THE BATTALION Page 11
MONDAY, MAY 4, 1981
Shooters win by breaking targets mentally
, I have callti
t very strongl
ioard with lie
talked,
mt it was ore
:dandshodd|
sh way.
denied chaf
le or finanti;
ags were
a remove Min
e suit, open
fficult timefe
By TODD WOODARD
Battalion Staff
Annie Oakley couldn’t have
beaten these two Aggies.
The national collegiate skeet
and trap champions, both Texas
A&M University students, started
shooting 12-gauge shotguns in
I competition when they were 13.
| Jeff Sizemore, 19, defending
overall national champion, and
Sherry Rains, 22, women’s cham
pion, took their honors at Peoria,
111, April 23-26.
| Both shooters say they intend to
| stay at the top of collegiate shot-
J gunning.
he added “I know what I am going to do
every time I go to the line,” Size-
| more said. “Having international
J experience gives me an advantage
| that just about nobody else has.”
Shooting a 480 of 500 this year,
j he says he wants to win a record
^four consecutive championships.
And he wants to extend his con-
, secutive under-21 junior titles to
three.
He believes the way to reach his
rs,
quite a wti
is take
ic fans
94
goals is to shoot for team scores.
“I always go to win a team medal
first,” Sizemore said. “If your
team scores are good, then the in
dividual scores will come. My
main goal, my main mission is to
win a team medal.” Texas A&M
placed first this year.
Shooting 388 of 500, Rains
couldn’t use that strategy because
she is the only female member of
the team.
In her sophomore and junior
years, Rains said she performed
poorly at Peoria. But the Houston
senior said she had the confidence
to win this year.
“When I first went to shoot, I
was traveling with a bunch of guys
I didn’t know, I had never shot in
Peoria and I was intimidated,” she
said.
“But this year I was ready. I
found myself in class with my
mental attitude in Peoria. I got so
keyed up that I just didn’t do
much studying.
“The game has a lot of intimida
tion, but you either have a talent
or you don’t. If you want to learn
to shoot well, you have to practice.
But it won’t do much good if
you’re worried about the other
person. That’s what I call intimi
dation.”
The shooters compete in four
different matches:
— 100 shots, American skeet
—100 shots, international skeet
— 200 shots, American trap
— 100 shots, international trap.
In American skeet, a shooter
faces low and high houses be
tween 21-25 yards away. The
targets fly parallel to the shooter at
about 60 mph from the two
houses. After the “pull” com
mand, the targets release immedi
ately. A nearly perfect score usual
ly wins, Sizemore said.
International skeet speeds the
targets to 110 mph. In contrast to
American skeet, the gun must
start at the hip; the shooter some
times has to wait for three seconds
for the target, and the gun must
stay on the hip until the target is in
sight.
louble. Fm
in a run an
hit a two-ns
f-3.
(Jenkins) ml
idn’t ki
I hit a tww
; manager to
'as relieved li[
1 John Hear
bined to lii
un and ski
birds inninp.
he victory
ALLEN
Oldsmobile
Cadillac
Honda
SALES - SERVICE
“Where satisfaction is
standard equipment”
2401 Texas Ave.
779-3516
video
This Week’s Programming:
The Kinks
Rust Never Sleeps
T.V.s are in the MSC Main Lounge, Second Floor
Lounge and Health Center.
y Pena scotf
in the third
oubleafterSit'
: rookie cattfe
ficed
d gave u]
ngs. Three if
mt, indudisj
litched thefiii
up his set#
lassifieds
-2611
The trap competitions are even
more difficult. In American trap
the shooter faces a building. The
targets are thrown from the build
ing away from the five shooting
spots in about a 90 degree disper
sion at 60 mph and one elevation.
International trap has a wider
dispersion with targets flying ab
out 110 mph at varying elevations.
Sizemore began shooting
American skeet in Corpus Christi.
The sophomore agricultural eco
nomics major went to the national
tryouts in 1977 with three months
of international skeet under his
shoulder and took second in the
junior competition.
His shooting has since earned
him trips to France, Mexico, Italy
and Korea.
He tasted the worst shooting of
his life in Korea in 1978 at the
World Championships.
“I never shot that bad before or
since,’’he said. “I don’t know what
it was. I don’t think I choked. But
here I was, 17, shooting against
old men who knew international
competition. I shot 169 of 200. I
never shot that bad, even when I
started.”
But he said, “I learned that you
can’t win every time. You just
have to keep the attitude that you
can win every time. If you don’t,
you won’t win. You can’t win.”
After more international com
petition and junior championships
in 1978 and 1979, he paced the
third place Aggie team with his
first collegiate title in April 1980.
He said he wins because, “I can
play the mind game better than
they (his competitors) can.”
That mind game is simple as
Sizemore describes it.
He says he gets to the range in
time to listen to the other shooters
talk about the conditions.
“When they bitch about the
wind or the rain, I just sit back and
laugh,” he said. “Everybody has
to shoot in the wind.
“I don’t let any physical prop
erties, weather, bother me. Ev
erybody has got to shoot under the
same conditions. And the condi-
CONGRADULATIONS
GRADUATES!
1 FREE Beverage of Your
Choice with Purchase of Mex
ican, Western or Steak Spud.
(WITH COUPON)
WE ALSO SERVE DELICIOUS SALADS AND
3 DIFFERENT SUPER SANDWICHES!
10 DIFFERENT SUPER POTATOES AND
4 KINDS OF NACHOSI
NOTHING OVER $2,691 775-4775
GOOD THRU
5-16-81
OPEN 1 1 AM-9 PM MON.-SAT. CLOSED SUN.
LOCATED AT 403 VILLA MARIA — 1 BL. WEST OF TEXAS AVE.
READY FOR A
NEW CHALLENGE?
A Pilots License Will Make A Difference In Your Life.
Learning to fly is a fascinating combination of classroom study and actual flying
practice at the controls of an airplane. And after you get a pilot’s license there’s a
lifetime of learning ahead as you sharpen your flying skills and acquire new
knowledge. Learning to fly will give you new challenge. Just like it has for
thousands of other people.
It Does Matter WHERE You Learn to Fly.
Cessna Pilot Center Courses are programmed for productivity. When you learn to
fly the CPC way you’ll find that your time, money and efforts are used with
maximum efficiency.
Every lesson is programmed in a building block sequence guaranteed to give you
the most meaningful learning experiences with the fewest number of detours.
Try it yourself with a Special Discovery Flight which includes a pre-flight briefing,
a supervised flying experience with you at the controls, and a post flight review —
all for only $20.00. Call or come out to
Cessna^
PILOT CENTER
BRAZOS AVIATION
696-8767
EASTERWOOD AIRPORT
COLLEGE STATION
Lions won’t make any difference.
The good shooters will still shoot
the best scores. The same people
always win.”
He does not use any special pre
paration. “I don’t go sit in a quiet
place and meditate,” he said. “I
know what I’m going to do.
“I just stay relaxed, get my gun
and shoot.”
He does what he calls a mental
rehearsal just before each shot.
“I go through each station about
two times, shooting in my mind. I
break the target in my mind. I
never miss when I shoot in my
mind. I do it for every target. Be
fore I put the gun to my shoulder,
I have run a rehearsal.”
Rains runs a different program.
“All it is is mental control,” she
said. She said she eats a light
breakfast, reads mental discipline
literature, listens to a Tanya Tuck
er tape and makes sure her stuffed
monkey Skeeter is with her.
Training for shotgunning can be
demanding financially as well as
mentally. Sizemore has two
$4,500 handmade Italian trap
guns, Perazzis. He also has two
$325 Remington 1100 skeet guns,
which have had trigger modifica
tions to make the firing pin release
faster.
He estimated he would shoot
eight cases (500 rounds per case) of
shells a month if he were to train
only on weekends.
Rains, an education major,
shoots her grandmother’s Re
mington 1100 in both skeet and
trap. She estimated that training
only on weekends she would use
four cases of shells.
MSC AGGIE CINEMA
MSC AGGIE CINEMA
PRESENTS ,
ss Bilk. 1$& wllfik
PIRANHACON II
featuring
“THE TERROR OF TINY TOWN”
(A MIDGET WESTERN?)
“CANT STOP THE MUSIC”
(VILLAGE PEOPLE VITALITY)
“ROLLER BOOGIE”
(DISCO & LINDA BLAIR)
“I WAS A TEENAGE
FRANKENSTEIN”
(CLASSIC SATIRE?)
AND
THE CPC WRY!
TonflToes
A MOVIE WHERE YOU CATS
SIT AND VEGETATE.
CATCH UP TO THE ACTION
COMING MAY 8