How old were you?
11. My dad and my uncle got me started out there.

Were they shooters before or…?
Yes they were. My uncle is a high power shooter, Al Ewing.  He won inter-service rifle back in ’63 in Quantico, VA, which used to be a really big deal.  I guess it still is a big deal.  So yeah, he’s been doing it forever.

So was this primarily high-powered shooting that you were doing at the time?
No it was a small-bore club. I kind of started out high power and small bore about the same time, I didn’t really get into high power too much until a year or two later, it used to be small bore in the winter and high power in the summer.

What happened next?
My progression was slow, that’s the easy way to say it. I was a later bloomer, but basically kinda went down the high power, small bore track through junior high and high school and then…

You were shooting Perry all this time?
I shot Perry a couple of times high power, like every other year sort of thing; ’77, ’79, ’81.

Were you shooting a M14 or M1A rather?
It would have to have been an M1A, I think I shot an M1 when I first started but I only did that for a year.  I started getting serious about trying to go to school and so I put a little bit more effort into small bore and I went to school but it didn’t work out so I quit and joined the Army.

Did you go to school with a scholarship or something?
No, I wasn’t good enough to get a scholarship back then. When I first gave school a try I was kind of a borderline shooter, I thought I was pretty good, but I didn’t know any better.

Right, we’ve all done that
So I did that for a couple of years and then went to the AMU for service rifle.  I wanted to be in international rifle, they wanted me in service rifle, the Army won.

Did you go into the Army first? Or you went into the Army to come into the marksmanship unit?
I went into the Army to come into the marksmanship unit..

But primarily based on your service rifle?
I shot with the Texas National Guard Team, at All Army and stuff like that earlier in that year.

I shot OK high power scores and decided that going into the AMU, shooting for the high power team would be better than being at school and sucking at it. So I came here, shot for 4 years on the service rifle team, was reasonably successful, won National Service Rifle Championship in 1990. But all that time I was still wanting to be in international rifle and they just didn’t have room for me at the time…

And what fueled your desire for international rifle?
I don’t know, stubbornness. Just what I wanted to do. So, so I kind of worked a horse trade deal my last year here. My enlistment was up right before Camp Perry and I kind of bribed them. I said hey if you guys let me shoot international rifle over the winter I’ll extend for 2 months, so you guys can use me at Perry. This was the year after I won Service Rifle Championship and all of that stuff so I had a little bit of pull.

The service rifle stuff, even though I hated it, was good for me now. I mean it’s just a lot of work.  You have to pull targets out there, shooting in the hot sun, its just not that much fun.  Going to Camp Perry just to shoot 30 shots from dark til dark, it doesn’t get any worse than that for me. But the service rifle guys, they like doing it.

But it did teach me how to win, that’s where I honestly believe I learned it, that winning is a learned skill, it’s a developed skill. It isn’t something that just happens.

Okay, develop that.

Well you can’t just kind of haphazardly do it. You know, there’s a lot of people that just show up to the range shoot their shots and whatever happens happens, and then there’s others who make a plan for what it is they want to accomplish. They set their goals; they develop their training plan and all of that kind of stuff. It was kind of funny, when I was here for the World Cup last month Jack Hyder came by,  he was the service rifle coach when I was here way back when, and he was coach for 10 or 15 years, so it wasn’t a short period of time. He said I was the only one who ever gave him a training plan and went out and accomplished my goals. I mean everybody else was just did it and whatever happened happened. And some of those guys had successes, but none of them coordinated with the coach. So that’s what I mean by learned how to win, learned that to win you have to take some extra steps. You have to make your plan, develop your training system or whatever it is to work and then go out and actually execute. That’s what I mean by learn to win.

Actually, I think it was because I was an international rifle wanna-be when I was in service rifle, because the international rifle guys have been doing that stuff for years, writing their goals, developing the training plan and all that kind of stuff. It just wasn’t something that the service rifle guys knew how to do.

Uh-huh
Or knew that they should do, I think some of them do that stuff now, but back in the dark ages service rifle was so deep they used to have hundreds of people they could take on their summer trips, and you could pick and chose a few guys that had the talent or just had been doing it long enough that they knew it, knew what was going on. But by the time I was there we were down to 15-20 people on a summer trip and you kind of had to do something a little bit extra if you were going to beat the Marines.

Ok, so you were what a E5, an E4?
I was E5 at the time.  And I was in my first tour in the Army; what I really learned was that being an enlisted person in the Army wasn’t for me, there was more to life than that.

This is interesting.
Yeah. As the World turns.

Ok, so you extended your enlistment for two months to get through Perry, but how did that two months benefit you?
It benefited me because I got to shot international rifle all winter, and I shot enough matches to get some scores to interest Marsha  Beasley up at West Virginia.  Then I shot service rifle at Perry, packed up and went straight to school in West Virginia. Shot my last two years of eligibility there.  Got my Aerospace engineering degree, won the NCAA individual championship in ’93, in three position, was on two NCAA winning teams, so I mean, definitely the shooting progression was still there. I was just developing on what I’d learned service rifle.

And you’re how old at this point? In ’93?
I was older than the average student at West Virginia. When I graduated from there, I was 29.

So, when I was shooting there I was 26-27, so I was five or eight years older than everybody else on the team, so I was the “old fart”.  I got my degree in ’95. I was out of eligibility in ’93; I only had two years of eligibility left, so I stayed on there and graduated in ’95.

And went to work?
Yes, I went to Denver area working for Lockheed Martin, I did that for, a year basically. Made the Olympic team in ’96 and Lockheed Martin wasn’t very cooperative. They were like well you might have a job here when you get back. I wanted a leave of absence so I could train and all of that kind of stuff.

You were in the Army Reserve then because I met you with Bob Mitchell and Helmut Hein at a Reserve party.
Yeah, you’re right. Making the Olympic team was kind of like there’s always one or two at every Olympic try-outs that just kind of come out of the blue and make the team and nobody really saw it coming. Well that was me in ’96.

Then of course, you know, once you make the team, if you’re new and inexperienced like I was, you suddenly decide that everything has to change, you’ve got to get better. So I did all of that, and it was obviously the wrong thing to do.

What kind of things were you changing? Everything?
Dave Johnson’s argument is that what’s been working for me as a competitor has been being employed with shooting as very much a sideline. He thinks I get bored with too much shooting and that may be true. But, so anyway one of the things I was doing, you know I took a couple of weeks off work to go to the Olympic try outs, make the Olympic team and then suddenly I decided to start shooting full time. Well, that was completely different from my schedule before. I was doing some mental training/relaxation that kind of stuff prior to the try outs and all of that ended for some reason.  I’m still not even sure why. Just changed a lot of little things that added up to… not a very good performance at the Olympics.

So, that was disappointing, but you marched on so speak, how did you end up in the World Class Athlete Program?
Well in ’98, actually it’s kind of funny.  Dave Johnson and I both just had an absolutely miserable World Championship team selection match, actually I think I did OK at the national championships that year. But we both pretty much decided independent of each other that we were going to have to shit or get off the pot, you know? Either get serious about shooting or quit, because just sucking at it is too painful.

Uh um.

So kind of independent of each other we decided we were going to try to get on the Army World-Class Athlete program and we both ended up getting selected for it. So I came back to the AMU, it was August of ’98, that was a good experience, you know coming back to international rifle where I’d wanted to be all along. Best job I ever had, bar none.

Really?

Yes, being international rifle at the AMU is the best job there is going. I had some modest success, just kind of came up short making the Olympic team in 2000. But I had some international success, won Dortmund three position, second place in prone at the French masters, made some finals at World Cups, no medals or anything but I was kind of still in my progression, still learning. But when my two years there was over I was an E6 already selected for E7 and to come on active duty they were going to bust me back to E5, and something in my mind just wouldn’t, wouldn’t let me do that,

Yep

So I got out, went to work at Ball Aerospace. Who, I have to say, has been very supportive of me, but you know still I’d like to be shooting full time, you know who wouldn’t?

But at least Ball is in Colorado?

Yeah in Boulder. So I’m a lot farther from the OTC than I would like.  I have to actually make a concerted effort to go down there when I do go. So that’s why I started shooting a RIKA, cause I just couldn’t get that many live rounds down range, and actually it was from that point on when I started having some international success.  I had a little bit of success in 2001, won a couple of CAT medals; I don’t think I did anything at the World Cups that year. In 2002 I decided I was going to get serious and make the World Championship team to see what I could do there. Made it and I think I qualified for five events out of six.  I gave up one of those spots to Mike Anti for three position. And he got a quota slot so that worked out well. And I ended up medaling, individual medal at 300 meters three position which I had really worked hard on putting together a good gun and working up loads and practicing and all that kind of stuff. So, I mean it was kind of more of my progression to shooting, learning what it takes to win. And then after that the 2003 World Cup, gold medaled prone at Ft. Benning…

I remember that.

World Cup gold medal at Sydney in 2004, didn’t make the Olympic team again, but you know still having successes that are more consistent and then this year, shooting a 600 prone at the World Cup here, of course that would be the day that the French guy also shot 600 too, but you know that’s life in the fast lane.

And then he beat you out in the final, that really sucks.

Yeah, I had very mixed feelings on that. It’s like shooting the world record, that’s pretty cool not winning that’s a little less cool. But, you can’t be too disappointed, prone matches are always close especially at the World Cup level. The other two gold medals that I did win I think both of them were by a 10^th of a point over second so it’s not a big margin in prone at any time.

Right. It seems like there is a progression as you get out of serious training time, leaving the military, etc,  you go from 3 P back to prone, is this because its easier to train or…?

Yeah, somewhat that, but more to the selection process, this is another one of Dave’s things,  you know he’s gotta put medals on the table plain and simple and so I’ve proven myself in prone and not so much in 3 position. And so Dave pretty much puts me in the prone basket, he says you’re the prone guy.

 That’s fair enough
Yeah, that’s fine I can live with that, but I also want to be a 3-position guy. I mean I feel like I’ve still got a lot of skill and something to offer, in 3 position it just hasn’t shown up yet.

Why is that?It hasn’t progressed like prone has.  I think that’s simply a matter of the amount of training time I can spend. I mean, for me prone I can essentially be ready for a match in three days. Three days of training. In 3P it’s probably more like three months, to get up to a level where I can probably do something at an international level. And I just don’t have that kind of time anymore.

What do you do in three days that you feel like is adequate? I mean … Lets start over. What’s your training regime through the normal week or month at home? I know you’re using the RIKA, do you physically plan to train once a week or twice a week or?

No, it’s usually more like I’m cramming for a test. Anymore, if I’ve got a match coming up, depending on the importance of the match to me, I’ll set aside a certain amount of time where I’ve got to start training now and work my way up to the match, like Olympic try outs it was about two months, is what I had. And that, you know just wasn’t enough.   Part of what I think I need is more matches, to just you know learn that whole schedule of… here’s the match, work backwards…

Yep

This is what my training is up to that match, and I just don’t have enough matches, in my opinion, to get that working. At least for three position. Prone, you know I’ve done reasonably well in with little preparation, so for three position before the World cup, I started out about a month ahead of time. Went down the OTC a couple of days, shooting on their indoor range, finally got it set up so I could shoot at the Boulder Rifle Club outside at 50 meters on the 6 bull targets, so I probably shot live six or eight times prior to the USA World Cup in 3P. I was prone and 3 position. I didn’t really use the RIKA too much before that. I used the RIKA when it was winter prior to the Rocky Mountain match, but I did mostly live fire prior to the World Cup. And then getting ready for nationals, unfortunately, I only had about a week.  I had a whole bunch of other things going on, probably stupid things, but you know nonetheless time killers.

That’s life, yeah

Time killers, yeah. So I ended up doing all of my training on a RIKA for Nationals. I shot two days live fire. I had my naval reserve drill down in Colorado Springs at Fort Carson, and so I drug Sandra along, and we both would, after my drill was over,  go over to the OTC so it just made for really, really long days.

No doubt

I had two days of live fire prior to coming here, but mostly it was probably about 2-3 days a week on a RIKA prior to coming here.And at this point how are you using the RIKA? Just pretty much just shoot and see the results of your shot?

Yeah, just shoot see the results of the shot,  shooting on a Rika is easier than shooting in real life, because you’re shooting your perfect shot instead of dealing with the  dispersion, the wind, ammo,  and all that kind of stuff. I can’t remember the last time I dropped a point prone on the RIKA. It’s just literally been years.

Really

But, what I really try to do is see if I can shoot a 10.7 in prone. If I can shoot a 10.7 on a RIKA, I know I’m on.  If I’m, at a 10.5 or something then it needs some work. It’s just, you know, it’s just the level of the whole process relative to the target. And same thing goes for kneeling and standing. Standing unfortunately has always been kind of my Achilles’ heel. And what I work with on the RIKA is trying to get my hold as small as possible, and then of course executing while the hold is actually in the middle of the target.

Uh-huh

Kneeling I probably use it more like prone. I’m closer to perfect on kneeling.

What kind of ways are you trying to affect your hold that you can see in the RIKA?

Recently I’ve been working on, the tension in my shoulders. I’ve come to think that it’s very important and I haven’t been giving it very much consideration before for prone. I just had this certain feel in my shoulders when I shoot. And that’s basically what it takes my 3 days of training to get ready is getting that feel down. Not just matter of getting my hold together, my hold is fine almost from the start, it’s the having the feel that’s hard to get. And when I have that certain feel in my shoulders it’s kind of impossible to describe.

Yeah, I was sitting here trying to figure out how to ask a question that could get you to describe it

It’s just a certain state of relaxation, a certain state of picturing your position maybe?

Is this something you do with stretching exercises or…

No, it’s just, you’re getting in position and it’s like settling into a certain feel.

And you know it when you’re there?

And I know it when I’m there. And unfortunately there’s places where it’s close to there, but it isn’t there.

hmmmm

And it’s that fine distinction, and that’s why it takes about three days to get back in the groove, back in the knowing what the feel is. And unfortunately that isn’t going to help the people reading this interview any.

Not in a technical sense but it gives something to look for that maybe they would not have thought of.

But for me prone is a very felt position. What’s it feel like? ‘Cause when my position is right and I normally get a little bit of adrenaline in these matches but if my position is right it doesn’t matter. You know, like the World Cup last month, I shot a 600; I had adrenaline through the entire match. It wasn’t a 150 pulse like it was in the Olympics in ’96, it was kind of a steady probably 100-120 beats a minute, little bit of anxiety but when the position is right… It doesn’t matter, yesterday in my final, that started off pretty atrociously. I didn’t have the feel so I kind of got out of position got back in, and when I did, then it was like “oh there it is again”. It’s a very subtle thing and, and I think the reason I can do this stuff with my prone position, and you know only train for you know three days or less than a week and get ready for a big match, is because I just been doing it forever. I’ve been doing prone in the same position for 10 years with out really changing anything.

So you’ve got the basics down and you just need to…

Yeah, I just need to fine-tune it.

I know from my engraving, if I go off and don’t it for a couple of weeks or longer, it takes me a couple or three days to get the right feel. I mean I can do the normal stuff but the real delicate stuff it takes me a day or two to get back in the zone.

Yes, your straight muscle memory is already there, but there’s just something a little extra there that, it knows where it wants to go after, after you get into it.

So you’ve been using this basically same position for ten years, did you ever use the RIKA to refine anything using the hold analysis? 

One thing that the Rika really did teach me about was the cant of the rifle and its something that before I had the RIKA, I didn’t really pay that much attention to. I mean I got a bubble on there so I know I get it kind of close, but if you do that on a RIKA if you only get it kind of close, you’re going to be way out. So learned to be real precise with it on the RIKA and that translated over into live firing, and I think that helped out some.

Prone just takes a certain amount of time, a certain number of dry fires, shots, whatever before you get back into that feel. And when I train on the RIKA, I’m really you know looking at the kind of the timing of the shot, the size of the hold, you know where in the hold I shoot the shot. I try not to, you know, sit on the gun too long and just let it have a perfect hold because that doesn’t do any good, I just, I mean I want it to settle in and then shoot the shot. I’m trying not to; you know, sit there and stare at it too long. And that’s the kind of stuff I watch on the RIKA.

Yes

It’s like where in my trace did I actually shoot the shot.

Pistol or rifle either one, I think the more aggressive you are in the shot your scores go up, I think that’s what a lot of people learn out of RIKA  is how good their hold was.

And prone for me, that’s never a problem, well I won’t say never, but in a long time it hasn’t been a problem. It’s kneeling and standing where I’m either late on the shot or something like that. If you just squeeze the trigger, about right there some, anytime in that time frame you would’ve had a 10 but, you know, you waited to long or whatever. So, that’s some of the stuff I learned from RIKA.

What kind of rifle are you using now?

I’m using an Anschutz 1813, it’s in a 1913 stock since stocks seem to come and go. It’s a wood stock.  I used an aluminum one in, probably starting in 1999 through about 2001 and had some success with it, but I eventually got rid of that stock and just screwed my old action back into the wood, and miraculously, like over night my scores jumped, so I don’t know if that little rubber pad in those Anschutz stocks get compressed and lose its effectiveness or what, but it was night and day. It has a barrel in there that was put in by David Tubb back in ’93.

It’s a Schneider barrel, still got the original Anschutz trigger which people say is impossible for a 20, 22 year old rifle. It’s had some work done occasionally, one of the pins get loose. It’s got those tapered pins in there.

One of those

And they’ll come loose every once in a while and I will have to epoxy the thing back in there, but over all its been great. I don’t want to switch it out because, you know, who knows what you get then.

I can’t believe your still using the same trigger that’s amazing.

I’ve tried actively since ’98 to find a back-up/replacement gun for this rifle and haven’t even come close; I mean its just one of those rifles that just shoots great and just kept shooting great so far.

How many rounds have you got through it?

I don’t know. I mean I shot that thing full time when I was at West Virginia and then when I was here at the AMU for  WCAP I shot a lot of rounds, so I’ve probably got 100,000 rounds through it at least. But luckily the last 4 years you know I’ve hardly shot any live rounds, it’s mostly matches where I’m shooting live rounds, and the occasional training session and so I’m not really wearing it out.

Still you are pushing the life of a barrel, in theory.

Yeah, in theory. I don’t think the barrel is as good as it was in ’96 when I made the Olympic team then. I mean when I was shooting good then, I was just pounding. But, you know, it’s still good enough to shoot 600s, you know, I’ve had what four 600s here in the last 3 years.

Obviously it’s still good. How do you go about selecting ammo?

I have one lot that I’ve got very little left of. That was actually my practice lot when I was at the AMU, so I kick myself thinking about how many rounds of that crap that I shot up just in practice. But it’s the same lot that I’ve won all of my World Cup medals with; shot all of my 600s with. Got about 2000, well 1800 rounds of it left now that I shot up 200 here at Nationals.

So it’s been around awhile

This gun for whatever reason likes the older Eley, like ‘92 to ’95 era Eley. It doesn’t really like the new EPS; we’re trying the new, the semi-auto, the round nose EPS ammo in it. I’m testing some ammo now so I don’t really have the results on that yet, but we’re hoping to find something modern that works in it. Cause the old stuff is running out quick.

Are you using standard Anschutz sights or are you using something different?

I’m using standard Anschutz sights, with Centra twin 1.8 rear irises. I’ve got a different sight for standing and then a different one for prone and kneeling because I use riser blocks for standing and I don’t want to have to spin the knobs unnecessarily to adjust between positions so I just have one for both. I use the glass Centra front sight apertures, I really like those, I think they give you a great sight view

What kind of advice would you give to a junior starting out?

Get with a good coach. I think that’s the thing that kind of kept me from progressing faster, is that early on I had, I had a pretty good junior coach . I was only shooting one day a week and all that kind of stuff when I was younger. Kids these days, heck they’re shooting 4-5 days a week and you know they’ve got the best equipment and good coaches and all that kind of stuff and they’re progressing you know 10 times, 100 times faster than I did back then.

You think?

It’s kind of amazing. But getting a good coach and really working on the basics early versus trying to re-learn them later, that makes things go a lot quicker.

Some kids don’t have a good coach, what sort of resources would you recommend? Besides reading this interview LOL

Besides reading this interview, just when you get to big matches; talk to people. Shooters are generally very nice and friendly; they’ll help you out if given the chance. Watch what the good shooters do. You will see an awful lot of strange positions especially at World Cups and stuff like that, but you’ll notice that just about anything will work if you work, you know, if you work with it. It works for you. I’ve, since I’ve, I’ve started coaching a little bit lately, I’ve come to the conclusion that there is no one size fits all position. You know there’s a good place to start everybody from, but then everybody’ll kind of deviate into their body style and all that kind of stuff. For new kids, Target Talk’s not a bad place to go as long as you kind of know the source of your information, there’s some people on there that think they know more than they know.

Gary Anderson said one time down at Wolf Creek, we were talking about  Josef Gonci’s head position,  that  “A well practiced mistake is better than an eternal search for perfection” and that’s true for a lot of endeavors in life.

Yeah. Well, its like Raymond Debevics knee off the ground in kneeing, I mean nobody else in the world could shoot that position. But he’s obviously very good at it.

Well this is a personal gripe, but all these whistles and bells and multi-adjustments on aluminum stocks and I think beginners whether they’re adults or juniors would learn more about how to shoot if they just had a plain old wood stock and would just shoot. Because you shoot and make a shot and think oh well I didn’t have this adjusted exactly right and I need to do this.

Well, yeah some people fiddle with things, I mean there are adjustment people and those are the ones that are almost always never there in the end. I mean those are the ones that there’s always something not quite right with their setup and like you said practicing imperfection is better than always looking for that mysterious goal.

Cause you are blaming something outside yourself.

Right; and you know maybe I’ll use Lance Hopper’s name in vain, but he was one of those fiddlers and he’s had a lot of success in service rifle ‘cause you just can’t fiddle with anything there. It’s like those women shooting standard rifle, it took them two or three years when they went to sport rifle before they started getting back up to where their standard rifle scores used to be. And I think that’s simply because they had all of these new adjustments they had to fiddle with and mess with and it hurt them. That’s why I think a coach, a knowledgeable coach, is invaluable, ‘cause, you can really get spun around the axle trying to figure out all of the adjustments on these new rifles. I mean it’s kind of phenomenal what you can adjust these days.

Other suggestions for juniors would be to get good books. “Ways of the Rifle” is a good one. I read through Lanny Basham’s mental management stuff, listened to tapes, all that kind of stuff. That’s kind of more for an advanced level. You know even a book like “Ways of the rifle” might be a little too far up the ladder for a beginner because they’ll see all of these, all of these different positions and go try it all I guess.

Uh hum

It won’t necessarily work for their position, but that’s, if your on your own and don’t have access to a high quality coach, you have to make do. And be patient, ‘cause shooting is a sport for life. You know ask me, ask Harold Stenvaag , or Debevic, some of these guys have been doing it for centuries it seems

Shooting is something you can do almost forever. Even eyesight isn’t that critical anymore, with just a good pair of glasses you can go shooting. You just have to want to and then keep doing it.

That’s my theme.  I haven’t given too many speeches, but I’ve given a few and my common theme is persistence. You know, I guess I’m just too stubborn to quit and its paid off because I’m starting to reap the benefits of sticking around long enough to learn how to do it right.

How old are you now?

39 , not as old as Steenvaag or Anti or some of these other guys, but you know just goes to show you, persistence, keep at it, be too stubborn to quit and good things can happen.

And more good times are coming for you, no doubt. You’ve talked a little bit about mental things, how do you plan your mental game?

Right now my mental approach is basically wrapped around managing expectations. It’s when I expect to go do something, if I expect to go win a match that’s, I mean it’s like I put too much pressure on myself.

If what I’m trying to do is show up, shoot the best that I can and see what happens, that’s when I have my success. That’s what I did when I shot a 600 in the World Cup. When I win my medals. When I do stuff like that its like just try and go do the best I can. The other competitors don’t matter…

So, that’s what I’ve discovered works for me. Some things work for different people, like when I tried to be like Lanny Basham of course, after going through all of his stuff, all of the “where are they keeping my medal now” approaches.  That approach doesn’t work for me, it’s when I put all of that stuff out of my head and just trying to shoot the best I can, that’s what works for me.

Was learning that for yourself something that just gradually took time or did you have a “oh yeah” moment where it clicked?

No it definitely gradually took time. Actually, I think my turning point was the World Championships in 2002. I went there shot pretty good prone, 50 meter prone ended up just missing the final. I was pretty disappointed with that. Then we got out to shoot 300-meter stuff and I shot pretty well. I shot a 597 prone at 300 meters, the World Champion also shot a 597 prone, I just happened to shoot mine in the wrong order. ‘Cause there’s no finals in 300 meters.

Right

So it’s all tie breaking. I shot three 100s and then three 99s, not a bad score but it just happened to be 6^th out of six of them. But in three-position you know, things started clicking, and in prone I kind of expected to win, it was that expectation thing.

And, when I got to three-position it was like well I don’t know what I can do here, but lets, you know, take this thing out for a drive and see what it can do. And I ended up getting a silver behind Raymond Debevic you know it’s not too bad. And for me, it was kind of a turning point. It was like well now I know I can do this stuff at this level.

You know, these guys put on their shooting pants, one leg at a time just like I do. So there was no more awe over the other shooters, or wasn’t any, you know, intimidation it was just like, you know, if I do what I do, then I’ve got a chance. And I’ve just kind of been steadily building on that since then.  I don’t get to shoot that many World Cups anymore because I just don’t have the time off work, so I think in the last 3 years I’ve shot 5 World Cups and got 3 medals, so that’s…

That’s a really good percentage.  Especially when you’re not shooting full time 

Yeah. So, and plus a medal at the World Cup final. So it, that’s actually 4 out of 6 if you count that one.

Not bad at all

So I just need to keep plugging along.

What the funniest thing that ever happened to you shooting?

Funniest thing? I don’t know. I guess I’m too serious about it to have too much funny stuff on the line, but off the line there’s a lot of good fun and jokes and stuff like that.

But nothing ever happened around somewhere that you didn’t want to or shot somebody else’s target or…

I never done it, well I never done that in small bore. I’ve done it in high power, Of course there’s the jokes that some shooters play on each other. Like when I was a freshman at West Virginia, they loaded up our equipment bags with 20 lbs of chain or something like that. Just giving us grief because we were the new guys.

What’s your most memorable experience shooting?

Shooting that 600 at the World Cup was pretty memorable, that was a lot of fun. My most memorable, just really sticks out in my head experience because of shooting, was walking into the opening ceremonies at the Atlanta Olympics. I mean just walking down that ramp into the stadium, 80,000 screaming folks, and you know, we were the host country so we were the last ones going in so all of the other countries were already lined up on the field and that was, it still gives me goose bumps when I talk about it. Even now.

I’ve had exactly that same feeling walking into the stadium in Sydney you know. It’s amazing with the whole world watching you, it’s just indescribable. 

Yeah, it was, it was one of the neatest experiences I’ve ever had. I’d like to do it again.

Well, Beijing’s coming

Probably the most memorable thing that folks connect with you is a story about a broken stock…

Yes, I did. That was the 2000 Olympic trials and I had already missed the team in prone. Well actually this was the first selection match, so there was still another part of it to come. But by the time the thing was done I was out of it in everything essentially. And you know it wasn’t like I snapped a gun stock across my knee or something like that. I just kind of popped it off my sling after kneeling and kind of slammed it down on my offhand stand and it just snapped in half. Those cast aluminum stocks are pretty brittle apparently, but anyway so it gave me kind of a reputation.

I hadn’t heard that calm of a version.

Well there was an expletive expressed at the same time as I was putting this rifle not so gently down.

But it was on the offhand stand?

Yeah, it was on the off hand stand. So, needless to say, I was in somewhat trouble with the Army, they weren’t real happy. I wasn’t real happy, USA Shooting wasn’t real happy. So, yeah there was a lot of angst over that.

Well life goes on. You’ve made a lot of friends in shooting too.

Oh yeah, some of my best friends are still here at the unit. We do the good-natured ribbing, they can give me grief for being in the Navy now…

How did you go from the Army Reserves into the Naval Reserve?

In 2000 after I didn’t make the Olympic team and I had decided I didn’t want to get busted back to E5, I started looking into my options on what kind of officer programs were out there. I’ve got an Aerospace Engineering degree and I don’t think I should be out there in the front digging foxholes. So the Army didn’t really have any use for me as an officer, Air Force had a mild interest in me and I like flying, that’s one of my other expensive hobbies. So I really would have liked to be in the Air Force, but it just didn’t work out. Especially when I moved to Colorado, they’ve got 3 Air Force bases there and the Air Force Academy and a lot of Air Force people coming off active duty there who go straight into the reserves so they didn’t have a slot for me. I looked into the Naval Reserve and they have a direct commission program since I have an Aerospace Engineering degree and a little bit of military experience they said OK. Raise your right hand now you’re an officer. And you know that’s a hell of a deal, the only problem is I actually have to go out and do Navy stuff, so that’s just one more bite out of my time that I don’t have too much of.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s done a lot for me. They, Navy sports, has given me a little bit of support every once in a while, when they have it. Shooting isn’t an official Navy sport, so anything we do get is leftovers. They might pay our entry fees in one match or they gave Sandra a plane ticket over to the World Championships in 2002 in Finland, so they, they’ve been pretty helpful, considering they don’t actually have us in their budget anywhere. So, that’s good.

Now what kind of Navy stuff are you doing for them?

Well right now, I’m the administration officer for a battalion, which means I…

They have BATTALION’s in the Navy?

Yeah, I’m in a SeaBee unit.  A  SeaBee battalion, so we’re the construction guys, we build bases for the Marines or whoever. We just had a group of people come back from Iraq that were building bases for Army, they had like 3 different detachments out building things.

So, I’m admin officer so that ends up taking a few hours a day, answering emails and getting information to the right people and you know working on things, I’ve got a big pile of Navy stuff I brought along to do on this trip.

That’s funny; I have got National Guard stuff to do over in the car

Yeah, so  there’s just a lot of time commitment that gets used up, so I’ve got to do my one weekend a month. Luckily, I think I’ve been really lucky in this. I haven’t had too many drill conflicts between shooting matches and the Navy. The weekend before I did my normal drill weekend and then we trained at the OTC in the evenings and then the next Saturday I had to go up to Cheyenne, I’m also the Cheyenne detachment OIC, so I’m kind of splitting a couple of different directions. I had to go up there and do some stuff, and then we left for here the next day.

Any technical advice to juniors as far as equipment goes?

I shoot an Anschutz 2002 compressed air. My advice is get the best stuff that you can afford. If you can afford to get a free rifle, if you’re a man and going to shoot a free rifle, get the free rifle don’t kind of go half way and then have to upgrade in a year. Don’t spend more than you got but get, you know, what do they say? Quality has no regrets?

Hmm um. Who said that?

I don’t know.

Me either, but I bet he was a smart, good looking guy

I don’t know about that. So yeah, get the best stuff you can get. Get a good fitting set of clothes, custom or at least semi-custom clothes. You know, if you are at the real basic level that isn’t as critical, ‘cause you are really just learning basics, learning the fundamentals, but as you get up there you have to have a good fitting set of clothes or you are giving points away.

I have heard that if you have a good position, and good fitting outfit, a good shooter can, can line up without sights and shoot pretty darn good.

Yeah, maybe

You got any comments about that?

I recommend using sights.

Quote: Upta says use your sights. 

You couldn’t have shot that 600 without them, huh?

No. No that would have been tough.

Since you’re still shooting air rifle, do you train any different for it?

I don’t train much air rifle. I train more before the 3 times air gun match, in January, but after that its just small bore and then air rifle is what it is.

You are doing some coaching now too, tell me about that

I’m helping coach the Naval Academy Rifle Team; I’m the volunteer assistant coach for the Naval Academy. I do like a clinic in the fall and then e-mail conversation back and forth with some of the kids and then also just show up to NCAA and try to give them some moral support.

OK, y’all going to beat Army next year?

We’re going to have to get our stuff together, that’s the plan of course. And I also coach the Boulder rifle club junior high power shooters, and that’s how I actually have a rifle club to shoot at outside now because, because their wait list to get in the club is like 10 years long.

Really? Is that because of politics, is it just the size of it or…

No, that’s just the way it is. That’s their by-laws. But they’re good with the kids, I mean the juniors aren’t limited, there’s no limit to the number of juniors.

Oh, really, that’s good.

And then when they become adults, if you were a junior member there and then become an adult you kind of get grandfathered in, but basically if you’re like me you gotta wait for somebody to die before you get in, and so they just said if you help out with the high power team then we will give you a honorary membership, or whatever the heck it is as long as I keep doing that.

And another thing in your busy schedule

And that’s fine; I’ve worked with some pretty good kids.

And you would be surprised at the things you learn trying to help somebody else

Yes, indeed. If you’re on a limited budget I guess air rifle’s probably a better place to start than small bore or high power, ‘cause small bore, everything is more expensive about it, ammunition, guns all of that kind of stuff is more expensive than starting out with air rifle. Air rifle is cheap, no lead concerns indoors, there’s, there’s a lot of advantages to it.

Shoot at you house.

Yeah, that too. I’ve got 10 meters in my basement so I shoot air rifle at the house. I only use the RIKA for my small bore stuff. And maybe I should be using it for my air rifle but I don’t. I just don’t put my training time into air rifle, so, it just never happens.

Well you are obviously making the sport work for you regardless

It’s a great sport; it beats the heck out of work.

And you got a great wife out of the sport.

Yes I did.

Should I ask about that? Seeing how your wife Sandra is one of my favorite people

You must.

Y’all met over in Turkey of all places…

We went to CISM in Turkey in 2000; hit it off right off the bat, Kind of a Fate sort of thing. If either of us had made the Olympic team in 2000, and we were both kind of favored to make it, if either of us had made it then we’d never met. Or if we’d met under different circumstances or whatever,…

You just didn’t have a whole lot to do in Turkey but sit around and talk.

Yeah, sit around and BS and enjoy the small things, you know, go get an ice cream, go try to play tennis or something. So it worked out.

I mean it’s kind of crazy, I mean we’ve both been doing this for forever. We’ve both been, you know, at reasonably high levels since you know ’92 or ’93 and we just never ran into each other in all that time. It was that whole rifle and pistol, you know, oil and vinegar thing.

So, it just worked out. Its great having your significant other being a shooter because they understand what you’re going through or what you’re trying to do. Many times somebody will have regrets or jealousies or whatever for what you’re trying to do with your spare time.

Uh umm

So, it’s great to have somebody who understands.

That’s a good aspect, I hadn’t thought about that.  It helps if your relationship is solid so they aren’t putting pressure on you for attending matches or spending time alone in the basement. 

Well, that’s great Eric. We want to see you on the podium in Beijing 

Yeah, I hope so, that will be a lot of fun.

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