While Vincent Hancock and Kim Rhode remain amongst the most successful skeet shooters in the world, the United States is also looking towards the future too.
With success requires legacy, and to have that, there must be those to teach.
This is the motivation of Remington McBee, a 31-year-old athlete who hails from a small town in Texas. While an accomplished national shooter, he has been even more accomplished providing guidance from the chair.
As a coach, 15 of his athletes have made it onto the US shooting team, leading to five ISSF World Cup and Junior World Cup medals for his athletes – most notably of these being his younger brother, Adam “Colt” McBee.
As an athlete, Remington still has one eye set on making the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games in his home country, but sees the longer picture as getting others to major competitions.
“My heart has really been into bringing the younger generation into the sport and helping them make Team USA,” said McBee.
“I wanted to not only continue shooting in this sport, but I started to see that a lot of the youth wanted to, they were inspired by myself and others to embark upon Olympic skeet.”
While McBee has been certified in his home country, he saw the launch of the ISSF Academy as an opportunity to improve knowledge and coaching credentials.
“When I found out about the ISSF Academy, I was really thrilled and excited,” he added.
“It's been an honour and a privilege to be able to take the courses and to become an ISSF coach.
“I've managed to be able to take my ISSF level D and C, and I'm looking forward to moving forward for the rest of those.”
McBee is one of the C course students, who must pass this level to move up to the B level. He stressed that, as a full-time coach back home, the D course is easier to manage with your schedule. A move up to the C course, requires more sacrifices.
“I think once you start getting into the C course, it's very demanding,” he said.
“It's got a lot of information, and I really feel like that good time management skills is definitely necessary.”
Remington has been pivotal to the success of his brother Adam, who had a best-ever finish at an ISSF World Cup event in Lima when he finished seventh in the men’s skeet. Two more members of his team sit on the junior national skeet team, who he hopes to support through his new-found knowledge on the course.
But he hopes it goes beyond that – he is looking for a new generation of young Americans to make the switch over to internationally-recognised skeet and trap shooting, as well as other disciplines. The key differences are: slower targets and a shots are pre-mounted into your shoulder in American shotgun events.
“In America, we have a large amount of youth shooters that do not shoot the international sports,” he added.
“They shoot what we call American skeet, trap and sporting clays and so, we have thousands of young shooters all across the globe.
“They grow up shooting an American sport and being able to bring them from a sport, it is challenging.
“The fact that we have gold medallists, multi-gold medallists, multi-World Cup medals in our sport, I think we could promote the international side a little bit better.
“So, I am trying to bring the dedicated and determined ones that accept the challenge to want a chance to go to the Olympics or want an opportunity to be coached by someone that can help them produce those kinds of skills to shoot at the Olympic level.”
He also expressed his wish for more American coaches to “give back”, encouraging them to take on the ISSF Academy courses, having already referred one coach to the programme.
“I feel like the Academy would be really good for coaches to learn how to speak to athletes,” McBee said.
“I've learned a lot about what I needed to do to help my athletes be more successful mentally, physically, and a whole lot more to go along with that.
“The Academy, with Vesa throughout this sport, I'm just looking forward to how much more it's going to grow and how blessed I am already for what it's already becoming.”
While McBee received a refresher from his psychology in university during the course, he also said he learned a lot in areas he previously “took for granted”.
“I feel like one of the biggest things that I learned is my athletes need more structure, and as well as they need to work on their mental game, they need to work on their nutrition, their health, physically they need to be able to, a lot of people don't think you need to be in some physical shape to shoot, but it really does help,” he said.
“I realised that they did go over in the courses how to properly speak to your athletes with the proper vocabulary that it takes to in the sport, and I thought that was quite unique.
“I left inspired and fired up ready to go out and help one of my athletes and it really kept me in my zone.
“I tell my athletes ‘I just want you to know coach wins.’ It's a win-win for me, and my whole heart is to help them be the best athletes and achieve their goals and dreams in the sport.”
With athletes still developing across the United States, McBee is one of those using the new ISSF Academy courses to his, and his nation’s, advantage.