A few years ago, I saw a movie about a girls’ high school volleyball team. They’d long been dominant in the state, if I remember correctly, but they lost their captain suddenly. So, the team tried to move on, dedicating their season to their fallen leader, and won. It was based on a true story, which I remembered when I saw the video show up on whatever streaming service it was.
Stuff like that is what feel-good movies are made for. The adversity, the triumph, everything is part of what I love about sports in general. It’s a testimony to the human spirit.
Here in my home state, there’s a team that likely won’t get a movie, which is a shame, because they did essentially the same thing.
The Forest City Juniors are a youth clay shooting team with a solid history of success. I mean, since 2020, they’ve won every national championship they’ve competed in.
But this year, they’d lost their biggest cheerleader.
The sport is incredibly specific, requiring an acute attention to detail and fierce focus.
Chaz Palmer has been on the team for the past three National Championships. He explained, “You can’t let anything else bother you while you’re shooting because say your angry or you’re thinking about something – you’re not going to be focused on the bird and you’re more than likely going to miss.”
It’s a concentration that’s tough to keep under Championship pressure, but this season these shooters were up against an adversary harder to overcome than their competitors.
“It was horrible… awful,” said Guerrettaz.
As suddenly as clay targets break, the hearts of everyone around the team shattered the same. A parent described as the juniors’ biggest cheerleader – Scot Ritchie – died of a heart attack.
The head coach described the moment he found out.
“When I got the phone call my 10-year-old son was in the backseat and he’s like what do you, what now?”
Through the impossible questions, the Forest City Juniors found answers together, both the parents and their teenage athletes.
“We’re all there for each other. It’s not just like a shooting club, like I said earlier it’s like a big family,” said team captain Mils Hollis.
The group used that unity to get through their grief, but brought it with them on the course too as inspiration. Their motto for last season – Six for Scot.
Bailey Stokes has been on the team since 2021. She said there was a clear difference with their sixth national title.
“This year I felt like it was different in the aspect of doing this for him and doing this for the people that can’t show up.”
Anyone who has been around youth sports, especially outside of a school setting, can tell you how important it is to have adults offering support. Even in school athletics, parents are essential to the success of a program, but it becomes more important when there’s no taxpayer funding to count on. Everything is from the community.
And it sounds like Scot was a big part of that for the Juniors.
Losing a big part of their support system can wreck a team, especially with young people who likely don’t have a great deal of experience dealing with loss. It could have scuttled their effort to win their sixth title.
Instead, they rallied behind the loss, using it as a motivator, winning one for a man who had supported them for so long.
That’s a movie, in my mind. That’s a feel-good story that hits all the right notes. Sure, Hollywood would add a bunch of unneeded drama, likely make it look like the team was in risk of losing, pulling it out at the last second, which likely isn’t what happened, but the overall story is one that would resonate with audiences because we’ve all lost someone, all had to push through with our lives and know how hard it is, and want to see that victory on the other side.
Unfortunately, because it’s a shooting sport, I doubt the film industry will come calling.
Instead, I’ll just quietly celebrate their latest win and tell them I’m one of many who are very proud of what they did.
Editor’s Note: Clay target shooting is one of the fastest growing and safest sports around, but positive coverage like this is a rarity.
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