Students on the University of Idaho campus have no shortage of outlets –– from rec center classes to various clubs on campus that provide an opportunity to take a break and destress.
For some students, there is no better outlet than the trap shooting club.
“It is kind of a release for people. It was a release for me big time, school gets pretty stressful and you get to go out every Sunday during the 10-week and shoot guns,” said Tanner Paulson, club vice president. “Not a lot of people know about the trap club but it’s one of those things where they will hear about it, especially if we keep on winning.”
The Trap Shooting club is a group comprised of 11 students who come together to participate in the Camas Prairie 10-week shoot beginning early January and takes place each Sunday for 10 consecutive weeks and practice intermittently throughout the year.
Regardless of when they are shooting, club advisor Brian Mahoney said one of the reasons he likes the club is he gets the opportunity to coach shooters of every level of experience.
“I really enjoy shooting, I enjoy shooting with the club,” Mahoney said. “We are always razzing each other about who’s shooting and how they are doing but at the same time I really like helping those that want to excel but may be in kind of a funk, which happens to everybody. No matter how good they are, you are going to have kind of a down period. For most of the trap shooters coming in, most of them have never shot formal trap, skeet and clay, those are the three disciplines that we compete in, most of them haven’t done that.”
Despites the team’s recent success, most people outside of the trap shooting club have never even heard of them. Not unlike many other programs and clubs, Paulson said the trap shooting club has worked to promote its name around campus in order to increase student involvement.
“It’s kind of a lost art,” Paulson said. “People don’t really know it’s that competitive and I think it’s part of the demography of where you’re from –– you’ve got people from the inner-city area, like Seattle, that aren’t really around that stuff then you’ve got people from the outskirts, like me, who’ve been part of the outdoors their whole life and I grew up into it, unlike some other people. I know people who have been going to school here for three or four years and they never even heard of the trap club.”
The club works to get its name out there by garnering sponsors as well as wearing club gear to different events and places for people to see. Mahoney said part of promoting the club means not just going to different stores and tabling events, but representing the club in the best possible manner
“The other portion of it is helping represent the club really well when we are shooting in other areas,” Mahoney said. “When we are even doing meet shoots, like sausage shoot in the fall, making sure I am wearing my stuff and just kind of trying to promote the club which has really, really helped.”
Paulson said it all is working up toward a greater goal –– an official team.
“The real end goal here is to create a real Division I trap club team, you know, eventually,” Paulson said.
As the club grows on campus, so does the national conversation surrounding guns and gun use. As the conversation rages on, Mahoney said the trap shooting club keeps politics out of their conversation and instead focuses on the sport itself.
“It is a good way to kind of promote the shooting sports industry and the positive side of shooting sports,” Mahoney said. “The individual members have their own points of view and they are welcome to those but I really try to keep the club just focused on, as much as I can, our shooting disciplines and not getting too much into the politics of it.”
Club President William Mann said the club puts gun safety as a priority and if they don’t it could quickly result in elimination from events and competitions.
“We are very strict on how people handle firearms at our events and that’s also trap shooting in general,” Mann said. “If you do one thing wrong the whole team is disqualified so they have a pretty good discipline set up for firearms. I feel like as our team, if we can get kids involved, I know they are not the most highly looked upon things anymore, but we all love them.”
Regardless of background or history with gun sports, the trap shooting club welcomes anyone and everybody to join.
“We have people from all different kinds of backgrounds and genders and it’s really, it’s one of the sports whether or not you are in any type of physical shape, anyone can compete in this sport. If folks are disabled for some reason and are in a wheelchair, they can still participate in that,” Mahoney said.
While the current members of the club may love and be used to the sport now, Paulson said it is a hard sport that takes time to get used to but is worth it once you understand it.
Mann said this adjustment often drives participants away, even when it shouldn’t.
“It takes practice. Don’t expect to jump into it thinking, ‘Oh, it is going to be a lot of fun and super easy,’ it is frustrating,” Mann said. “It is something that just takes time, practice and repetition. That is a lot of times, kids come out a couple times and they are not very good at it and they don’t come back. It takes time. It is a growing progress.”
Meredith Spelbring can be reached at [email protected]