This year marks the 25th anniversary of the NCAA National Collegiate Men's and Women's Rifle Championships. A great many of the sport's successes at the collegiate level rest on two very important relationships, one that may be expected and another that may surprise people.

One is with USA Shooting, the national governing body (NGB) for the Olympic shooting sports, but the other is with the National Rifle Association (NRA), an organization well known for its political clout.

The NRA's political agenda aside, it is clear that the connection among the three organizations is critical to the continued success of NCAA rifle programs around the country.

At base, the link appears fairly simple.

Valerie Boothe, head coach at the University of Mississippi and interim chair of the NCAA Men's and Women's Rifle Committee, said USA Shooting follows the international style of shooting, whereas the NRA leans more toward the American style of shooting. NCAA rifle programs, then, provide a bridge between intercollegiate and international competition.

Years ago, the NRA served as the NGB for the sport. According to Michael Ray, head rifle coach at Rose Hulman Institute of Technology, a mandate from the International Olympic Committee requiring NGBs to have no political involvement, coupled with the NRA's growing political activism, spurred the creation of a new NGB, USA Shooting, in 1994. The U.S. National Rifle Team and the U.S. National Development Team operate under the umbrella of USA Shooting.

However, despite operating from different perspectives, the NCAA, NRA and USA Shooting each provides important and necessary benefits to the others.

Ray said the NRA is the foundation of nearly all competition shooting in the United States.

"The shooting community owes a great deal to all the NRA has done over the years," he said.

Perhaps overshadowed by the sometimes negative attention the NRA receives over its political agenda, the list of its contributions to collegiate rifle could be one of the best-kept secrets in all of competitive sport.

USA Shooting's Gary Johnson, who serves as head coach of the U.S. National Rifle Team, said it is through the NRA that many kids are introduced to the sport.

"The NRA is the foremost organization that teaches safety, introduces kids safely into the sport, and provides coaching and development of kids and training of coaches around the country from the grass-roots level on up," he said.

He said the organization also maintains a camp system that assists shooters in safely progressing from beginning to advanced levels, and, of course, it provides opportunities to compete in not just rifle, but also in pistol and shotgun. The NCAA offers air rifle and small bore disciplines.

Financial, feeder involvement

Boothe sees a three-fold benefit for the NCAA in its association with the NRA and USA Shooting.

"I know that our school has benefited by the addition of small bore to our team solely through NRA because we received grants to fund them. The NCAA benefits from both the NRA and USA Shooting because we take the majority of the competition rules from a compilation of both entities," she said.

Victoria Croft, manager of the NRA Collegiate and Schools Program, said the NRA not only awards grants through Friends of NRA, which works on a state-by-state basis, but it also operates the NRA Collegiate Program.

Croft said coaches or shooters may apply for funds. Schools are limited to receiving one award per year, but institutions may reapply annually. The needs, she said, are wide-ranging and may include requests for assistance in purchasing new equipment or building a new range.

As for the NRA Collegiate Program, Croft said the purpose of the program is to support shooters.

"We're here for the collegiate shooters in every way, shape and form," she said. "We want to make sure they put education first, but obviously for many of these kids shooting is a passion and so we want to see a good relationship between academics and this sport they have chosen. Since the NCAA governs that, we're just here to make sure it's easy on the student-athletes."

Croft said the NRA's support of collegiate shooters ranges from providing information to sponsoring competition and championships in rifle, pistol and shotgun.

According to Ray, NCAA rifle benefits from junior programs sponsored by the NRA and USA Shooting.

"While most of my athletes are walk-ons who haven't shot competitively before, most NCAA rifle schools recruit heavily from the junior programs, which continue to improve," he said.

Familial ups and downs

Ray also said that USA Shooting relies on the NCAA to provide most of its future Olympic rifle hopefuls, either directly or from former collegians in the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit.

For its part, Johnson said USA Shooting usually dovetails with the NRA's programs at the intermediate to advanced levels. He sees the NCAA as a natural link.

"We work together as a national coaching staff, then I take them further down the road. They start hitting the national development team and the national team," he said. "The NCAA is just that four-year window. A lot of our future Olympians have and will continue to come right from the NCAA level."

Despite clear advantages to remaining linked, the three organizations admittedly don't always exist happily and comfortably.

Ray described the relationship in the context of a family.

"I would say it's like a family that isn't very close," he said.

"Overall we have the same goals," Johnson said. "The personalities don't always mesh. There's certainly not a state of acrimony. It's just that we all work through our stuff and it all comes out in the end."

The NRA's Croft said it's not always a happy co-existence, but for the most part, everyone is able to work together.

"I think communication needs to be improved. I'm ready, willing and able to communicate with the NCAA and USA Shooting at any time," she said. "I think a lot of times all three organizations are busy, specifically at certain times of year, and it makes it tough to reach each other. But, it's at that time of year when we need to be in contact to make sure we know what A and B are doing so C heads in the right direction. If the communication were more open, it would be better."

Boothe agrees that communication among the groups is key.

"I serve on the NCAA committee and I also serve on the NRA collegiate programs committee -- so I can be a liaison between the two, which makes it a little bit better. We don't really have a USA Shooting committee, but we try to talk," she said.

Ray said a first step to improving relations between the organizations is to attend meetings together, perhaps during the NCAA championships.

In spite of the sometimes rocky relationship, all three organizations recognize the necessity of remaining closely tied to each other.

University of Kentucky head coach Harry Mullins said if any of the groups decided to disassociate from the others, it would be a disservice.

"The way that we'll really grow and stand strong and prosper, to move on and have shooting where it should be and could be, we need all three to work together," Mullins said. "It's kind of like having a table with three legs. If one of them breaks, we would definitely have to resolve very hard to fix it."

Croft said it is important that the groups work together for the sake of the shooters each organization supports.

"We have to work together not just for the organizations but for the competitors. It makes a world of difference to them," she said. "In my personal opinion, I think it's best for the shooters if the organizations are amicable, and the better we work together the more we can benefit the shooters."

USA Shooting's Johnson said that each has its own important role.

"Any one of them disappearing would be very tough for our sport. We couldn't replace the NRA in a short period of time. They do a lot of things, particularly at the grassroots," he said.

Ray believes a better relationship is essential to all three groups and is hopeful it will continue to improve like it has the past couple years.

"It's obvious USA Shooting relies on the success of NCAA rifle and NCAA rifle relies on the success of the junior programs," he said.

Ray also said the groups need to work together to increase the number of schools that sponsor the sport.

"We also need to focus on education, not only of the school administrators and athletics directors about the benefits of the sport for the student-athletes, but also the juniors out there who will one day go to college," he said. "I'm amazed by the number of competitive juniors who have no idea of how NCAA rifle operates or that it even exists. What would happen if a school received many inquiries about their rifle programs? I would hope the demand would increase the supply."