The Citadel Pistol Club

Description

CITADEL PISTOL SHORT HISTORYTeam History:The team was founded by Michael Swanwick in the mid 1960’s and re-established in the late 1960’s by Ron Burgy. Team is coached by two experienced well trained international certified coaches who are active competitors ranked in top twenty nationally in three or more events. Consultant coach Joel S. Sexton MD began coaching in 1972 and Head coach Robert Patton began in 1987. Further the team has it own volunteer gunsmith who is a master machinist with over forty plus years of experience and recently one additional team alumnus (2000) is helping coach this year as well. In addition we added a alumnus of the US Naval Academy to our coaching staff in 2013.Only four out of approximately one hundred fifty team members chosen from about twelve hundred plus tryout candidates have shot one handed pistol competition before college. The team has ranked seventh in the nation or higher since 1973. It has also won Free Standard and Air Championships at least once and been second and third overall more than fifteen times in its history. The team has trained Twenty-nine All-Americans on ninety-five teams since 1982 and numerous individual national champions. Two team members in the team’s history have represented USA in World Shooting Championships The team dominated National ROTC individually and in the team category from1985 to 2000 and withdrew from the category to encourage more ROTC competition in 2001.Since 1985 the team has produced five team and four individual national records. It shoots ten matches a year against top college and civilian competition (USMA USNA USCGA USAFA USMMA MIT UVA Texas AM OHIO STATE UCLA and the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit. The team is one of five college teams (CITADEL USMA USCGA MIT USNA) that have qualified for invitation to every national college championship since its inception in 1981.It is the only college team that shoots the International Olympic Rapid Fire course in competition and one of two teams that funds participants at U.S. International Championship. The Citadel is one of a few colleges that fund qualifying participants at National Junior Olympic Championship at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs each year. The team also provides the opportunity to shoot .45 caliber and center fire pistols in conventional 2700 competition during the summer for those that are in state.Team Goal:Enable active participants to improve self esteem self discipline goal setting techniques time management and ability to find solutions to life’s challenges by learning how to compete with top quality equipment while achieving their best individual and team scores at the National level.