September 9, 2001

To All Finalists:

After discussion with Alan Warner, I have decided to allow bloop tubes at the Palma® tryouts. Alan will make a special plate for his sight for anyone who makes the team that has a bloop tube. This will give the same 1/2 minute click as someone shooting his sight on a 30" barrel. Please spread the word since the tryouts are only 5 weeks away.  

Thanks.  - Peter LaBerge

July 12, 2001

Fellow Shooters,

The USA has some of the finest prone shooters in the world.  In 1999, we placed shooters in the top 10 at the World Championships in South Africa.  But yet we placed only 5th in the Palma® Team Championships.  Many of you are asking "Why?"

I don't have all the answers but I will share with you what I perceive some of

The most basic problems are and what the 2003 US Palma® Team is doing to correct them.

I will share a quote from a 1999 South African Palma® Team member: "The USA has a team of Champions, but is not a Championship Team."  This sums it up beautifully.  We are a team of individual shooters.  We shoot and train as individual shooters and we do quite well at it.  Team shooting is almost nonexistent in the USA shooting sports.  Team shooting on more than a single target at a time is nonexistent in the USA. The USA Palma® Team training has been one session where everyone gets familiar with each other and another session or two where we zero our rifles and a little shooting as 4 or 5 individual squads, each with a squad coach.  The squad coach was selected for his wind reading talents but is not accustomed to working closely with other coaches.  They are also very good at coaching on an individual basis.  Each squad coach, in these few training sessions, had to learn about the shooters on his squad and their individual equipment differences. Finances have made it almost impossible to get the full team together more than this in the little time between the team being selected and the Palma Team Match.  The Team Management did an outstanding job with what they were given to work with.  In 1995, under these conditions, they pulled off a 2nd place finish, which I believe was fantastic. Some people were upset that it was not a Gold medal, but Silver is still good.

So what are we doing about it?

First, we are getting a much earlier start on team training.  We are selecting the team members a whole year earlier than we ever have before. I have selected Dr. Thomas J Whitaker as head coach since he probably is the most experienced person we have in winning International competitions and he has a solid military background of Team competition.  Tom is forming a core coaching team from the various regions of the United States.  This will allow us to have some Regional training sessions where we won't need the entire team and keep travel cost to a minimum.  The final team coaches will be chosen from this core team.  This gives us a year to work with these coaches and be able to best choose and train those whose skills can best help the team as our team develops.

Second, we are striving for uniformity on the team.  I know many of you are not fond with my decision to not allow front lenses and bloop tubes on the team.  The main reason for these decisions is to have our sights uniform from one shooter to the next.  I want to remove differences in sight settings so that the coaches can focus on more important items such as conditions and communication and not have to worry about individual differences from one shooter to the next.  We may have other items such as barrels, chambers, and ammo that will be uniform. We are going to have documented team processes that everyone will follow.  Each Team Member will have a copy of the "play book" and know exactly what they need to do at any given time under any given circumstances or conditions.  We will also practice these "plays" in training so that they are ingrained in each and every Team Members mind.

Finally, as I have mentioned above, we will train well.  We will have  regional training sessions with local Team members and future Team members.  We need to train for the future, and not just for 2003.  We will have six quarterly training sessions with the full team starting 1st quarter of 2002.  I will have the 2002 dates hopefully at the completion of the tryouts in October.

These sessions will be planned ahead and we will make them as efficient as possible.  We will have some separate training sessions with the coaches to work on team communications so that the team works together as a single unit and not as four squads.

Winning the Palma® Team Match in 2003 is not going to be easy.  It is going to take a lot of dedication, effort, and cooperation from each of us.  And of utmost importance is team funding.  NRA alone is not going to be able to fund the USA Palma Team with all the training that it will take to win the match.

We need each and every one of you to help where you can.  Make those tax deductible donations to Palma® Promotions and find those businesses that are willing to make monetary or equipment donations to the effort of the team.  We will have a raffle for a Tubb 2000 gun which will start at Camp Perry this year and have the drawing at Camp Perry in 2002. This will be a full turnkey package that every high power shooter will lust after.

I know there are some who have qualified for the shooter tryouts but are hesitating whether to attend or not.  Please attend!  It will be a memorable experience even if you don’t make the team.  You will be competing with the best Palma shooters in the USA on a beautiful range and the North State Shooting Club runs great matches.  Your $75 entry fee is paying range fees and your lunch each day of the tryout.  And there will be a cookout on Thursday evening for everyone.  It will be a great time.

I also can use volunteers for running these tryouts.  Volunteers will receive one free raffle ticket for the Tubb 2000 for each day that they work at the tryouts.  There are also military barracks available for volunteers.  Please contact me if you are interested.

Palma® Promotions web site is at www.palma.org/USA and they can be contacted at:

Peter A LaBerge, USA Palma  Team Captain, palmacaptain@nc.rr.com

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Last modified: June 19, 2008

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