Club Corner: Skeet and Trap

COURTESY TOM MIGDALKSI Coach Tom Migdalski advises Roger Levine, GRD '03, on where to point that thing.

"It is a relaxing way to end the week," John Britting-ham, BK '00, said. It's not too hard to see how a bunch of Yal-ies might want to shoot firearms at flying objects to combat the stress of the week. The team travels every Friday to a firing range in East Lyme, Conn. In addition to the fun and games aspect of the activity it also helps develop many skills such as bird hunting and comfort with firearms in general. "We just shoot, we're a shooting group," Brittingham said. The team works under the watchful eye of Tom Migdalski, Yale's assistant director of club sports, who is himself an experienced shooter.

Skeet and trap are two different sports merged into one club—a track and field except with firepower. Both sports, however, revolve around shooting at clay discs, called pigeons, with 12-gauge shotguns. "Originally they used some kind of bird released from a cage," Brittingham said. Fortunately, birds are no longer used, because a fight between the skeet and trap club and the ASPCA might get ugly.

Skeet consists of shooting down flying clay pigeons that fly in various flight patterns. They are fired from huts with clay slingers while the gunner moves in a semi-circle around the target. Trap differs in that the disc launcher oscillates back and forth.

Even though skeet and trap is a relatively unknown sport at Yale, there is a fairly significant shooting community across the nation. Every year the team travels to San Antonio, Tex. for the national competition. Past Yale star competitors include Max Lamont, CC '00, who took two gold medals in the 1998 national championship. However, it's hard for Yale to compete with Western teams who hail from farmlands where rifle use is commonplace. East Coast competition comes from the cadets at West Point. Despite losing badly to them last year, the team looks forward to good competition.

Unique in many ways, the skeet and trap team is distinguished by its motto, "If it flies, it dies." Coined at a local Wallingford, Conn. firing range by local shooters, Yale skeet and trap feels that this saying embodies the dedication and perseverance necessary to succeed in the sport. —Matt Longo

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