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The State of the Sport: CMP Director Gary Anderson gave the opening presentation at the 2002 National Youth Shooting Sports Leadership Conference. He posed the question, "Are we winning or are we losing?," then outlined how new growth in youth shooting in America and a new generation of competitors, leaders and programs are advancing the sport. On the one hand, we struggle to prevent the closing of one of the world's premier shooting facilities in Atlanta. On the other, in 2000, two billion people around the world watched an Olympic shooting gold medal being presented to an American shooter. When CMP Director Gary Anderson discussed this dichotomy with 100 National Youth Shooting Sports Leadership Conference participants during the opening session at Camp Perry, he said it is sometimes difficult to determine whether we are winning or losing in the promotion of marksmanship. He continued by stressing that he believes we are winning. Anderson emphasized the importance of "the development of leaders" as a key to the future. "To make junior shooting happen, you can't do it without leaders. If there is a common denominator to successful programs, that common denominator is the leader." Anderson highlighted some of the positive points he has observed happening both on the national and international levels: Junior shooting is growing: Anderson described how CMP State Junior Director annual reports show that there are probably more junior shooting and high school rifle teams today than ever before. He also pointed with pride to the great work that youth shooting sports does in developing beneficial life skills for youth who participate and to the fact that juniors now have more great competition opportunities than ever. The emergence of new U.S. shooting heroes: As CMP Director, Anderson has seen firsthand the emergence of a new generation of shooting heroes in the U. S. In 2002, for example, Matt Emmons became a World Champion in 50m prone rifle, won the World Cup Final silver medal in 50m prone and won the World Cup Final gold medal in 50m 3X40 rifle. Also in 2002, Jason Parker became a World Champion and won a World Cup gold medal in 10m air rifle. Just as encouraging is the fact that U.S. Juniors won five gold, five silver and five bronze medals in the 2002 World Shooting Championships. The growth of three-position air rifle: In part because of losing shooting facilities, smallbore competitions at the high school level have been on the decline for the last four decades. However, these losses have now more than been replaced throught the rapid growth of three-position air rifle. Most of this growth is due to the tremendous development of JROTC marksmanship programs. In addition, 4-H Shooting Sports have now become the largest mass participation, grassroots youth target shooting program in America. On the down side, he reported that the support many traditional shooting clubs give to junior shooting is often weak. The National Matches: Despite the September 11th attacks and security concerns that threatened the 2002 National Matches at Camp Perry, there were 4,400 competitors and 2,000 student participants in the Matches' training schools. The National Matches posted their best numbers in ten years. The John C. Garand Match, which was only introduced to the National Matches five years ago, has become its largest event and has become a magnet for new shooters on the national level. This year also marked the introduction of new Springfield/Military Bolt Rifle and Rimfire Sporter Rifle Matches. Safety: Based on data received from CMP-affiliated clubs teams, there have been zero gun accidents in supervised youth programs in two years of CMP tracking. We can be proud of the fact that supervised youth marksmanship is one of the very safest of all youth sports activities. |
