Will the practice traps be open at the SCTP Nationals at the Cardinal Center? Open for non SCTP shooters?
I would imagine that if this years SCTP event is close to comparable to the amount of athletes that typically have been at Sparta, the practice traps will be full all day every day. There were 2100 athletes last year and I would think there will be at least that many or more this year. I would suggest that if you need to practice that particular week, you find somewhere else to practice. The Cardinal will be packed full! 2100 kids means another 2000 to 3000 people with coaches, parents, vendors and support staff. Unless I were involved with a SCTP team or individual athlete, I wouldn't be caught anywhere near the Cardinal Center that week! JMHO
I expect there will be a crowd at the SCTP shoot just watching and wandering. I expect that is what the CC and vendors expect. Just wondering if I can get a few rounds of practice in and try a few guns out.
Lynch, That was the beauty of Sparta. There were enough traps for all the events, plenty of practice traps AND even enough traps for the vendors to have a couple for customers to be able to test drive some guns. I'm not sure if that will be an option at the Cardinal.
Why? Have you been to a CC shoot? I have been to Sparta. Too spread out. CC is more like Vandalia. My question as to practice traps being open was to the possibility that the SCTP has a policy against that.
No I don't think the SCTP has a policy against the practice traps being open to the public. I think it's up to the Cardinal whether or not the practice traps will be open to the public. I would think the SCTP kids will be keeping them busy and have precedence over the general public.
"athlete"n, a person trained to do physical exercises of agility and strength, especially one who participates or competes in games requiring physical skill and stamina. Hurdler, wrestler, football player, cross country runner, or soccer but Trapshooter-that's a stretch. Heck, my 9 yo can easily shoot 100 targets and I wouldn't call him an athlete in that sense! We've got near 90 yo men breaking 200's but I wouldn't call 'em athletes-just good shots. Sounds like a bunker boy term!
Oleo, By your own definition, trapshooters, especially the young ones, are athletes. They train and practice for a game that requires physical ability, strength and stamina.
Sure, just hand a 9 lb. shotgun over to a 200 lb. 14 yo, tell him /her they need pick up that thing 100 times today and call 'em athletes? Heck, many of 'em will be riding a cart between traps. Athletes-not!
Different levels of athletes. Ollie's 9 year old wanted to shoot for a pack of smokes and a 6 pack. Hustler or athlete don't take the bait.
I might even agree with you. Bunker (International) Trap requires physical skill, Amateur (American) Trap (as shot today) requires social skill. Bunker (International) Trap in an Olympic event. Amateur (American) Trap (as shot today) is a social event.
They must be athletes. Watch closely at a major shoot. You will find many injecting performance enhancing drugs.
Heck, some of my buddies might think they're athletes because they shoot bar room darts. It takes plenty of stamina to shoot darts effectively for three hours straight after pounding down quite a few 12 oz'rs-same with Pool!
Once again, Oleo, you have successfully up a decent thread. I was going to say "Unbelievable!" But really should have expected it. My bad, again.
http://en.espn.co.uk/blogs/sport/story/386677.html Dart throwers are athletes. Why darts players are perfect athletes Simon BarnesJanuary 5, 2015 16-time world champion Phil Taylor has the perfect action to dominate his sport © PA Photos Enlarge There is a tendency for all sports to evolve a body-shape perfect for the purpose. Every sport acts as a selection device: the people who excel at the sport tend to have similar body-shapes. And while there are always exceptions, even in the most regimented of sports, it's unarguable that basketball players tend to be taller than the average and jockeys tend to be shorter. Which brings us to darts. Darts has been a subject of mockery ever since it was first televised back in the 1970s and that's because of the body-shape of the players. They really don't look like finely-tuned athletes but overweight, flabbily unfit, pasty-faced, and with big bellies supported by a big frame. Dartists have their brief place in the sporting round at this time of year. On Sunday night Phil Taylor, 16 times a world champion, lost dramatically to Gary Anderson in the final of the PDC championship; the rival circus, run by the BDO, carries on until January 11. The utter unsportsmanly appearance of darts-players was exaggerated in those early years by the uninhibited taste for drinking pints of lager throughout competition, and for that matter, pulling on cigarettes. As the great primordial champion Eric Bristow said: "You can take darts out of the pub, but you can't take the pub out of darts." The drinks have now been removed from the field of action, but the jokes - and the bellies - remain. Darts has become a national joke and a simultaneous national fascination Darts has become a national joke and a simultaneous national fascination. The skills are obvious, but so are the shapes of the players. One of the things that happen when you watch an awful lot of sport is that you begin to see things in a different manner. You become acutely aware of what different sports have in common Thus darts is not about being large and drinking pints, it's about finding your best game under the worst stress. Hitting doubles is a small skill, perhaps, when compared to some of the highest things that sport has to offer, but it's as much about the search for excellence in a limited field as anything you see at the Olympic Games. In short, these people aren't messing about. You can laugh, but for them it's serious. It can't be anything else. It follows, then, that the prevailing darts-player shape is no accident. It's not something that has come about through laziness or boozing. You don't achieve a high level of competitive skill without terrifying quantities of work. I remember Bristow's mum explaining to me that Eric's secret was his dedication. At first I thought that was hilarious, but then I actually listened. She talked about practice, endless practice like a musician: hour after hour, day after day. So don't tell me that a person so completely dedicated to the pursuit of perfection is unfit. It would be a contradiction in terms. Fit means suitable: the survival of the fittest doesn't mean survival of the strongest, it means survival of the most suitable. Cristiano Ronaldo's physique probably wouldn't work for Phil Taylor © Getty Images Enlarge And those bodies of the top darts-players are supremely fit; ideally suited to the task of throwing darts. As sprinters are muscular and distance runners are skinny, as fast bowlers are rangy and top batsmen (Don Bradman, Sunil Gavaskar, Sachin Tendulkar) often on the small side, as high-jumpers are tall and lean and as shot putters are tall and very wide, so darts-players are the shape they are. You can understand all this in the simple beauty of Taylor. Sure, go ahead and laugh: a chunky little fellow in a smock, broad of shoulder, large of forearm, with a round head and face: not exactly Cristiano Ronaldo. But in sport, truth is in the action and to look elsewhere is always wrong. So observe Taylor in action and observe truth, for it's as perfect a thing as you will see in sport. First notice the complete stillness of the head. Most players tend to shift their head slightly at the moment of release, not Taylor. Now look at the action, in which the moving parts have been reduced to a minimum. Hand, wrist and elbow move, but the shoulder moves very little indeed, and the rest of the body is a statue. The simpler and the more practiced the action, the more consistently it can be repeated, even under intense psychological tension. That's the secret of this kind of sport. Ask a golfer. This action of minimal movement requires very precise balance and very great control. Such things are made possible by body-shape, by the rock-solid base on which the movement takes place. Raymond van Barneveld, another ex-champion, looks as if you could mount a siege-gun on his and he'd absorb the recoil. The demands of sumo wrestling have created a certain very specific body-shape; an athlete of more conventional shape - say, a Greco-Roman wrestler - would be unable to cope with the specific demands of sumo. If you go to the super-heavyweight weightlifting at the Olympic Games, you find enormous men with generous amounts of adipose tissue distributed about their persons because that's the right shape for the job of lifting the world above your head. Darts players are shaped like darts players because that's the optimum shape for the task In the same way, darts players tend towards their own specific shape: big shoulders, powerful frame, and yes, frank counterweight bellies. Taylor won the world championship eight times in a row; in 2003, he lost three stone and with them the championship. It was suggested that this change in body-shape had affected his balance. Swimmers tend to have wide shoulders above tapering bodies, but with large hands and feet; a physique brought to something close to a logical conclusion in Ian Thorpe, the Thorpedo. Rugby union prop forwards are more or less cubic. Goalkeepers are exceptionally tall. And darts players are shaped like darts players, because that's the optimum shape for the task that lies ahead of them. As said, there are exceptions, but it's been demonstrated across the years that the traditional darts-player shape is - all else being equal - the most suitable for playing darts at the highest possible level. A darts player is not a mistake, he's a highly-tuned, specifically evolved top-level performer. Like Usain Bolt, only different. Raymond van Barneveld looks like he could double as a siege gun base as he throws © Getty Images Enlarge © ESPN Sports Media Ltd
My shuffleboard team at the local bar kicked major league butt last night winning all three games. Some of these guys must be real athletes with their enormous chests that hang below their belly button. They obviously have incredible stamina to lift as many 12 oz. beers in a three hour span and continue to perform at such a high level. My right shoulder actually felt a little sore this AM. Is it advantageous to practice more shuffleboard prior to these important matches or lift a few more 12 oz. weights? Am I the only one who finds it's difficult to stay alert (awake) for 100 2-hole Singles without dropping two or three and at what level could I be considered an athlete?
Its just astonishing to me that someone would go out of their way to insult their prospective customers.
Roger, Who's insulting what potential customers? Enlighten me please. I have missed something apparently
Who is it here that has customers? If you are talking about dawg...he doesn't have customers. He does not represent any group. Don't think many trapshooters are overweight? DIDO stands for double in double out and is obviously a darter. His feelings could be hurt but I doubt it.
I think we heard many times the reason Trapshooting at the high school level is successful is because it appeals to the many individuals who are unable to compete in traditional sports programs. That said, to compare a kid who likes to shoot a shotgun and is successful in Trapshooting to a typical high school wrestler demeans the accomplishment of a wrestler. Trapshooting is simply an enjoyable game not to be confused with athletics I think my wife drew some comparison with early cheerleading and what it has become today!
Whatever, Oleo, the SCTP refers to their participants as athletes and I like that. That's what separates the SCTP from the AIM program. SCTP has a dress code and other expectations of their participants that the AIM program doesn't. You can call trapshooters whatever you think is appropriate. I don't care.
During the SCTP Nationals the practice traps will not be open to the public. If you are interested in shooting a demo I suggest attending the fun 100 target sporting clays event available July 15-16. Proceeds will be split between the SSSF Foundation and Kids N Clays. I will have a press release announcing that event next week sometime.