to get started in the Virtual Series within the SHOT system:

Steel Target Paint‘s Jeff Jones gives SASP athletes a tip on cutting down stage times:

Yes, it’s obvious, but it’s true. Your best runs are going to be one for one runs at your best speed. Don’t try to be someone else, they’ve got that covered, be the best you can be. This is the trick to understanding this method, you are trying to shoot your best performance. For each discipline and every stage you should know your average string time. This is going to help you understand if you where you need to be during a competition. Let’s say you’re a 2 second per string shooter and you shoot a 1.8 on your first string. You might feel confident and push harder on string 2. More often than not, you’ll do worse than 1.8. Now you’re on to string 3 and you get tentative because you want to throw out string 2, so that’s a 2.4. Do you see where this is going? Probably not the best performance. Now, if you knew 2 seconds per string was your goal, after that 1.8 you’d realize you were faster than your norm and keeping the same pace and going one for one is your best opportunity to turn in your best time.

Really? I shot it that fast?

How many times have you heard your time and went “Are you sure you didn’t miss a shot?”. Most times you best runs don’t feel fast. There are the occasional blistering runs, but in most cases, your fast runs don’t feel fast. Everything is working and that’s more than likely because you gripped the gun and went one for one!

March 12, 2020 – By Tom Davis

The Scholastic Shooting Sports Foundation (SSSF) understands the vital role that volunteer coaches play in the success of youth shooting sports. With new teams being activated through programs such as the Scholastic Clay Target Program (SCTP) and Scholastic Action Shooting Program (SASP) every day, the need for a simple, efficient and comprehensive path to coach certification is realized as the SSSF Basic Coach Certification Program.

The Scholastic Shooting Sports Foundation has worked in partnership with Kalkomey Enterprises to create ShootingSports-Ed.com, a platform for shooting sports education needs. Current course offerings include Basic Shotgun Coach and Basic Action Shooting Coach certification programs. SSSF anticipates launching other educational offerings for shooting coaches and athletes in the future.

The Basic Coach Certification Program is designed for prospective coaches wishing to start or join a youth clay target or action shooting sports team as a coach or an adult volunteer. The intuitive, primarily online-based curriculum certifies coaches to work with beginning and novice athletes involved in the shotgun sports of American Trap, American Skeet, and Sporting Clays, as well as the pistol and rifle disciplines of Action Shooting. The curricula covers information and skills needed to guide a shooting sports team such as Safety and Risk Management, Fundamental Marksmanship, Coaching Standards and Ethics, Publicity and Fundraising, and more.

The affordable, online-based curriculum is mobile-friendly and can be completed on your favorite devices anywhere in the world, 24/7/365. Both courses consist of 13 units packed with images and videos. Coach candidates can start and stop coursework at their convenience from the comfort of their home.

Coach candidates must complete a range day within 6 months of completing the online portion of the course to finalize their certification. The SSSF typically works with state partners, including DNR/Game & Fish agencies to provide the half-day range portion of the training. Range days are entirely hands-on with coach candidates shooting and coaching to learn skills that cannot be taught in a virtual environment alone.

Current state partners hosting range days in 2020 include Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Nebraska, and New Mexico. If there is not a range day in your immediate area, you may travel to the next closest range day session, even if it is in another state. If there is adequate, local demand (minimum 20-30 coach candidates), SSSF will work with you to bring a trainer to your area.

In an effort to grow volunteer coach participation on local shooting teams, SSSF will be providing funding to team endowment accounts held at the MidwayUSA Foundation for coaches who complete an SSSF Basic Coach Course and join a local SCTP or SASP team. Teams will receive $200 in team endowment funding for each coach who successfully completes the online and range day portions of the course then subsequently registers for the first time on an SCTP or SASP team.

The SSSF Basic Coach Education Program was made possible, in part, by a multi-state grant through the US Fish and Wildlife Service. The grant project had involved numerous partners including Alabama Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries Division, Arizona Department of Game and Fish, Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Illinois Department of Natural Resources, Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Iowa Department of Natural Resources, Missouri Department of Conservation, Nebraska Game and Parks Commission, New Mexico Game and Fish Department, Amateur Trapshooting Association, National Skeet Shooting Association, National Sporting Clays Association, Pheasants Forever and Larry and Brenda Potterfield.

Curricula support for the SSSF Basic Coach Education Program was provided by Adam Jardines, Annie Unsell, Blaser, Browning, Cardinal Shooting Center, Centerburg Youth Shooting Sports, CZ-USA, David Miller, Dean Townsend, Eliot Jardines, Ed Fitzgerald, Tom Yost, Steel Target Paint, GLOCK, Gnosis Solutions, Hodgdon Powders, Kalkomey Enterprises, Action Target, Ruger, NextLevel Training, Kansas City Steel Raiders, Liquid Image, Inc., Mantis, Matt Hopkins, Michelle Cerino, Mid-Carolina Young Guns, Mill Creek Rifle Club, Promatic, Rock Road Productions, SCHEELS, SIG SAUER, Thaddius Bedford, Tony Monzingo, White Flyer and Winchester.

For more information or to start your Basic Shooting Coach Certification, go to www.ShootingSports-Ed.com.