Citing budgetary problems and a lack of growth, the Empire State Games (ESG) has quietly dropped shooting, fencing, water polo and open field hockey from the 2003 competitions scheduled for Buffalo, NY, July 23-27.
Gun Week had seen no public reports of the decision by ESG staff prior to notification by the New York State Rifle & Pistol Association (NYSRPA), which had provided financial support for the games in 2002, and had planned to provide additional aid this year, according to NYSRPA President Tom King. When Gun Week contacted the office of state Sen. Dale Volker (R-59th District)—a strong supporter of the shooting sports and gunowners—for comment, a staffer indicated that our inquiry was the first they had heard of the Games decision.
Fred Smith, director of the Empire State Games, indicated in a phone interview that “the die was cast” for the 2003 regional trials and final competition, but that he and his staff would be willing to sit down with all interested parties to explore other avenues of support for reinstatement of the shooting sports in future games.
“This was not an easy decision,” Smith said. “It was based on several factors, including: the level of participation in each sport; available funds, and several intangible factors.”
The Empire State Games, begun in 1978 and considered one of the largest of similar scholastic- and adult-level amateur competitions conducted in about 40 states, are under the direction of the state’s Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, headed by Commissioner Bernadette Castro.
Chuck Meyer, the NYSRPA board member who represents the association for the rifle and pistol events at the Games, has written a letter to Castro seeking reinstatement of those events and requesting an opportunity to work with ESG staff to seek ways to reduce costs.
The individual and team shooting events at the annual games include: air rifle; air pistol; free pistol; sport pistol; rapid fire pistol; men’s and women’ trap and skeet; smallbore free rifle prone; three-position rifle, and running target rifle. Although costs were an important consideration with all four of the sports disciplines that were dropped this year, running target was specifically cited by Smith as a high-cost competition, because of the expense associated with equipment rentals.
Smith said that the four sports were expensive and did not provide a partial return on investment as is obtained from spectator ticket fees of $6 that are common with such sports as basketball and hockey.
“I know a shooter or water polo player should be treated the same as a Division One basketball player,” Smith said, “but the economics of sports force us to make such decisions.”
Almost as important as budgetary issues, according to Smith was growth within the different sports. He said the shooting sports had not shown the kind of growth that is one of the key purposes for the Games. “We’re trying to encourage participation in all the sports and help the scholastic athletes advance to the Olympics and other higher levels of competition,” he said, “but we’re not seeing that in the shooting sports. It seems like the same people year after year with few, if any, new faces.”
Smith agreed that this may be do to the decrease in the number of high schools in the state that have active shooting programs, as well as the current levels of interest in more extreme, or physically challenging sports.
According to Smith, competitors for the state championship events in 28 sports are normally selected during six different regional qualifying events. He estimated that competitors, coaches and officials for the shooting events have totaled about 140 in recent years.
Shooting has also posed other intangible considerations in the past, including: the jitteriness of colleges where many athletes are dormed whenever shooting is mentioned even though there has never been any real problems; the extra costs for renting safe storage facilities and/or guards for the competitors’ guns, and a lack of public interest.
He even cited the need to quell official concerns with the transportation of guns, as the Games staff successfully did with Nassau County a few years ago.
“The cancellation of shooting this year isn’t the only sport decision that will make people unhappy with us,” said Smith. “My own son is giving me a hard time because a close friend of his is a competitor in one of the other cancelled sports.” Return to Archive Index