Cadet earns collegiate shooting championship

  • Published
  • By Butch Wehry
  • Academy Spirit staff writer
U.S. AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo. --  There's at least one Academy cadet who could be nicknamed "Deadeye."

Cadet 3rd Class Michael Seery from Cadet Squadron 22 became Prone Collegiate Champion at the National Rifle Championships at Camp Perry, Ohio, recently, according to Army Lt. Col Douglas Clark, captain of the U.S. Air Force International Rifle Team. 

The computer science major also won the junior master class in the prone championship and junior expert class in the three-position championship. More than 300 competitors took part in each class from across the United States as well as England and Australia.

The full course of fire for the matches included two days of 120 shots per day in three-position (20 shots each standing, kneeling and prone) and four days of 120 shots per day prone. Prone matches are shot at 50 and 100 yards, three-position at 50 yards only. There were special four-man team competitions interspersed, in which he did not compete because he was the only Air Force Academy shooter there. 

Each match was divided in half into a metallic sights competition, for which sights without lenses were used, and an any-sight phase, for which many shooters employ a scope. Cadet Seery stayed with metallic sights through the entire course of fire in each event, as is the international style of competition. 

There were also other matches traditionally held during the national matches, including the Drew Cup and the Randle Doubles matches, in which the cadet from Toledo, Ohio, competed. The Drew Cup is a coached prone match where the coach is a non-firing participant who assists the shooter in reading wind and lighting conditions. Participants selected from the top ranks of under 21 years of age junior shooters from the Prone Championship's metallic sights phase. The scores from this match were posted against similarly selected teams from Great Britain, New Zealand, South Africa and Australia. 

The Randall Doubles match, also called the "Mentor Match", was an open prone match for two-man teams of one junior and one adult. Cadet Seery and his mentor, long-time friend and multiple former National Champion Paul Gideon, placed second in the match.

Cadet Seery has previously won three Ohio small-bore championships, the Indoor 3P, Outdoor 3P and Prone, in 2006-2007. He has been selected twice for competition in the Junior Olympics at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs.Before arriving at the Academy, he had shot for about five years, beginning just before he started High School. 

"I live near Camp Perry, the site of the NRA National Championships," he said, "and got my start at an intermediate junior training clinic put on by the NRA and the Ohio Rifle and Pistol Association. For my first few years, I fired solely in .22 caliber rifle small-bore competition. As I progressed, learned to shoot a .177-caliber air rifle in the same style as is shot in NCAA Division I competition, in which the Academy competes, and in the Olympics and other international matches." 

Preparation practice, he said, was rather difficult. 

"At the Academy we shoot exclusively indoors at 50 feet with the same rifles, in the same positions as per NCAA standards," the cadet said. "To complicate matters, practice was almost impossible during the summer training periods, during which I passed jump training, Global Engagement and Combat Survival Training. I shot only about three times during those six weeks, with no coach, when during the NCAA season, the team shoots daily." 

It wasn't his goal to win anything. He simply came to the National Matches because of his love for shooting. 

"It was years of hard practice and the world-class assistance of my Academy coaches Launi Meili and retired U.S. Army Major Mike Anti that found me winning," he said.

The skills he's learning in rifle competition could save his life someday. 

"However, it's probably not the marksmanship skills - this kind of shooting is more like golf, physically," he said. "One maintains a very precise position and practices extreme mental and physical discipline. The mental toolbox I'm building and the discipline and skills under match pressure that rifle competitions teaches have been invaluable here at the Academy, and could certainly save or improve my own and others' lives someday." 

Competing and winning at this level made for an unforgettable summer and Cadet Seery says he looks forward to a stellar 2009-2010 season with the Academy Rifle Team.