Rifle team at home on the range

You'd think firing a rifle on campus would be an easy way to get attention. The Rifle Club, however, remains a virtually unknown team at the University.

It's not for lack of success; the University's marksmen became the best in the Ivy League after defeating the University of Pennsylvania — the only other Ivy with a rifle team. This year, the team finished third in its division, earning a spot at conference championships on March 6 at MIT.

Despite its victories, the team, which competes as a club sport in the Middle Atlantic Rifle Conference rather than the NCAA, keeps a fairly low profile. Team member Patrick Hough '07 said he "happened to run into" the club at the student activities fair in the fall.

Though Hough had almost no experience, he found the team welcoming. "They told me they'd teach me everything," he said.

Most new members of the rifle team join as rookies.

"We appreciate experience but are willing to train," coach Joe Sundra said.

Hough said being on the team was different from what he had imagined.

"I was a little curious as to what a rifle team would be like here," Hough said. "I was partly expecting a bunch of NRA fanatics, but that's not at all the case."

Instead, the team's practices are surprisingly calm. The muffled noises filtering through the earplugs, the tunnel vision induced by the rifle's sights and the single-minded concentration give the shooting range an almost meditative feel.

"It's good decompression," Hough said. "I study best after I've done a day of shooting."

It may come as a surprise to some that shooting is an extremely nonviolent sport. There are no linemen crashing into each other, no pitchers aiming for batters' heads. Even on a golf course, a place so quiet that sportscasters feel compelled to whisper, nine irons have been known to fly through the air.

On the shooting range, however, a feeling of serenity dominates, accented rather than punctured by the occasional rifle reports.

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Shooting is something of a paradoxical activity. On one hand, it demands intense focus; at the same time, shooting is almost an "unconscious" motion, Sundra said.

"You train your body to keep still, and then you let your unconscious mind do the shooting," he said. "It's a sport of concentration. You're competing against yourself, not the guy down the range. You want to improve your score each time."

Hough noted that the individuality of the sport can initially make it more difficult to achieve team camaraderie. Not only is the activity itself individual, he said, but students are only required to attend one or two practices out of the five held each week.

Even so, he said he still feels like part of a team.

"When we go down to a competition, there's definitely the feeling that we're shooting for Princeton," he said.