Former Tigers first trap coach at Prior Lake
Thisweek Newspapers
by Pat Rupp
4/15/10


Former Farmington High School athlete Doug Dingman (class of 1977) has been an avid hunter since his youth and his passion for shooting straight carried into adulthood where he has won several state sporting clay championships. It’s no coincidence he and his wife of 31 years, Jodi, live on property owned by the American Legion Post 435 Gun Club in Webster.
Dingman’s life-long hobby turned into a part-time job recently when he was hired to coach the new trapshooting team at Prior Lake High School. The Missota Conference school will offer the sport on a trial basis this spring and depending on participation numbers and performance will add it to the varsity menu for the 2010-11 school year.
“This is a lot different from your typical school sport,” Dingman said. “First of all, you don’t usually hear words like ‘firearm’ and ‘school’ in the same sentence. “Secondly, everyone involved will be under intense scrutiny. One mistake by anyone involved and there could be a lot of people saying,‘I told you so.’” Although Prior Lake is one of a very small number of schools to offer trapshooting as a sport, it is by no means the first. Last year, Hopkins, Minnetonka, Wayzata and Robbinsdale Armstrong fielded teams and this spring Worthington, Elk River, White Bear Lake, Edina, West St. Paul, St. Francis and Prior Lake join the mix. To address the unique security and safety concerns presented by the new activity, the sport has a full staff, including head coach Dingman, a range safety officer, a varsity assistant and a trap advisor. The sport also has a volunteer treasurer and media person. Practices began on April 6 at the team’s home club, the Minneapolis Gun Club in Lakeville, and according to Dingman, things are going well. “We have 38 shooters out for the team,” he said, “and they are just soaking up everything. It’s very rewarding to see them light up when everything works.” One of the most unique aspects of the sport is the almost complete absence of head-to-head competition. “All of our regular season matches are virtual,” he said. “We shoot at our home club and the other team shoots at theirs and then the scores are compared. “The only time more than one team would be competing against another at the same place would be at the state meet which all the teams in the state are eligible to enter.” Dingman said he is in the process of scheduling a head-to-head meet at a neutral site to prepare his team for the state competition. He’s also working with other school coaches putting together a trapshooting conference to be called the Minnesota State High School Clay Target League. “Even though we are considered a varsity sport, our shooters can’t win a letter this year,” Dingman said. “But we are expecting that to change after we report to the School Board after the season. We’ll show them that this a team sport just like the other ones they have.”

So far it appears the sharp-shooting ex-Tiger is, as usual, right on target.