Des Moines, IA -(AmmoLand.com)- The Iowa Scholastic Clay Target Program (SCTP), a Scholastic Shooting Sports Foundation (SSSF) affiliate state program, reached a major milestone in May by breaking the one million target mark for trapshooting league play.
Like many other traditional sports, Iowa’s trapshooting league is a spring sport consisting of face-to-face competition throughout the state between April 1 and May 24. In all, 58 different shooting facilities conducted 380 league matches at which 1,088,400 targets were shot during the course of the trap season. An additional 60,150 targets were shot in SCTP skeet and sporting clays leagues.
League play in Iowa is facilitated by the SSSF’s SHooting Organization Technology (SHOT) system, which provides coaches with the registration, league, and shoot management tools needed to navigate the season smoothly and efficiently.
The Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR) serves as state advisor for both SCTP and Scholastic Pistol Program (SPP) and has invested in these programs since 2006. The department provides ongoing program administration, shooting coach education, and staffing for state championships and other major events. When the department adopted the program in 2006, about 400 student athletes were involved. Today, over 3,000 participate.
“Passing the one million mark for clay targets is a major milestone for our youth trapshooting program,” said Chuck Gipp, director of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. “The shooting sports program continues to grow each year and is helping us to draw kids back outside and get reacquainted with the outdoors, and that is one of our major goals as a department.”
As state advisor, the Iowa DNR is supported by the Iowa Scholastic Clay Target Program, Inc. and by the Scholastic Shooting Sports Foundation’s SCTP staff.
“We are very proud of Iowa’s accomplishments and happy to support them,” added Tom Wondrash, SCTP National Director. “Iowa has been the leader in our national program both in athletes and teams and in helping to develop our SHOT v5 system that is now used across the country. We have many great teams and coaches leading the way there.”
The spring trapshooting season in Iowa culminated at the high school and SCTP state trap championship events last weekend in Cedar Falls, Iowa, hosted by the Iowa State Trapshooting Association. The championship weekend saw perfect weather where 2,031 athletes shot an additional 355,000 targets to conclude the in-state season. Many Iowa teams will continue on to Sparta, Illinois to compete at the SCTP National Team Championships, July 13-18, where nearly 3,000 athletes are expected to participate.
Complete results for the Iowa state championships and other SCTP states around the country can be found at https://shot.sssfonline.com/shot5/web/publish/results/index.asp?eid=149.
About SSSF
The Scholastic Shooting Sports Foundation (SSSF) is responsible for all aspects of the Scholastic Clay Target Program (SCTP) and Scholastic Pistol Program (SPP) across the United States. SCTP and SPP are youth development programs in which adult coaches and other volunteers use shooting sports to teach and to demonstrate sportsmanship, responsibility, honesty, ethics, integrity, teamwork, and other positive life skills. SCTP was developed as a program of the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) until the SSSF was created in 2007 to operate the SCTP. In 2012, SSSF created the SPP and became the managing foundation of both programs.
For more information about SSSF, visit www.sssfonline.org.