|
|
| |
| Sat, Nov. 22, 2008 |  |
 |
|
||
| |
Huntsville High Schools Cord Riley (left) talks with shooting coach and teacher Steve Johnson, with the schools 2008 state trapshooting trophy between them. (Joe Mosby Photo) Trapshooter Cord Riley training for Olympics Saturday, Oct 11, 2008 By Joe Mosby Cord Riley has moved upward rapidly in just two years with the sport of trapshooting. From his first round when he broke 11 of 25 targets, he has helped his Huntsville High School team to a state championship and now has been chosen for Olympic training. That's stepping fast for the 17-year-old high school junior. But he's missing some school these days. He is undergoing intensive training and evaluation at the U.S. Olympic Development Training Center in Colorado Springs. Riley was one of 18 young trapshooters across the nation selected for the training, and he won't go to Colorado alone. His coach, Steve Johnson, an agriculture teacher at Huntsville High, was chosen for coach training at the Olympic Center. There is a long-range goal for Riley, and it is four years away - the 2012 Olympic Games in London. "That's my goal in trapshooting," Riley said. "I want to make it to the Olympic Games, but that is a long ways off." Riley competes in the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission's Arkansas Youth Shooting Sports Program, which is just two years old, with his high school teammates. From the start, the program under the direction of the AGFC's Chuck Woodson found eager participants, and many more are getting into the game this school year. The Arkansas program is part of the national Scholastic Clay Target Program, an eight-year-old national shooting league that produced two medalists for the United States in the recent Beijing Olympic Games. At the Colorado training center, Riley and the other 17 participants are working with Olympic coaches to improve their skills in the international style of trapshooting. The training starts early and runs late. Daytime drills help shooters fine-tune skills and help coaches identify athletes with special aptitude as well as attitude. Evening classroom work teaches goal setting, team structure and preparing physically and mentally for high-level competition. Riley lives with his parents, Cornelia and Randy Riley, and younger sister Brooke on a poultry farm and cattle ranch near Hindsville, west of Huntsville. His father got him into trapshooting and competition with the Arkansas Trap Association. He practices by shooting about 200 pounds a week in addition to competitions, and he uses a Perazzi over and under 12-gauge shotgun. In the championship finals this year at Remington Gun Club near Lonoke, Riley broke 243 of 250 targets. "I'm pretty consistent at 23 and 24 (of a 25-target round)," he said. But, he added, "The shooting is 10 percent skill and 90 percent head. When you are on your timing with the team, everything just falls into place." "All of these top young talents were selected from the Scholastic Clay Target Program, the eight-year-old national shooting league that produced two medalists for the U.S. in Beijing," said Zach Snow of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, which selected camp attendees in partnership with USA Shooting. Vincent Hancock of Eatonton, Ga., and Corey Cogdell of Eagle River, Alaska, both former participants in the Scholastic Clay Target Program, won gold in men's skeet and bronze in women's trap, respectively, in Beijing. Their medals were two of the six won by the U.S. in shooting sports. Attendees stay in the Olympic athlete dormitories and eat in the athlete cafeteria alongside other Olympic hopefuls from many different sports. -------- Joe Mosby is the retired news editor of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission and Arkansas' best known outdoor writer. His work is distributed by the Arkansas News Bureau in Little Rock. He can be reached by e-mail at jhmosby@cyberback.com. |
