Bert Rollins was my instructor in the NRA
coaches school, for a few short days he poured his teaching and life experiences
in to us in such an impressive way that it had a significant philosophical
impact on me personally and on the objectives and structure of our junior
program.
Last night at practice I shared with our junior team what he meant to me as a
competitor, instructor, and as a gentleman. Our juniors know that we are
teaching them not just so they can win matches, but so that they
will take on the responsibility of teaching the next generation. We teach that
it is necessary to give something back to the sport both in effort and
financially. This is one of the many ways Bert influenced our program.
One of the ways the Junior Palma team has demonstrated this vision this year has
been to turn team winnings into US Palma team raffle tickets instead of rolling
it back in to the program to reduce our ammunition cost (our juniors do not
retain individual winnings to protect their NCAA eligibility).
Last night the junior team decided to take up a collection and send it to the US
Palma team in Bert's name. While this donation may be small, it is heartfelt.
I have never been so proud of them as I was last
night. We will be sending a check to Palma Promotions late next week.
http://wajuniors.home.att.net/news.htm
http://wajuniors.home.att.net/jrpalma.htm
Ken Littlefield
Coach and Administrator
WSR&PA Junior Highpower
