Vincent Hancock has a lot to say, but most people just want to know how he accomplished all he has. You can’t blame them. Hancock is a four-time Olympic skeet gold medalist.
But understanding how he has accomplished so much means first hearing his story, and then, if we are lucky (and he has been generous with us) listening intently as he tries to distill his method into words that those who haven’t ascended the figurative heights of Mount Olympus might understand.
First, as he is busy running about the country and the world, the best place he had to speak with us was from his truck. No matter. His words are clear and he has been at this for a while.
In 2005, at age 16, Hancock won his first World Championship title in men’s skeet. That year he also won the International Shooting Sport Federation’s Shooter of the Year award. He then spent the summer after his junior year in high school in Army’s basic training and became a part of the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit. Meanwhile, he kept winning World Championships and began winning Olympic medals. And, along the way, he has been giving back. He is now the owner and president of Northlake Shooting Sports in Northlake, Texas. Over 400 high-school shooting athletes currently train at his facility every week. He hosts numerous youth shotgun competitions on the growing skeet and sporting clays range just outside of Dallas-Fort Worth and he personally coaches youth shooters.
“I do wish that for the shooting sports we had more opportunity to be in front of people because the shooting sports are the safest sport in the world,” Hancock told us as he reflected on all he does. “And we have an opportunity to really show people the difference between our sport and a lot of the other sports and to show them just how fun it can really be.”
When asked how he deals with parents who are not gun owners, and so maybe are unsure if their son or daughter should take part in the shooting sports, he said, “We have the chance to walk them through each step as they enter this culture. I’d never really experienced this until owning this range. I now see it as an opportunity to understand responsibility, to understand commitment and to understand what it takes to really be the kind of person you need to be on a daily basis. Because, if you’re going to own a gun, then you need to know that, yes, this gun can absolutely do bad things; however, it’s not meant for that. And so, you go through all safety training, and then those kids see it as a responsibility. That changes the parents’ experience. And I can’t tell you how many people I’ve talked to who said, ‘The shooting sports have changed my child.’”
“They tell me that the shooting sports is the reason they have their child back because the child was going down a path that wasn’t good. And then, all of a sudden, because of this, they’re back on the right track.”
We then asked him about his tips for skeet, about gamesmanship at the Olympics and about the future of the shooting sports. He didn’t disappoint.
