Shooting sport aims to raise interest in outdoors

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Schools signing on for Clay Target Program

By Larry Rea
Special to My Life
March 17, 2006

Bill Cox is a firm believer in the Scholastic Clay Target Program.

How firm, you ask?

"The SCTP is the absolute best program we have seen to get youngsters involved in shooting," said Cox, who lives in Collierville and is a member of the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Commission, which is the ruling body for the state's wildlife agency. "Our hope is their involvement in shooting will translate into an interest in hunting and will recruit new license buyers."

All of which is why Cox, with the help of the Shelby County school board, and, in particular, board member Ron Lollar, took what Chad Whittenburg, the state SCTP coordinator for the Tennessee Wildlife Federation, called "the bold step to allow the program to be instituted throughout their schools."

Briarcrest is the latest Memphis-area high school to join the SCTP.

"We are forming a league with other schools, such as MUS, Houston, Germantown, Bolton, Arlington and it looks like CBHS (Christian Brothers High School) might also be getting up a team," said Kim Winstead, whose husband, Bobby, is the coach at Briarcrest.

The season runs from March through June. A round of trap is 25, hit or miss. Most competitions consist of four rounds (100) compared to 200 for state and national competition. Individual scores are added to get a team score (all are team events, no individual).

SCTP, developed by the National Shooting Sports Foundation, allows elementary through high school-age youths to compete as a team for national and state titles in trap, skeet and sporting clays. Skeet, Winstead said, is not offered at the scholastic level.

"This is a sport that kids can letter in and get scholarships to many colleges," Winstead said.

Since its inception in 2001, SCTP has seen phenomenal growth, including a 50 percent growth rate in 2005 with an estimated 6,000 participants, according to the Newtown, Conn.-based NSSF.

In Tennessee, the SCTP is administered and guided by the Tennessee Wildlife Federation (TWF) with help from volunteers who act as a steering committee for the program.

The SCTP, which consists of five shooters per team, is designed to teach the importance of safe firearms handling, responsibility, leadership, teamwork and to promote competition.

"We have 26 participants and could have had many more, but being our first year we did not want to keep adding (shooters)," Kim Winstead said. "MUS has 39 shooters and the others all have 15 to 25 shooters. Of course, the interest is spread all over the city based on the school's location."

Plans are being completed to organize an association for Shelby County schools to formalize the events/schedules and compile league rules and bylaws. Briarcrest's Winstead is the league's vice president. Other officers are coaches Kurt Simons of Arlington (president) and Kevin Carter of Houston (secretary-treasurer).

On a recent Sunday afternoon at the Memphis Sports Shooting Association off Old Brownsville Road, Briarcrest held its first scrimmage, testing its marksmanship against Arlington.

The MSSA will host the West Tennessee Regional SCTP on May 6-7.

Briarcrest, which has been practicing twice a week since January, is the lone team whose coach is not a member of the school staff.

The State SCTP is set for June 24-25 at Nashville.

To learn more about the program, go to www.nssf/sctp.org or www.tnwf.org.

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