Clay Sports Offered After Classes

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5157131.html

Sept. 22, 2007, 11:39PM
Clay sports offered after class

A new pilot program will give Texas students a chance to compete in team target shooting events

When 16-year-old Ryan Sijansky heard his high school was about to introduce a new sport that would take a football out of his hands and replace it with a shotgun, he didn't hesitate.

The offensive lineman quit the Corpus Christi Carroll football team and signed up for Agriculture 381, "Wildlife and Recreation Management," which this year will begin introducing students to clay target shooting and offer the chance to form target shooting teams that will compete against other high schools in Texas.

"I just like doing that kind of stuff," said Sijansky, a junior who, like a lot of Texas teenagers, began hunting as a child under his father's watchful eye and careful instruction. "I started when I was 5, being a bird dog for him."

For years, gun safety through a hunter education certification program has been taught - without firearms - in Texas schools through what is known as "Ag 381." To complete it, students point to safety features pictured on illustrations and photographs but never touch a gun.

But this year, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, through a partnership with high school agriculture science classes, is introducing "Texas Clay Sports in Schools," modeled on its "Archery in Schools" program. Agriculture science teachers from more than two dozen schools already have reported serious interest from students and are now lining up gun ranges and rules to govern what will be an after-school, off-campus sport.

"I'll have enough (students) for four or five teams," said Cody Dugat, Sijansky's agriculture science teacher at Carroll. "At the start of school I had seven or eight in the class. Then we started talking about shooting. I now have 25 in the class."

Clay target shooting involves a mechanism that throws a clay disc into the air in front of a shooter. At a gun range, a sporting clays course attempts to simulate the type of flight path of gamebirds and the shooter attempts to follow the path with the gun barrel, aim and shoot it down. There are up to 10 stations on a clay shooting course, where the participant moves from one station to the next.

Many young Texas residents already are familiar with clays as a way to sharpen their shooting skills before hunting season.


No gender gap
"It's not just for the guys," said Megan McCaffey, a 17-year-old senior and officer in the Future Farmers of America chapter at Garland High School.

McCaffey's father first placed a gun in her hand about five years ago when she followed him and her older brother to target shooting on some family land. Since then, she's hunted deer and quail and was thrilled to learn that competitive clay shooting was coming to Garland.

"I have a list of kids. They are begging to be a part of this," said Glenn Sesco, who teaches agriculture science at Garland High School, just outside Dallas.

"I'll do it," said 17-year-old Brad Boss, who hunts deer and has been shooting clay targets with his father for years. "I love to do it."

Agriculture science teachers, such as Crosby High School's Dale Chennault, are trying to figure out how to pitch an after-school firearm program.

"Obviously, when you bring up the issue of firearms and public schools, it doesn't go together," Chennault said. "You mention anything about guns and schools and school districts just shiver."

At Crosby, Chennault said he's waiting to get a more concrete proposal down first, with details such as where to store the guns and what gun ranges would be used, before bringing it to the school district.

"There's some interest from the kids, but I've been lighthanded about pushing it," Chennault said. "I don't want to tease kids."

However, firearms are not a new item on the extracurricular schedule for teenagers.

Crosby, like many Texas schools, has Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps, which uses air rifles that contain no ammunition during their drills. Marksmanship training is done after hours.


Individual competition
Also, 4-H clubs, which foster agriculture skills for youth, offer competitive clay shooting. It's a popular program but offers competition on an individual, not a team level, Chennault said.

Parks and Wildlife officials say they want to be extremely clear about restrictions on the program.

"If a kid brings a firearm to school, he's ineligible to participate in this program," said Charlie Wilson, Parks and Wildlife's hunter education training specialist, who is now contacting agriculture science teachers about the program. By next May, he hopes to see teams compete against one another in their first tournament.


Sense of belonging
Wilson said he thinks the program will attract a lot of students who want to be part of a team but are not necessarily athletic.

"They've got their football stars and all the athletic stars they can deal with," Wilson said. "There's a fraction of those kids who would like to belong to that school, they want to do something that contributes to that school."

The program is based on one created in Tennessee in 2001 with two high school teams and 16 students.

Today, there are 2,200 students involved in competitive shooting in that state.

"It's the most effective recruitment tool for recruiting youth to the outdoors," said Chad Whittenburg, outreach director for the Tennessee Wildlife Federation.

For more information about the state's pilot shooting program for high school students, call Charlie Wilson at Texas Parks and Wildlife, 512-413-0194.