Professional Shooters

Shooting Wire:

"Titusville, FL - Professional shooter Jessie Abbate won the Women's Open and Limited titles at the Steel Nationals held in Titusville, Florida this past weekend. Abbate also won the Steel Master title - a title awarded to the aggregate champion. With this victory, Abbate defended her 2010 Steel Master title. This marks Abbate's first major title of the 2011 shooting season." [Emphasis added by editor]

"Professional Shooter".

I think this is the first time I have seen the title "Professional Shooter" applied to Speed Steel (or USPSA) in a public release of match results, although of course we all know that they exist in those competitive sports.

They also exist in IPSC. But we don't really know for sure what that nomenclature means.

AMATEUR VS PROFESSIONAL:
Most IPSC shooters are amateurs. That means, we provide most of the match fees for any match. We volunteer to work the match: administration (Match Director, Range Master, Statisticians, stage construction, Range Officers, etc. The only "professionals" who do any of this ... the functionaries who make USPSA matches works, are those few individuals who are hired by Match Directors to help with setup and tear-down. And they work for pennies, considering that they are doing manual labor at a very low hourly rate of pay.

IPSC Professionals pay to shoot the match, and they go home with most of the wins. To them the glory, the honor, and another bullet-point in their professional resumes. They do not typically "work" the match; they're not playing, as we are. They're working, and must necessarily not be distracted by extraneous activities. [Note: GMs and Professional Shooters almost always do their fair share during matches by taping and resetting targets; they are not ignorant of their obligation to do their share, nor are they usually reluctant to contribute.]

And we, the amateurs, facilitate their careers. Also, we compete against them. (Don't be fooled by "you only compete against people in your own division and class". Remember, their classifier scores are the yardstick against which your performance is measured. More on this later.)

Is that fair? You decide. If you choose not to read the whole article skip to the bottom to see the THESIS.


BACKGROUND:

In USPSA, we are accustomed to competitors who regularly benefit financially from "prize tables" and other rewards. And we have recognized them as "Sponsored Shooters". At one time, it was recognized that their sponsors either helped the shooter with the expenses attendant upon competition: practice, travel, equipment, etc.

In fact, "sponsored" shooters are now regularly members of Shooting Teams: Army Marksmanship Unit, Team S&W, Team Glock, etc. This arrangement makes it possible for the better shooters to compete at little or no personal expense, and it enables Firearms Manufacturers to advertise their wins (suggesting, not too subtly, that it is the superiority of their firearm which provided the 'edge' for that competitor ... an excellent and time-tested marketing ploy).

Sponsorship aids winning; winning allows the competitor to not only enter more matches, but to practice more with less or no personal expense. And the cycle is self-reinforcing, providing even more of a competitive advantage as time goes by.

These competitors are those who not only have the drive to win, but also have the talent. All they need is to be able to afford all of those expenses ... material, travel and match expenses, etc ... and still be able to make a living to support themselves and their families.

Over the years, the sport of Practical Shooting has grown and benefited by the performance of "Sponsored" competitors. We see a Jerry Barnhart or Todd Jarrett, et al, and we connect with them. We see what the very best shooters can do, and it encourages us to strive to emulate them as best we can. And of course, through the USPSA Classification System, it allows us to be classified against "The Best, of The Best, of The Best" (see: Men In Black).


Obviously, it takes someone especially talented to compete in such august company. A paltry few of us can enter the ranks of Grand Masters; for the rest of us, B-class is "The Graveyard of Mediochre Shooters".
(Full Disclosure: yes, I'm a B-class shooter in some of the few Divisions in which I am classified; C-class in the rest, the ones in which I don't often compete. After 25+ years, it's obvious that I'm "not that good". I shoot for fun and the company, and I don't expect to win very often ... if at all.)

Still, it doesn't seem to matter; no matter in which division I compete, the top scores will have been matched against the "Professional Shooters". Grossly defined, these are people who not only have competition-related expenses, but also living expenses, provided by "someone else".

The "Professional Shooter" is someone who does so for a living. That is, they are not dependent upon paying for their day-to-day, normal cost-of-living expenses being paid for by a "real job". (A job which is not dependent upon their competitive ability.)

Many of these excellent competitors earn extra money teaching elements of competitive shooters; in company with a dozen or two other would-be competitors, I once paid Travis Tomasie $130 for a one-day course on the fine points of IPSC competition. I felt at the time (and I still feel) that I got my money's worth. He was 30 years younger than me, and he knew more about pistol competition than I had every figured out by my own experience. And I have bought tapes (Ron Avery) and books (Brian Enos) from other winning shooters, learning from them all.

Rob Leatham, "The Great One", has 'always' been described as a "driver for a livery company" (United Parcel Services?) As such, even though he is the perrenial winner in almost every match in which he competes, by this definition he should not be classified as a "Professional Shooter": but at his website he is named as "Rob Leatham Professional Shooter, 24-time USPSA National Champion, 5-time IPSC World Champion, action pistol shooter and practical shooting website".

I'm guessing that his day-to-day livelihood is not dependent upon delivering parcels to your doorstep anymore.

TALKING POINT:

Even the most talented (eg: "naturally gifted") shooter has small hopes of competing successfully against a Professional Shooter. The best they can hope for ... and this has been the traditional career route ... is that someone will decide that they appear to have a sufficient talent that it's worth the financial obligation to sponsor them at least as far as providing ammunition for practice; the next step is match fees and travel fees; the third step is providing an 'honorarium' for linking their name to the product name.

That doesn't always provide enough money for the shooter to quit his or her "day job", but it may provide sufficient money for them to make their living expenses by offering Training Classes to wanna-be shooters.

At this point, I don't hold much hope of competing successfully against the person who trained me for a day, a weekend, or for a week. I can improve my own capabilities, but I have not the advantages in practice time and expenses to me competitive.

THESIS:
USPSA should make an effort to identify "Professional Shooters", and remove their Classifier scores from those against which the non-professional shooter must be measured. It should become a part of USPSA's functions to require professionals to self-identify, and put them in a special ... Category? Class? Division? for the purpose of Classifier Scores.

Amateurs should compete against other Amateurs; they should not compete against the Professional Shooters. This should be true also in Major Matches, which suggests that there should be a separate Category, at least, identifying which Professional Shooters actually WIN a match, a stage or a division.

Classifier Scores should also be maintained in a Separate classification matrix, so that Amateur Shooters are not classified in comparison to Professional Shooters.