“I started shooting in the fifth grade. My older sister, Deann, was on the 4-H air rifle team. I always wanted to be better than her,” laughs Nicole Taylor, a freshman at Tift County High School and one of the best young shooters on Tift’s air rifle team. What started as a way of following in her sister’s footsteps has now morphed into something much larger. Taylor spends countless hours per month honing her craft and dreams of landing a spot in the Junior Olympics and, hopefully, a college scholarship.
Most air rifle teams in the area are tied to a JROTC program. Tift County’s team is different. It is a school team just like football, basketball, cheerleading, or track. Before joining the Blue Devils shooting team, Taylor was already an accomplished marksman at the 4-H level. She had placed first in the state in BB competition, been to Nationals, and been named Rookie of the Year for the area. Being a good shooter requires patience, a steady hand, the ability to relax under pressure, and a short memory. Shooters can’t dwell on misses; they simply have to move forward and forget about wayward shots.
Taylor began her season in October. The Blue Devils just finished in early April. “It’s a long season,” she says. “One of the longest of any sport.” Tift didn’t make it to state as a team. And Taylor just missed going as an indi
vidual. In matches, scores are based on 100 points. Participants shoot from three different positions: prone, standing, and kneeling. A perfect score is 300 points. An individual score of 290 automatically qualifies a shooter to the state match. Taylor averages a 280 with a personal best of 288. “Next year, we want to go to state. We’ll have a bunch of seniors on the team and we want to send them off with a trip to state,” she says.
One of the primary objectives driving Taylor’s shooting career is her goal of appearing in the Junior Olympics. It’s one of the highest honors for a high school shooter and Taylor is in her first year of eligibility for the Junior Olympic program. To get to the Junior Olympics, shooters must qualify at a one of several matches held in their states. Georgia has several different qualifiers, some in the Atlanta area and others at Fort Benning near Columbus. Taylor has been to one qualifier and shot well. She narrowly missed qualifying. “There are a lot of standing shots in the qualifiers. There are 60 compared to just 10 in high school matches,” she says. She gained valuable experience at the qualifier and she plans to keep practicing as she pursues her goal
s of competing against the best marksmen in the country.
A little further down the road, Taylor would also like to land a scholarship to shoot in college. The Military of College of Georgia at North Georgia University in Dahlonega is one of the few schools in the region that offers scholarships in the shooting sports. “I would love to go to school in Dahlonega,” she says.
At 15 years old, Taylor has plenty of time to hone her craft. She has lofty goals but already has a firm foundation. She is unfazed by pressure and doesn’t mind mixing it up with whoever she needs to. And, as one of the few females who shoot at her level, she isn’t intimidated one bit by her male counterparts. “Last year, our 4-H BB team won fourth place and we went to nationals in Arkansas. I was the only girl on the team,” she laughs.
Shooting isn’t just one of several sports in which Nicole Taylor participates – it’s her only sport. And it’s also the only sport she can play. Taylor has exercise-induced asthma and can’t run for extended periods of time. Shooting is the perfect sport her. It allows her the opportunity to represent her school on the field of play but does so in manner that won’t worsen her condition. “I would love to get out and run but I just can’t,” she says.
Favorites:
• Subject: Georgia history
• Least favorite: Language arts. “Which is funny – my mom is a language arts teacher.”
• Last movie: Divergent
• Superpower: Fly
• Place to travel: Paris
• Sport you wish you could play: Running
• Shooting sport outside of air rifle competition: Dove or duck hunting
Freshman Focus/South Georgia/May 2014
Nicole Taylor
Tift County High School
Tifton, Georgia
Robert Preston Jr.
Photos by Micki K Photography
Tift freshman aims for Junior Olympics
