Congratulations to all 16 of the participants that were selected or qualified to compete in the ESPN Great Outdoor Games. This event will be televised next weekend on ABC and ESPN, and is tremendous exposure for our sport. Hats off to the National Shooting Sports Foundation (thanks especially to Scott Moore, Jack Robertson, and Paul Erhardt with NSSF for a great job) and ESPN for such a tremendous job of putting this event together. Also thanks to the industry Sponsors for supporting the program.
During the shotgun final the stands were full on the shotgun venue, and on the adjoining archery and rifle courses with a live crowd of around 3000 people trying to see the event, or to at least see the jumbotron. This was probably the largest crowd of any of the events, even though it was not held until after dark. Through television, something like 100 million people will see our guys and gal shoot.

There were some exciting shootoffs. Jamie Riggs (17 year old young lady) and Tre Sides went 3 rounds deep in a shoot off on the first night, and Travis Mears (age 16) took out Bobby Fowler in a shootoff.

Mears, Robertson, and Brett Durack were the only ones to shoot perfect scores of 20 during the competition. Robertson and Durack also had a 5 round shootoff to determine the final winner.

When it got to the final four, two of the four left were Texans - Mears and Robertson. Robertson finally won it over Brett Dorak, with Robby Purser taking Mears by one target for the Bronze.

Travis Mears and Brett Dorak were real crowd favorites because of their young age, as was Jamie Riggs as the only female. It was really something to have a crowd cheering, counting targets as they were broken, and asking shooters for autographs. Some local kids even went shirtless and painted Mears name on their chest as a show of support. The young guns were interviewed several times by local radio and TV stations, and presented themselves and our sport very well.

Congratulation to Texan Travis Mears for his fourth place finish. He was the youngest competitor to ever shoot the shotgun portion of the games. Robby Purser only beat him by one bird for the bronze. This finish guarantees him a repeat performance next year, as the top four automatically return.

Only Travis, Scotty, and Brett Dorak shot perfect rounds during the competition. Over 3000 spectators were on hand for the finals.

The NSSF and ESPN are due a huge thanks for getting our sport into 100 million households.