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YOU can start a Scholastic Steel Challenge team for your local High School

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Steel Challenge has come to Harvard Sportsmen's Club That means Scholastic Steel Challenge can happen there also.

Most Scholastic Steel Challenge teams are associated with schools. SSC teams are organized into squads of four shooters, ages 12-20. Kids from Wayland High School came to me and asked me to help them start a team, and be their coach. We're competing this weekend at the Hartford SSC match, against Harvard, Yale, West Point, US Coast Guard Academy, and University of Vermont.

I've been through the process of starting an SSC high school team, and I'd be happy to help get teams started at other schools. All you need is a coach and 4 shooters. The coach needs no certifications or experience. They just have to be willing to put in the time to manage the logistics of scheduling and coordinating the team, its equipment, its practices, and its matches. Some adult associated with the team has to have a Class A Mass License to Carry Firearms. I can help folks through this process too.

If anyone cares to help start an SSC team, please feel free to use this thread. I'd like to get in touch with anyone interested in shooting, coaching, or instructing SSC at Harvard Sportsmen's Club.

Once the HSC-owned steel targets arrive, we will start scheduling open SSC practices for all HSC members and their guests. Those ages 12-20 get to shoot, those older than that get to help coach, instruct, RO, etc.

SSC is a blast, both for kids and adults. I encourage the NorthEastShooters community to consider getting involved in forming a team of your local high school kids.

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see scholasticsteelchallenge.com for more details.
 
We spent today at the Scholastic Steel Challenge Clinic at the Hartford Gun Club. What a beautiful facility! Acres of green lawn to mow...

Our 4 High School shooters and 2 coaches went through 2000 rounds of Winchester White Box 9mm, shooting Kahr PM9, S&W M&P9, and Ruger P89. The kids had a blast. We'd spent 6 weeks preparing them for this event, and they did great. There were no safety issues at all, and accuracy and speed were respectable for new shooters. They got some great coaching from world-class shooters, and we all learned a tremendous amount.

Coaching these kids has been great. We "volunteer dads" got them to the point where they're safe and competent shooters. Then we brought them to a match where the real professionals helped them become competitive shooters.

The kids think they can compete with several of the teams at the match. We'll find out tomorrow, when we shoot for scores.

Our team has received a great deal of support from Scholastic Steel Challenge, Kahr, Winchester, AWARE, S&W, GOAL, Four Seasons, gfaArmsTec, and the Wayland PD. Over the 6 weeks our team has existed, we've run 7 kids and 6 parents through NRA Basic Pistol, and we have 6 new FIDs and 6 new LTCs in process. We're making progress.

The high school kids think all this is massively cool. You have to be the parent of a teenager to appreciate how hard it is to do something with your kid that the kid finds cool. I encourage the NES community to consider starting up a Scholastic Steel Challenge for your high school kids. It's no harder than coaching a Pop Warner or Youth Soccer team, but shooting is different. A soccer or football coach stands on the sidelines while the game is played. As a shooting coach, you can shoot beside your kids and learn with them. It's massively cool.

I'll be happy to help anyone interested in starting up a team for their local school. Just e-mail or PM me. It's a great time.
 
The US Coast Guard Academy won the New England Scholastic Steel Challenge Collegiate Spring Championship today. University of Vermont took second place, and the Wayland Warriors (our local high school kids) took third. Harvard and Yale took 4th and 5th places respectively. Individually, our Wayland kids took 3rd, 6th, 12th and 14th. Not bad for high school kids at a college match.

I've heard from NRA-Certified Instructors in Leominster and Medway who are interested in starting SSC teams for their local schools. The Leominster coach observed a Wayland practice at Harvard Sportsmen's Club. The Medway coach asked us to run a clinic for interested coaches and shooters. We're looking into how that would work. We'll post more details here as they become available.

The scholasticsteelshooters.com staff make it easy to start and operate a team. I encourage the NES community to consider doing this for their local kids. It's great fun and great experience for kids and coaches. I'm happy to help anyone who's interested in starting a team.
 
Awesome! Congrats to Wayland for a good showing in their first match [rockon]. Great to hear that Medway is interested in getting something going as well, hopefully this all catches on [cheers]
 
Thanks. I find that it catches on quite easily if a shooter steps up to coach the kids and help them get started. If a few shooters step up to coach a team, the work is divided and the effort is easier for all. I'm hoping more folks from the NES community will step up and coach. It's no harder than coaching youth soccer, and much easier than coaching Pop Warner football. It's also much more fun for the coach.

I'm happy to take names of folks interested in head or assistant coaching, and of kids who'd like to participate. I'll hook folks up with each other.

Think about it, please?
 
Too bad that they running with age limit. My soon to be 10yr old would be bummed if his 14yr old sister does this and he can't (since he currently out shoots her)

Practicing

Competing

But I might be able to smooth it over and get involved with her.
 
Flyer007 said:
Too bad that they running with age limit. My soon to be 10yr old would be bummed if his 14yr old sister does this and he can't (since he currently out shoots her)
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We can't upload his times to the SSC web site until he's 12, but that doesn't prevent him from practicing with the team. You would have to be there while he practices, but it sounds like you want to do that anyway. Imagine the first times he'll post on his 12th birthday, with 2 full years of training under his belt!!
 
The NES community is stepping up. I'm in conversation with NES members who are investigating the process of setting up Scholastic Steel Challenge teams for Medway, Millis, and Leominster, in addition to our existing Wayland team. So it looks like we will soon have enough teams for a Final Four.

If your local high school is not listed above, please consider stepping up and coaching a local SSC team. Or get together with some buddies and coach together. Many hands make light work. You don't have to be a pistol master to be a coach. SSC will gladly hook you up with NRA Certified Pistol instructors. On the Wayland team, we coaches are just volunteer dads. We got the kids trained up enough that they shot safely and competently, then we took them to an SSC clinic where world-class shooters taught them to shoot competitively.

You don't need permission from the school to do this. You only need permission from the host club, and the parents. The Wayland team is made up of Wayland High School students, but it it not a Wayland High School team. The High School knows about us, and we keep them informed, but we have no formal relationship with the High School at all. As a coach, you answer only to your club, to your shooters and to their parents. The SSC organization supports you in every way possible.

The work involved in being an SSC coach is about like coaching T-ball or youth soccer, being a Den Mother, or teaching Sunday School. It's *much* less work than being a Pop Warner coach. I know because I've done all these.

I invite anyone interested in coaching SSC to attend our Sunday evening SSC practice at Harvard Sportsmen's, as my guest. To get a sense of what a match is like, look at the links to pictures and video earlier in this thread.

Thanks for thinking about this. It's a great way to create a positive experience for the students, parents, and coaches. It gives you an excuse to get to the range regularly -- "It's for the kids. Really!"

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Smith & Wesson is a class act

In preparing our Scholastic Steel Challenge team for our first match, I focused primarily on safety. We ran our practices like matches, so the kids would be familiar with all the range commands, range etiquette, safety rules etc. That all worked great.

Frankly, it never occurred to me to coach them about receiving awards. We were bringing a team of high school kids to a college match, after all.

We had 5 shooters, a squad of four plus a substitute. As it turned out, the substitute wasn't needed, and the squad of 4 came in third. When they called the Wayland team up to the awards table, they meant to call the Wayland Squad. Our substitute went up with them, and I was in no position to gracefully stop him. So they had 4 prizes, but 5 shooters came to the table.

As we stood in line, as discretely as I could, I whispered to the kid in front of me that he wouldn't get a knife today, but I'd get him one after the match. I explained that our substitute wasn't supposed to have come to the prize table, but I forgot to tell him that. I planned to go buy him another knife after the match, but the S&W folks wouldn't hear of it. They quickly shipped another to my home, and we delivered it tonight.

If this was our worst error, I guess we're doing pretty well. I post this for 2 reasons: so other coaches can learn from my mistake, and to broadcast the fact the S&W really went above and beyond to cover for my faux pas.

The S&W folks could not have been more gracious. They made a potentially embarrassing situation comfortable for all the kids. What a class act.

Thanks, S&W.
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Here's a coaching experience folks might find interesting. I have a shooter who is really struggling to hit the target. We've gone over each component of making a successful shot, but he just wasn't able to pull it all together. All the other kids were getting it, so I didn't think I'd omitted some key piece of instruction. It just wasn't working for him.

Last night at practice, I handed him an old-fashioned .22 Single Action Army revolver, where the back sight is just a shallow groove in the top strap. He couldn't miss! I guess he was trying to focus on too many things at once, and taking away the back sight freed him to focus on the front sight, and then he was off to the races!

Now I'd told him many times to focus on the front sight, but I guess he just didn't get it until I took away the back sight.

Now he's hitting reliably with normal sights too.

Kids keep life interesting.

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Just read the SSC article in the latest Front Sight magazine where they seemed quite impressed that you've been able to get this ball rolling in the Peoples Republik; congrats again!
 
BostonBullit said:
Just read the SSC article in the latest Front Sight magazine where they seemed quite impressed that you've been able to get this ball rolling in the Peoples Republik; congrats again!
Click to expand...

Thanks! We still need volunteer coaches and instructors, if you know anyone who might be interested. It's a great way to get involved with the kids and the community.

We started in the middle of March. Since then, we've gotten over a dozen new FIDs for the kids and LTCs for the parents. We've spent at least 2 hours/week shooting. We've taught over a dozen kids to shoot competitively. We buy ammo in bulk from Winchester at 75% of wholesale, which is good because we go through over 1,000 rounds/week. I just placed an order for 8,000 rounds.

Anyone with an LTC who can manage kids can can be a coach. If you've coached any youth sport, been a scout leader, taught anything like Sunday School, or run a large family, then you can coach an SSC team. The SSC program will help hook you up with a qualified Instructor, unless you happen to be one. The SSC program will get you started with a free gun and a case of ammo. It will get you access to heavily discounted prices for more guns and ammo.

I'm happy to help anyone through the process of becoming a coach and starting a team. A good place to start is to join us at our Sunday evening practice. We'll help you get started, and we can hold some small matches together. If anyone is interested, please PM me for details.

It's a great way to help get the next generation involved in shooting, and it gives you a good excuse to spend time at the range.

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After a solid three months of weekly SSC practice, the kids were ready to branch out. So we spent some time shooting trap, we went to an Appleseed clinic, we started drawing from holsters, and yesterday we went to our first IPSC practice.

I've never shot IPSC, but the folks at the Harvard Sportsmen's Club practice couldn't have been more supportive. We arrived early, and they gave us a very thorough briefing. I had only one shooter for our first IPSC event, though I'm sure that will change when the other kids see the video.

It's pretty cool to watch a kid absorb a new situation, and handle it with maturity and competence. He was the youngest shooter there by far, and he was very pleased to not be the slowest. The RSO and the other experienced IPSC shooters had very nice things to say about his gunhandling, safety consciousness, and performance. The kid had a great time, and he is absolutely hooked.

I mostly stood back and watched all this. As a coach, there was very little for me to say. He knew to start slowly and focus on hits first. He knows that smooth is fast and fast is slow, though he did test this maxim. Focusing on safety and smoothness, his first pass was 60 seconds, and his second was 40. Then he decided to go for speed, and his time went up to 44 seconds. You can tell them a million times, but there's no substitute for first-hand experience.

I'm proud as hell of these kids. They've become solid, safe, competent shooters. Coaching them has been an extremely rewarding experience. I wish I had started doing this years ago.

As always, please PM me if you're interested in coaching a team of your local High School kids. There's lots of support available, and I'm happy to help you through the process. We need more teams to compete against.

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The Weston, MA SSC team is launched! A 14-year-old Weston kid convinced his Mom to get her LTC and to coach an SSC team for Weston High School kids. She called me up, I sponsored her joining Harvard Sportsmen's Club, and her team will be practicing with the Wayland team as they get the Weston program started. I'll serve as her Instructor for the near term, until they find a better one. As Coach, she'll handle all the paperwork, communication, planning and logistics for the Weston team.

Note that this Mom had no shooting experience before taking her LTC class. The SSC program & Harvard Sportsmen's Club are providing all the support she needs to create and coach the Weston team.

Wayland & Weston share a border. We have a joint Wayland/Weston Pop Warner football program, and the High Schools play each other every Thanksgiving in the "Turkey Day Classic". It looks like we'll be adding a Turkey Shoot to the tradition. I'm thinking about how to make it a community event. I'd appreciate any suggestions folks might have about how to make such an event a success.

Last Sunday, I loaded the car with 1,000 rounds of 9mm, 1,500 rounds of .22, pistols, rifles, and the usual range gear. We headed to the range with half a dozen High School kids for SSC practice, and we all had a blast.

You can do this for the kids in your high school too. Just PM me for details.
 
On 7/24 at Harvard Sportsmen's Club, potential coaches from Millis, Medway, North Andover, and Leominster have been invited to join the Wayland & Weston SSC teams for practice. We shoot from 6-8, with setup and discussions starting around 5PM.

Anyone interested in coaching an SSC team is welcome as my guest. Please PM me to coordinate details. You can bring kids to shoot too, as long as they have the proper Parental Permission Forms filled out. Again, PM me to coordinate.

The Scholastic Steel Challenge program is a great entry point into the shooting sports. The kids learn the basics, and then they expand. Our team has started to participate in IPSC, trap, and Appleseed events. The HSC Cowboy shooters have offered to set up a range session for our kids, with loaner guns for them to use. The kids are really looking forward to that, and they want to try IDPA too.

The first time I took a kid to IPSC practice, I was nervous. SSC doesn't involve movement, drawing from a holster, speed reloads, etc. The transition from 9mm to .45 was also a cause for some nervousness. We arrived early, the RO talked him through what to do, and the kid did great. Afterward, the RO complimented him on his gun-handling skills.

We created a group of competent and competitive shooters. It just doesn't get any better than this. You folks can do this too, for the kids in your communities. Just PM me for details.
 
The Weston and Wayland Scholastic Steel Challenge teams shot together for the first time last night. This is a small milestone, but a milestone nonetheless. Two teams don't make much of a league, but it's a start.

There aren't many opportunities for us older folks to be a hero in the eyes of the local high school kids. Coaching an SSC team is great for the kids and for the coaches, but it's particularly great in building adult relationships between the coaches and their local teens.

You don't have to be an expert shooter to be a good coach. The role of the coach is communication, planning, logistics, and organizing. If you're also an instructor, that's great, but it's not required. We can hook you up with an instructor if you need one.
 
Today, a neighbor brought his 10-year-old son to practice. I typically set up a couple of targets off to the side, where I can teach newbies or work on technique with a struggling shooter while another coach handles the main practice. This kid had never fired a pistol before, so I took him and his dad off to the side and we went through the standard drill: safety rules, grip, trigger control, breath control, etc. He'd shot rifle before, so he already knew about sight picture. I started him out with a Ruger 22/45 and a magazine with one round. Then he tried a full magazine. Then lots more full magazines.

I'll never forget the grin on that kid's face! He even let Dad have a turn once in a while. He tried one round of 9mm, and that was enough. At 60 lbs, the .22 is plenty for him. By the end of the day, he and Dad were shooting Speed Option, he with the .22, and Dad with a 1911. They weren't breaking any speed records, but they were hitting the targets and having a great time.

We went out for pizza afterward. It was a blast listening to the rising 5th grader and the rising HS Junior talk about the 4th grade teachers they'd had in common, and the new HS grad telling them to enjoy their school years while they last.

I'm telling you guys, this Scholastic Steel Challenge program is a great way to introduce kids in your community to shooting, and to get their parents involved. You get to meet new people, and you get to provide their kids with the opportunity to shoot competitively. Whenever I teach a kid, I also teach the parent, or at least arrange for the parent to take NRA Basic Pistol. We've produced 13 new LTCs and FIDs this summer. For a town of 13,000 people, it's a start.

The hardest part of starting a team is getting the targets and a place to shoot. Harvard Sportmen's Club has the targets and the facilities, with instructors available. If your team can commute to HSC, all you need is a coach and 4 kids to start a team. As other teams have done, you can practice with my team while you get started, using our guns and HSC's targets. We practice on Sundays.

Other clubs have facilities also, but I only know HSC.

Please PM me if you're interested in forming a team for the kids in your community. You don't have to be Brian Enos or a Certified Instructor to be an SSC Coach. You just have to be willing to handle the paperwork, communication, and logistics, and to get an LTC if you don't have one yet. (We'll help you with that, too.) We'll pair you with a qualified Instructor if you aren't one already.
 
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Today we took a couple members of our team to our first High Power match at Woburn Sportsmen's Club. Bob Schleicher, the WSA CMP/DCM Chairman, came early and gave us a mini-clinic before the match. He also provided loaner rifles. All the shooters at the match helped us learn about pulling and marking targets, and they were all very patient with us newbies. The kids shot some very nice targets, especially for their first high-power match. They also shot some targets they'd rather forget, so they have things to work on for next time.

Scholastic Steel Challenge is a great way to get kids started in competitive shooting. Our kids have participated in High Power, IPSC, and Cowboy Action Shooting. While they always have more to learn, they have the fundamentals of safety and marksmanship well ingrained, so they transition to other activities easily.

We need adult shooters to step up to coach Scholastic Steel Challenge teams in other towns, so we can get a league going. Wayland and Weston have teams going strong. It's great for the kids and the adults. Please PM me if you're interested in coaching. The SSC program and GOAL will help you get started. Or get a few buddies together and co-coach, so the full burden doesn't fall on any one person. We need to develop the next generation of shooters, and the SSC program is the best way I know to do that. .22s are great, but the kids like to also shoot the full power calibers sometimes. Target shooting is great and important, but it's also fun to shoot big steel targets at very high speed.

PM me, please.

Thanks,
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After trying Appleseed, NRA High Power, and a CMP clinic, our kids are definitely wanting to get into High Power rifle competition. So today I took the NRA Rifle Instructor's course, which includes a shooting test. You can use your own gun to qualify, and we had an interesting assortment of rifles. One guy had dusted off the Anschutz .22 he'd used as a teenager a Camp Perry. The guy next to me used an AR, and showered me with hot brass whenever he shot. I qualified with a CMP Garand, and an 1884 Springfield Trap Door that had served in the Spanish American War.

It's neat to watch kids handle and fire these old military guns. It's one thing to read and watch movies about historical conflicts, but to actually hold and fire guns that were used in those conflicts -- that's another thing altogether. While they're handling and firing the '84 Springfield, we talk about Custer's Last Stand, Geronimo, and the charge up San Juan hill. With the Budapest M95, we talk about WW1 and the Hungarian Revolution. With the Garand and M1 Carbine, we talk about WW2, Korea, and Viet Nam.
 

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