Something to make us a little prouder...

[82Rigger]

Teen sharpshooter hits with single vision

Pan Am gold medalist blind in one eye

By Tom Weir
USA TODAY


When it came time to adorn her bedroom walls with the poster of a personal hero, Collyn Loper didn't choose from the typical teen pop mix of Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake or the Olsen twins.

Roper reached back to the 1800s and latched onto an image of Wild West legend Annie Oakley, the gun-toting woman who truly could shoot the ash off a cigarette, with no harm to the smoker.

''If I had someone I could go back in time and meet, it would be, by far, her,'' Loper says. ''She was the original.''

Loper, though, might prove to be a carbon copy.

Just 17, she is headed to the Athens Olympics as the youngest member of the USA's shooting team. This month, Loper won her first national championship in women's trap shooting, a discipline where she knocks 4-inch-wide clay disks out of the sky with a 12-gauge shotgun.

Those targets are substantially bigger than the dimes Oakley could hit from 90 feet, but there's one distinction Loper has on her idol. Loper, because of a hereditary disease, coloboma, was born blind in her right eye.

''My grandfather had it, my mom has it, but I'm the only one who's blind from it,'' Loper says of the disease that often only slightly affects an individual's vision.

''Leave it to me to lose it all,'' says Loper, laughing.

That easy acceptance of her physical limitation personifies Loper. ''When I was little, I ran into things a lot,'' she says, still laughing. ''I knocked myself out on the playground one time because I ran into a brick column.''

The newly licensed driver adds, ''It took me a lot of bad mistakes to figure out what to do'' to compensate for her lack of depth perception. ''I ran some old lady off the road the other day, and I felt so bad about it.''

Considering all that, she says, ''You would think I would have gotten into another sport.''

Instead, Loper became a dedicated markswoman while tagging along as a child with her outdoors-loving father, Brian, in the woods around Birmingham, Ala. She first fired a shotgun at about the age of 10 and from the outset had uncanny aim.

''She just loved going. She didn't want to stay at home,'' Brian says. ''She'd be shooting with guys my age. She could barely hold up a shotgun and was breaking targets.''

Often, he says, ''We'd run into people who would say, 'Come on, honey, I'll help you,' and she could shoot their eyes out. They figured it out pretty quickly.''

Loper says her father has been an unerring coach, that he instantly spots inconsistencies and his suggestion to add upper-body strength has paid off in a sport where she lugs a shotgun for hours.

Their enthusiasm for shooting occasionally must be tempered. Such as when Brian came up with an idea to practice at home, affixing a paper target to a ladder.

''It blew the ladder about 10 feet backward,'' Loper says. ''The next thing I know, I have neighbors calling me, saying 'Did you hear that shot?' I said, 'Yeah, I don't know what that was.' That was the end of that.''

She adds that, ''I love my father, he's like my best friend, and I'm so much like him, unfortunately.''

Brian figured out from the start that his right-handed daughter would have to shoot left-handed, to allow her to take aim with her left eye. To make sure she could do that, he had her practice with a BB gun before trying a shotgun.

''I just picked up shooting left-handed,'' Loper says. ''I didn't know any different. I didn't know how to shoot right- or left-handed.''

Loper's father also introduced his daughter to trap shooting because he thought it was an activity that would accommodate her eye problem. He learned that what Collyn had the most problem with was objects coming at her. In trap shooting, the clay targets are launched away from the shooter.

''I've always been very open with her (about her blindness), that we're going to do it this way, because . . . '' Brian says.

The biggest problem, she says, is shooting clay targets that fly to her right, blind side.

''Above all, you have to see it,'' Loper says of the clay targets that are sprung out of bunkers at 80-85 mph. ''If you don't see it, you're not going to hit it. . . . They come out randomly so they can go anywhere between a 90-degree angle in each direction. Right-hand targets, if I'm not zoned in and I'm not looking for them hard, I'll miss them.''

In trap shooting, the difference between winning a medal and finishing in the pack often can be a single missed target. That was the margin in Loper's Olympic trials shoot-off in March with Sgt. Joetta Dement, 32, a member of the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit.

Lance Bade, a 1996 Olympic bronze medalist in trap shooting, says Loper's right-eye blindness might be part of the reason behind her excellence, which includes a gold medal at the 2003 Pan American Games.

''You do not have to shoot with both eyes in this game,'' Bade says. ''In my opinion, one eye has its advantages. You see a little sharper image of your barrel. You don't get a blurred barrel or a double barrel or a double target.''

Bade also points out that some shooters compete with one lens of their goggles blacked out or with tape over one eye. But he emphasizes that Loper's biggest attributes are that ''she's a very competitive person, she likes winning, she gives 100% all the time. She doesn't whine; she doesn't cry when things aren't going right. She grinds it out and says 'I'm going to do it,' and she goes out and does it.''

That tough mental aspect, Bade says, is vital in a competition that drags out over two days, with three 25-target rounds and a final shoot-off.

''She learned she didn't have half as good a mental game as she thought she had,'' Bade says. ''She realized there are some things she needed to do to give herself a better chance.''

The Olympic trials took place at Fort Benning, the Georgia Army base that Loper commutes to most weeks with her father. It's about a 2 1/2-hour drive from the Lopers' home in the Birmingham suburb of Indian Springs.

Loper is fortunate to be that close to Fort Benning because there are few trap ranges in the USA. Trap bunkers cost about $150,000 to build, and a range typically has four. The next closest range is in Colorado Springs.

Because Fort Benning isn't open for shooting on weekends, Loper has to miss school to practice. For a time, teachers regarded her trips to Georgia with suspicion.

''Now they've become more lenient, especially after I made the Olympic team,'' says Loper, who will be a senior this fall.

With shooting practice making her miss almost half of her class time during her junior year, Loper has some reservations about maintaining an Olympic regimen.

''When I go to college, I'll continue to shoot, but maybe not as competitively,'' says Loper, who wants to study chemistry. ''I've seen how much I've missed out on by not being in school, and I don't know if I want to repeat that.''

That, says Olympic teammate Bade, would be a shame.

''If she doesn't get burned out and if she gets a little more experience down the road,'' Bade says, ''I think the world better watch out.''

Wow! what an inspiration, I see a gold medal in those eyes

[82Rigger]

Well, no Olympic medal for Collyn (Whitly) Loper in womens' trap. But she came in 4th...barely missing a bronze medal. She broke a total of 82 out of 100 targets...the gold medalist broke 88 of 100.

Not bad for a young lady of 17 years old!!!

I know we are all proud of her!!