Stockdale aims for Regional training center
National coach visits club to train coaches

Tony Baranowski
Sports Editor
ACKLEY

The road to the Olympics may very well start at the Stockdale Gun Club. It sounds farfetched, but Dale Stockdale has designs on his club in rural Ackley becoming a Midwestern training center for competition coaches, and after a visit last week from Les Greevy that design may very well come to fruition.
Greevy, recently named the youth trap shooting coach of the year by the U.S. Olympic Committee, flew in from his home in Williamsport, Penn. for an intensive training course with some area men eager to develop the sport here in the Greenbelt. Stockdale Gun Club is already renowned as one of the better venues in the state of Iowa and has hosted regional competitions in the past, but as Greevy explained, this move is all about fostering the sport.
“Iowa is one of the very few states that has a really active high school trap shooting program. There’s and old theory, you go huntin’ ducks where the ducks is. You have the program, we’re looking for shooters and coaches, why don’t we tap into what you’ve got. We don’t have to start it here, it’s going,” he said. “I’m trying to produce winners and champions, but it’s like a big funnel. You have to put a lot of kids in the big end to get one champion out the other.”
Currently a Denver, Colo. center is the only official source of Scholastic Clay Target Program (SCTP) coaching instruction in the United States. While Greevy is involved with starting another in Nashville and does some work of his own in Williamsport, he says Stockdale’s desire to get his club certified may well give the Ackley club an inside track. That’s why his three-day training session last week was so important to the sport.
“This is not the first one, but the first one that has been more refined to the point of being focussed toward SCTP coaches and offering them the road map to the Olympics,” said Greevy of his session. “I’ve got a lot of hope that this will materialize because Dale is the kind of guy that will get things done. He’s serious and I think it’s going to happen.”
Shooting is already a varsity letter sport in the AGWSR school district and Greevy explained that the interest is there from individuals that would like to see trap shooting become more prominent, especially in the Midwest. That’s where the coaching center comes in, and more coaches means more shooters down the line.
“The coaching started in an effort to develop Olympic coaches, but a couple of things happened simultaneously to change the situation,” said Greevy. “One is, USA Shooting and the Olympic Committee decided to really make an effort to expand its athlete base. At about the same time, the SCTP program Nationally and particularly in the Midwest has come on very strong in producing a lot of clubs with youth shooters. It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to say, ‘We’re looking for youth shooters, they’ve got ‘em; they’re looking for training and we have that. Let’s get this together.’”
“While Les had to fly in from his home in Pennsylvania, hopefully next year the trip will be shorter for those in the Midwest interested in being certified as an SCTP coach,” said Stockdale. “While anyone can do their best to teach safe firearm operation, the SCTP is interested in raising the level of professionalism of its coaches and training coaches to train more coaches. They want to have regional areas around the country where SCTP coaches and 4H coaches dealing with youth can come to get training, and we want to be one.”