It didn’t take Taylor Beard long to hit the center of a target
once she picked up a rifle.
In fact, in five years, Beard, 18, has gone from holding a rifle
for the first time to being on an NCAA national championship
winning team and being nationally ranked fifth in three-position
small bore (.22 caliber) and 11th in air rifle sports.
Beard helped the University of Alaska-Fairbanks shooting team,
the No. 1 team in the nation, to an NCAA title in air rifle in
March of this year at West Point, N.Y.
And the Nanooks defeated West Point to win it. Being a bunch of
freshmen and sophomore shooter, Beard said the collegiate world
didn’t expect UAF to post an NCAA win.
“We were just a bunch of decent shooters. No one was really,
really great or anything,” Beard said. “But we still won.”
The Parker resident is a sophomore on the UAF shooting team, but
she academically stands as a junior, having first started her
collegiate career at University of Colorado-Colorado Springs at age
15.
A home-schooled student who excelled in her studies, Beard took
the ACT tests when she was 13. She completed her high school
education in two years.
Beard’s mother had to drive her to her first semester of college
classes because the teen was too young to drive herself.
She first became interested in shooting sports when she was 13
and her younger brother received a .22-caliber Marlin for his
birthday.
Less than a year later, Beard was shooting in national
competition and performed well enough to get an invitation to train
at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs.
Outside of the travel and competition, Beard said, she enjoys
the technical aspects of shooting the most.
“It’s about the details, basically,” she said. “It’s a precision
sport.”
Once she committed to training at the OTC for a year, Beard’s
mother commuted the teen to Colorado Springs every day while she
did her school work in the car.
She began attending the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs
in the fall of 2005.
Beard was selected to the Olympic national development team the
same year after taking second place at nationals among junior
shooters and fifth overall.
The development team is designed to give athletes the
opportunity to compete in bigger matches on an international
level.
Beard saw her first international competition at the Cat Games,
also known as the Championship of the Americas, in Puerto Rice in
2005.
She finished fourth overall in an open class shooting
three-position small bore. Her team won first place with a
combination of three shooters.
In 2007, Beard was recruited by the University of
Alaska-Fairbanks to continue her training with Nanooks coach Dan
Jordan of Franktown. At first, she had no interest in attending
UAF.
“I just wanted to stay in Colorado Springs. I was already going
to school. [We] had the house there. I was training at the
[Olympic] Training Center,” Beard said. “I didn’t think I would
have better training opportunities.”
She soon was persuaded in part by friend and Olympic shooter
Amber Darland, who resided at the OTC and was an alternate on the
2004 Olympic team.
Many of the shooters training at the OTC shot for the Nanooks
shooting dynasty, Beard said.
Another reason for Beard to consider Alaska was Jordan, a 2004
Paralympics silver medalist. Beard credits Jordan for the Nanooks’
NCAA win, taking a group of underclassmen to a national title.
“I think Dan is probably the best collegiate coach out there
right now. I think he really helped us as a team,” Beard said. “A
lot of other schools, they recruit a lot of talented people, but
they never get better. They never progress or anything.
“I also like how, in college, you can compete directly with the
guys. I think it makes it more fun sometimes. It’s an individual
sport, but it can also be used as a team sport.”
Eventually, Beard made the jump to Alaska with both athletic and
academic scholarships, and, once there, she was treated by the team
and the community as a rock star, she said.
Today, Beard, who trains four to five hours a day, aspires to
help the Nanooks to three more NCAA championships as she enters her
sophomore year of competition.
She also aspires to be a medal winner at the 2012 and 2016
Olympics.
Last May, Beard competed in the U.S. Olympic trials and placed
eighth in small bore and 12th in air rifle.
Though performance at a shooting match demands that a shooter be
totally relaxed when he or she steps up to the line, Beard’s
pre-match rituals may seem less than relaxing.
She makes sure to get in the appropriate relaxation and
muscle-tension releasing exercises, but typically spends some time
before the match listening to tunes such as “Lose Yourself” by
Eminem, “Send the Pain Below” by Chevelle, and others from such
hard rock bands as Incubus, Three Days Grace and Linkin Park.
This is the music running through her head when she is shooting,
she said.
In addition, Beard will use a Rubik’s Cube to help clear her
mind of thought, and she will make sure to wear two things
important to her: Her hat and her socks.
Her mother, Candy Beard, made her a hat to wear in competition
that has the phrase “one shot” airbrushed on it, a reference to
Eminem’s Academy Award-winning song.
Her socks are knee-high and always in “funky” colors, made by
her grandmother.
After the match, she typically does one of two things in no
particular order: Eat and sleep.
Beard said she is mentally exhausted after a match, and because
of this, she is able to sleep in any environment at any time of the
day.
“You’re supposed to get 8 to 10 hours of sleep. That’s kind of
the guideline,” Beard said.
Because of her NCAA team win, Baird will have the opportunity to
meet President Bush this November.
She is pursing a degree in natural resources management.
303-663-7173 |
bfarrell@ccnewspapers.com