(Submitted/Standard Press)
By Dana Ehrmann
Sports Correspondent
Trapshooting is quickly becoming one of the most popular sports in southeastern Wisconsin and across the nation, due largely to word-of-mouth. You might go so far as to say that people are shooting their traps off about it.
At least that’s how it seems to Mark Wilken, head coach of the Burlington High School Trapshooting Team, nicknamed the “Demons.” The team, which has grown to 75 students, faces off in their conference against Westosha Central, Wilmot, Lake Geneva Badger and Union Grove, among others.
It’s a co-ed and club team that allows grade-schoolers as young as 9-years-old to compete in their own tournaments.
Wilken himself got into the role of head coach because of the involvement of his son Wyatt, now a sixth grader. He took up the sport in third grade, and some high-schoolers took notice and told him to come shoot with the team.
Then, when past head coaches left to pursue positions with the Scholastic Clay Target Program (SCTP), Wilken stepped up.
He says a great majority of kids joining the Burlington high school team have no previous experience in the sport. Most often, their friends are involved and convince them to try it.
Inexperience quickly turns into dominance for this Burlington squad. From 2011 to 2014, the Demons won three national titles and added a fourth-place finish, competing against teams from all over the country.
Though it is somewhat of a non-traditional sport with no ball handling or running involved, practice and exercises are still what facilitate improvement.
“Safety is paramount,” says Wilken. “So for the first few weeks, a new shooter always has an assistant coach next to him or her. Then comes the practice. From March through the end of the school year, the team members shoot rounds twice a week.”
Eye strengthening is an important component to success, as well. One such exercise involves placing a dot on a ceiling fan and watching it go round and round from flat on the floor.
Ultimately, though, mental training is the key to the sport. “Once a kid believes they can hit a target, it becomes really, really easy,” says Wilken.
It’s that kind of self-confidence that really transcends the sport, and helps the kids in other areas of life.
Trapshooting also breeds leadership skills. The high school kids become role models for the grade-schoolers, and eagerly pass on the wisdom they’ve gained competing in the sport. They’ll often stand behind the young ones and give advice on technique.
And it has paid off. At the intermediate level of the SCTP International Championships a few weeks ago in Colorado Springs, Colorado, third-, fourth-, and fifth-graders from Burlington won both the doubles trap and bunker trap competitions.
On the other side, the Burlington varsity squad placed fifth this year at the recent American Team National Championship in Sparta, Ill. in the High Over All competition, which takes top scores in each of the disciplines and totals them to determine the best teams.
Because of their previous and recent national titles, the kids want especially to win a title every year. But still, with their fifth-place finish this year, “The kids are proud of themselves, and always want to keep improving,” Wilken says.
As for the future, he says, “We’ve got a really big group that are going to be juniors next season. I’m really looking forward to that group maturing into those leadership roles.”
Even with all of the team’s successes on the scoreboard, the relationships being built are perhaps even more valuable.
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