Kaua’i’s Air Riflery team It was game time, and they were far from focused. Every shooter on Kaua’i’s Air Riflery team just sat around and chatted-some played, others joked. You wouldn’t think these kids were some of the top shooters
Kaua’i’s Air Riflery team
It was game time, and they were far from focused.
Every shooter on Kaua’i’s Air Riflery team just sat around and chatted-some played, others joked.
You wouldn’t think these kids were some of the top shooters in the KIF. You wondered how the Red Raider girls swept the league with no losses. You questioned whether their boys were capable of being in the hunt for a trip to Kona-a shot at the state championships.
But alas, these are the kids. They make up a girls team who has bounced back from a 2-4 record from last season to a baffling 6-0 in 2001. These are the same group of boys who won only one game last season and have tripled that total this season.
And yet they seem so relaxed.
But then the briefing began.
Red Raider Coach Douglas nabriga explained the rules to both teams, the kids settled into their prone positions, and the courts behind Kaua’i High fell silent.
Play time was over. The moment douglas nabriga gave the signal, it was all business for these skilled shooters.
Maybe that was it. The recreational pre-game stuff, that was just a group of teammates having some fun.
But come gametime, focus sets in.
This focus is what separated this team from last year’s squad. It’s a mental game taught by both Coach douglas nabriga and his pro assistant, Jason Ventar.
“They had the skill, they just needed the mental game,” said douglas nabriga, a former Kaua’i student who learned shooting from hunting experience. “All they needed to know is that they had this ability. Once Jason and I gave them that knowledge, they had the confidence to go out and win on their own.”
Ventar, who served in the army for 12 years as a weapons specialist and range official, agrees.
“Half of Air Riflery is mental, the other is skill,” Ventar said. “These kids are the ones who go out there and do it. Our jobs as coaches is to instill that mental game, teach them what we can about shooting, and let them go out there and perfect themselves. And what they have proven to themselves is not that they are just winners, because that is just a part of the game, but that they are capable of achieving their goals with strong effort and confidence.”
These coaches don’t take enough credit for their efforts. They put so much emphasis on a shooter’s potential, and they forget that their developmental coaching has played a part in the team’s success this year.
But isn’t that the way it’s supposed to be? It’s all about the kids. And the leadership shown by these coaches, as well as their interactions with the kids, proves that the ingredients to winning is far from mere skill.
It’s realizing your capacity to gain that skill.
Focus.
At the pro level, that word is all that separates two forces from one victory. The touch-out in the fifty freestyle. The field goal in the fourth quarter. The goal kick at the 90th minute mark.
Kaua’i’s Air Riflery teams have honed their focusing skills, and that’s why they have gone from losing records to being some of the best shooters in the KIF.
