Happy New Year, everyone. We here at "Inside USA Shooting" are busy keeping up with America's best shooters, and hope your year is off to great start. Today's blog is about something we don't usually cover, but I suspect one word will catch your attention: MONEY.

It's somewhat of a little known fact that Olympic Athletes – while considered "amateurs" – can get paid for their performances. And I'm not talking about getting paid with medals, products, clothing or other perks. I'm talking about cold, hard CASH. The United States Olympic Committee has an incentive program for athletes that earn medals, and USA Shooting is included in that program. That means that each of the six USA Shooters who medaled in Beijing recently received their bonus checks for their great showing at the Olympics. Check out these numbers:

Gold medal winners Vincent Hancock (Skeet) and Glen Eller (Double Trap) got $80,000 EACH from USA Shooting.
Silver medal winners Matt Emmons (Men's Prone Rifle) and Kim Rhode (Skeet) got $40,000 EACH from USA Shooting.
Bronze medal winners Corey Cogdell (Trap) and Jason Turner (Men's Air Pistol) got $24,000 EACH from USA Shooting.

And that's not all: In addition to those awards, the medalists received checks from the U.S. Olympic Committee as well. Gold medalists got $25,000 each, silver medalists received $15,000 each and bronze medal winner were given checks for $10,000 each. Add them together and you can see that our "amateur" athletes can definitely earn a great living with their skills.

I don't know what each athlete is going to use the money for, but just for kicks, I'll throw out some guesses based on how I know each of these shooters as people. These are total speculation, and I'm doing it just for fun. (I wonder what each of these shooters will say to me the next time I see them . . .they'll either chuckle and say I was "right on the nose", or they'll chuckle and say, "Smith, you don't me very well, do you?!". Either way, we'll get a good laugh out of it.)

Since Vincent Hancock just got married, I suspect he and wife Rebekah might look for a house. Rebekah is in nursing school, so perhaps some of that gold medal money will go towards tuition.

Glen Eller may also use his money for a house – he's been sharing a house near the Fort Benning, Georgia base. But Glen is such a fun-loving guy that I would imagine some of that money will go towards "toys". He already has a terrific maroon Hummer for a car, but I wouldn't be shocked if he adds something to his fleet.

The silver medal winners for USA Shooting are both settled down in their lives, so I would look for Matt and Kim to use their windfall for something practical. Kim is getting married this spring, so some money will likely go towards the nuptials. Besides that, she loves to fix up old cars, invest in real estate and is considering veterinarian school. All "practical" uses for her cash.

I would guess that Matt and his wife, Katy, might look into buying a house, but the question is where. They're both still training for the next Olympics, so staying in Colorado Springs, CO, would make sense. But Matt has said on a few occasions that his dream is to return to Alaska (where he attended college), so maybe they'll "pull the trigger" (pun fully intended) on a place up there. And considering Katy is from the Czech Republic, maybe they'll look for something over there as well.

The bronze medalists are the hardest ones to pin down. Corey is a self-described "Tomboy" who loves all sorts of outdoor activities – especially hunting and fishing. Maybe some exotic "cast and blast" trip in her future? She is also an admitted "Shoe-A-Holic", so a few trips to the mall are likely in the mix. And she loves to cook AND tune up cars. . .  so a buck-or-two might be spent on those hobbies. Hard to predict what any 21-year-old will do with a dollar, let alone $34,000 of them, so we'll see what Corey dreams up.

Jason will likely spend some his money on one of his favorite hobbies: golf.  You know, that's one of my favorite hobbies also. Hmmm. Well I better wrap up this blog and put in a call to my "old friend and buddy" Jason (wink, wink) and see if I can get in on these golf treats! Gotta go.

See you soon here on the Outdoor Channel blog site!

Happy holidays, everyone. We here at "Inside USA Shooting" hope you are having a great season thus far.

2008 is winding down, and for USA Shooting that means handing out awards for the best shooting athletes of the year. Each year USAS selects one female shooter and one male shooter for the honor. This year's "2008 USAS Athletes of the Year" are both shotgun shooters and Olympic medalists in Beijing: Kim Rhode for the women and Glenn Eller for the men.

The selections are not huge surprises, considering the great performances Eller and Rhode had all year. It's important to note that the "Athlete of the Year" selection for USAS is not subjective – like, for example, the Sports Illustrated annual award which is based largely on editorial discussion and argument. The USAS athletes are selected through a points system that takes into account USAS Policies and Procedures, as well as performances.

Rhode's title as "USAS Female Athlete of the Year" gives her back-to-back claims to that title: She was also the 2007 USAS Female Athlete of the year. She earned the award this year for performances like her Beijing Olympic silver medal in skeet, her silver medal at the World Cup (Texas) in May, fourth place finishes at the World Cup in Germany and Belarus, and for being named 2008 National Champion. On top of that, Rhode finished second at the Shotgun Fall Selection Match, earning her a spot on the 2009 World Shotgun Championship Team.

The California native and four-time Olympic Medal winner has been plenty busy away from the range, gearing up for her wedding next spring. It'll be fun to watch next year as one of the greatest shooters in American sport shooting history balances her life while still competing at the highest level.

Double trap shooter Glen Eller entered 2008 hot and stayed that way all year en route to earning his USAS Male Athlete of the Year award. He took silver at the World Cup in Beijing in April, then fourth place at the World Cups in Texas and Germany, and finished first at the Olympic Selection Match. He then put an exclamation point on his already impressive career with a double trap gold medal at the Beijing Games.

It seems like every single shotgun competition we covered this year on "Inside USA Shooting" had the same progression of events: Spectators and competitors spend the first few days talking about how good the Men's Double Trap shooters are, and how deep the talent is: Besides Eller, there's Jeff Holguin, Josh Richmond and Bill Keever, all from the Army Marksmanship Unit and all capable of taking the top spot at any event. But this year it seemed like "The Four Horsemen" (as they are called) would battle for the first few rounds, virtually rotating between the top four spots ... until Eller would stick up a couple of rounds of 49 out of 50 or 50 out of 50. Next thing you know, entering the finals, Eller would have a six or eight point lead over the field and would cruise to victory. Now that may be stretching the facts a bit, because every competition is different, but take it from a guy who was at many of those events: This year it just "felt" like Eller would pull away and win. He was just that hot all year. He is a very deserving recipient of the USAS Male Athlete of the Year award.

Eller and Rhode will now have their names submitted to the U.S. Olympic Committee for consideration for the 2008 USOC Sportsman and Sportswoman of the Year awards. The top athletes from each sport within the USOC are nominated for the coveted recognition as the top overall athletes in the entire USOC family.

While Eller and Rhode were selected as the overall USAS Athletes of the Year, USA Shooting also acknowledges the best shooters from each discipline, based on who earned the highest number of points in each discipline. This year's winners are Jamie Beyerle for women's rifle, Matt Emmons for men's rifle, and Jason Turner for men's pistol.

Just because the Olympics are over doesn't mean our USA Shooting Team is slowing down. In fact, many of the shooters you saw compete in Beijing just returned from an extremely prestigious event overseas, where they again claimed some hardware.

The event was the 2008 ISSF World Cup Final (ISSF stand for "International Sport Shooting Federation"). It was held in Minsk, Belarus and included 58 shooters from 18 countries – including 15 shooters who medaled in Beijing. When I say this event is "extremely prestigious", consider many people in the sport shooting world consider World Cup finals the highest level of competition – more so than even the Olympic Games. To qualify for a World Cup Final you have to be either a defending World Cup champion, ranked in the Top Eight, or be a Medalist from this year's World Championships to earn an invitation. That means it truly is the "best of the best".

Among the Americans was men's skeet Olympic gold medalist Vincent Hancock, who qualified for this event by winning the World Cup event in Suhl, Germany last spring. Hancock took silver at this world Cup Final – losing to Tore Brovold of Norway. It was a "flip-flop" of the results from Beijing, where Hancock won the gold by beating Brovold in a shoot-off.

And while Hancock medaling has come to be almost "expected", USA Shooting took home another silver at the World Cup Final thanks to a shooter who did not make the Olympic Team – but who has been on the cusp of great things for the past few years. 23-year-old Haley Dunn of Eddyville, Iowa finished second at this year's Olympic Trials, just one shot behind Kim Rhode for the only women's skeet position on the US Team. It was the second consecutive Olympic Trials that ended in heartbreak for Dunn, who also finished one-shot off the pace for the 2004 Olympic Team.

But Dunn has shown great resilience despite those two heartbreaking moments. She was the 2005 skeet world champion and USA Female Shooting Athlete of the Year, the 2006 women's skeet national Champion, and the 2007 Pan Am Games gold medalist. She is a threat to medal every time she competes, and she came through with a silver at this Belarus World Cup Final. It's a great kick-start to her next four years as she will try again in 2012 to make the US Olympic Team.

Besides being a great shooter, Haley is a really nice person. Every event we go to, she is among the first to come up and say "hello" and ask about my family, etc. She always has time to talk to us on camera, even if it is moments after a disappointing performance. Last spring, when she finished one-shot behind Rhode for that only women's skeet Olympic Team slot, you could tell she was crushed. She walked away from the range and took some time to herself, just wandering the grounds at the Olympic Training Site in Kerrville, Texas. But about a half-hour after the medal ceremony, she was back to her smiling, polite, cheerful self, accepting fan's and competitor's condolences with grace and class. She is truly a class act.

Haley has also been enjoying the college football season the past couple years. As a graduate of the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri, she is a true-blue Missouri Tiger football fan. I remember back at the World Cup in Kerrville a couple years ago, Haley was talking about finishing the competition while also trying to cram for a couple of final exams – and wanting to race back to Missouri by Saturday night so she could go the football game with her college friends. Considering the Tigers' football team has been in the Top Ten most of the past few years, Haley is enjoying her alma mater's success on the gridiron. We can only hope similar success comes to the shooter who has been THISCLOSE to making the Olympic Team for each of the past two games.

Don't forget to watch "Insides USA Shooting" on The Outdoor Channel. The next episode is really cool because we sat down with many of the members of the 2008 Olympic Team and got their first-hand, "behind the scenes" stories about Beijing – everything from getting their uniforms before leaving America to what it was like standing on the podium and getting an Olympic medal around their necks. Really interesting, personal and heart-warming stories straight from your Olympic medalists. Be sure to watch, and we'll see you again soon on this blog.

What a hugely successful Olympic Games for USA Shooting! Six medals – twice as many as 2004 – including two golds, two silvers and two bronzes. Perhaps just as satisfying as the overall success is the fact that there were a few "surprises" for the team. We all expected Glen Eller, Vincent Hancock and Matt Emmons to medal – which they did. And many people figured Kim Rhode had a real good shot (no pun intended) to medal, considering she already has three Olympic medals. But considering it was her first games in her new event of skeet, there was some concern about how she'd adapt. Obviously, as her silver medal proves, very well!

But I don't think a lot of people expected trap shooter Corey Cogdell to medal in her first Olympic Games, and even though pistol shooter Jason Turner has been hovering around the Top Ten in the world for several years, I wouldn't say a lot of people expected him to make the podium in the biggest event in the world. So kudos to everyone – from the "expected" to the "surprises." What a great ten days for USA Shooting.

Since NBC didn't air the shooting events during prime-time, I had to watch all the finals on my computer – even though most of them started at midnight here in Oregon. Each night I'd tell my wife "I'll come to bed in a bit," only to find myself staring at the computer watching the finals, pumping my fist and cheering (in whispers, so as not to wake my two young children).

After Glen Eller won the gold in double-trap, I sent a text message to him and one to his dad (Butch), and e-mailed his mom, Clara, congratulating all of them. The next morning I called Bill Keever, who is a teammate of Eller's on the Army Marksmanship Unit shotgun team at Fort Benning, Georgia. Bill had also watched the event live on his computer, but for him it didn't start til three a.m. and didn't end til 4:30. He had to be in the office at 6:00, so when I called he was still a little foggy. He said the entire marksmanship unit gathered to watch the final again during their morning meeting. A bunch of tired, happy shooters in that room!

Bill said he was sending text messages to Butch Eller throughout the match, and as Glen got closer to winning Bill sent a text to Glen's sister, Stacy, reminder her to have the box of tissues close by because he knew Butch would be a mess. Butch is an emotional man – especially when his son is shooting – so you know the tears were flowing as Glen closed it out and got the gold.

I asked Bill if he had talked to Glen yet. He had – although not until Glen had completed four hours of press conferences and interviews! He said Glen was happy and relieved, and then Bill told me a story that really sums up what this team is all about.

Near the end of their conversation, Glen said "By the way, thanks Sergeant."

Bill asked: "For what?"

"For talking me into joining the Army," Glen responded.

Bill said it brought a tear to his eye, knowing that his good friend was so happy. Bill also said "that comment alone made it all worthwhile, the last four years of training. Sure, I wish I could have been in Beijing representing America, winning a medal. But if I can't do it, knowing Glen did it was just as satisfying. I was just so proud of him."

Chances are Bill Keever will have plenty more opportunities to be proud of Glen Eller – and vice versa. All the Army shooters, and all the shooters on the USA Shooting Team, are threats to medal in 2012 in London. This entire team is so close and so supportive of each other – and that certainly plays a part in their success. It should be fun to watch for the next four years!

See you soon. Next blog we'll talk about Matt Emmons' Olympic experience. He sent an e-mail describing it on a "personal" level and I'll share a bit of that e-mail with you. So keep checking this blog page!

It's finally here – the moment we've looked forward to for the past four years: THE OLYMPICS! This is by far the grandest event for American sport shooters, and a chance for our athletes to get some great international exposure, grab the headlines and enjoy their "15 minutes of fame" on the biggest sports stage in the world.

I have a strong feeling that we'll be seeing many of our shooters on the medal stands over the next couple weeks, and so today's blog is going to give you some more "inside info" about those shooters. Stuff you can't learn just anywhere. Commit this stuff to memory, and then impress your friends and family with these tidbits as you are watching our shooters collect their medals ... 

Trap shooter Bret Erickson nearly died just before the last Olympic Games. Shortly after he qualified for the 2004 U.S. Team, he was on a training run with his teammates when his heart stopped.  His teammates were able to get his heart going again, and doctors installed a pacemaker. Just four weeks after that, Bret shot in the Athens games.

Skeet shooter Vincent Hancock just got married. His new wife, Rebekah, is studying to be a nurse – something Vincent also plans to do after he retires from competitive shooting (something that is WAY down the road). And by the way, don't call him Vince. That's the one form of his name he doesn't like. It's either Vincent or Vinnie.

Trap shooter Corey Cogdell is perhaps the most diverse shooter you'll ever meet. Besides being an avid hunter and fisher, the Alaska native is a self-described "girly-girl" who owns more than 50 pairs of shoes. She also loves cooking, and actually worked for two years as an assistant chef for a cooking school, and then traveled to Italy just to study how to prepare authentic Italian food. Not diverse enough for you? She also calls herself a "gear head" who likes to work on old cars (mainly Jeeps and Mustangs) and in her spare time (is there any left?), she rides motorcycles, rock climbs and goes downhill skiing.

Speaking of diverse, rifle shooter Sandra Fong once won her school's science fair, and she spends a lot of time in performance art, writing and directing plays. She also plays the trumpet and sings with her school jazz band. The 18-year-old New York, New York native is heading to Princeton this fall where she will major in theater and the history of jazz.

Rifle shooter Jamie Beyerle is a terrific all-around athlete who also excels academically. She played high school basketball, softball and soccer, and she was also a junior National Champion in BB gun. AND she was also a member of the National Honor Society.

Speaking of athletic skills outside of shooting, rifle shooter Matt Emmons – the reigning gold medalist in the 50-meter prone event – once pitched a perfect game in high school baseball. His interests go beyond sports as well: Matt bought a guitar a couple years ago and is teaching himself how to play, no doubt entertaining his new wife, Katy, with his performances. Matt's a very bright guy – in fact, he has already earned a college degree in management and finance from Colorado University, Colorado Springs campus.

Double Trap shooter Glen Eller, a strong contender to win a medal, was a high school pole vaulter. It's fitting because he's about as tall and skinny as a pole vault. (I tease him about that all the time.)

Eller's double-trap teammate, Jeff Holguin, also played sports his whole life (mainly baseball), and he is a huge college football fan. Jeff's loyalties are tied strongly to his Southern California home: He's a die-hard USC Trojan fan.

Rapid Fire Pistol shooter Keith Sanderson and rifle shooter Michael Anti both love fast cars. Sanderson owns a Porsche 911 and likes to tinker with amateur racing. Anti owns a silver Corvette – which he bought for himself as a reward for winning a silver medal in the 3-position event in the 2004 Olympics. Get it – silver and silver? He claims the color was a coincidence ... but he says his plan is to buy a gold Corvette after the upcoming games ... if he wins the gold.

Rifle shooter Jason Parker has a "secret weapon" when it comes to being mentally strong as a competitor: He has a college degree in Psychology from Xavier University.

How about some tidbits on the pistol shooters? Brenda Shinn is a lieutenant in the Riverside County (CA) sheriff's department. Beki Snyder has a black belt in tae-kwon-do. Brian Beaman is big into archery. Jason Turner plays softball and golfs when he's not shooting. And Libby Callahan, at 56 the oldest Olympian, is retired from the Washington D.C. police force, where she was a lieutenant – and a five-time women's police revolver champion.

So there you have it – share these insights with friends and family while watching the games ... make 'em believe you are an expert on the USA Olympic Shooting Team! See you next time ...