National Junior Team Member Luis Gloria
though it might as well be. Luis Pineda Gloria is probably
known more by his moniker of the Looney Tunes cartoon character than the name passed down through the men in his family, something the 19-year- old skeet shooter actually embraces. “Most people that I have
LONATO, ITALY Taz isn’t actually his name –
known for so long, when they’d realize that my name wasn’t actually Taz, they’d look at me and say ‘You look like a Taz’ and it just fi ts me,” he said. “I enjoy it. It’s a different name, I’m a different person, and my person- ality isn’t what I’d consider nor- mal. I try to put myself out there and the name, well, if you meet someone named Taz, you’re not going to forget that person.” With a win at the most
recent Fall Selection in a fi eld that included 2012 Olympic gold medalist Vincent Hancock and 2012 Olympian Frank Thompson, Gloria earned the right to represent the U.S. at the upcoming ISSF World Cup USA
on his home range in Tucson, Ariz., in April and with his grow- ing success, he’s not going to be forgotten anytime soon.
How did you come to be named “Taz?” It was actually going to be
my legal name. When my mom was pregnant with me, I guess I used to throw fi ts and twist and turn inside my mom’s stomach. They were trying to think of a theme for my baby room and my god mom and her decided to do the Looney Tunes thing. I persisted to keep fl ipping out and twisting and turning and they were trying to think of a name for me and my god mom came up with ‘Taz’ and that was going to be my legal name. My actual name is the tradi- tional name from my dad’s side of the family – all of the men have the same fi rst, middle and last name so it kind of carried over
down to me from that bloodline.
But when my parents broke
up, there was no one there to call me Luis so the whole Taz thing just kind of stuck with me. I’ve been called Taz since before I was born.
How did you get into shoot- ing?
I was like the kid in A Christ-
mas Story. That was honestly my story growing up as a child. I begged and pleaded for a BB gun. My parents would use that exact same line “No, you’ll shoot your eye out.” Well fi nally, when I was turning seven, I got my wish – I got my fi rst BB gun. I rushed outside just like in the movie and I shot and shot and I would go to school, go home – I would exclude myself from my friends, tell them I was sick or in trouble so I couldn’t play that day just so I could go out in my backyard and shoot my BB gun. The gun was too big for me so I had to put it under my arm and I couldn’t look through the sights so I would point with my hands and look at the target. Once I got the grouping of the BBs in a specifi c ring, I would take a step back, then another step back, and another step back. As I kept doing that, as I continued to grow and get older, they wanted me to get involved with other kids and got me into a bowling league which helps
tremendously with hand/eye coordination. I played that in a children’s league for a year and a half, then I found the 4-H program here in Tucson. I did everything you could imagine, but they never specialized in one discipline. No offense to the rifl e shooters, but I got really bored shooting at one target; I really did. We went out one day and shot Trap for the fi rst time and just loved it. The feeling that I got breaking the targets, even though I didn’t break that many because I’m so tiny – still am – I realized the amount of focus I put into every single shot was way more intense than anything I had ever done before. It was like I was focused and doing what I needed to do – even if it was just a few seconds for each shot – it was like I was in my own world.
I told my grandpa I really wanted to do this and wanted to be competitive and we looked, looked and looked for something that I could do that focused specifi cally on shotgun sports. In late 2004, around Thanksgiving, my grandpa Vern, he started the Scholastic Clay Target Program in Tucson with the help of two other parents from the 4H program. We had 12 kids the fi rst year and its tremendous now, at least 200 kids in the program and it keeps
When my mom was pregnant with me, I guess I used to throw fi ts and twist and turn inside my mom’s stomach . They were trying to think of a theme for my baby room and my god mom and her de- cided to do the looney tunes thing. I persisted to keep fl ipping out and twisting and turning and they were trying to think of a name for me and my god mom came up with “Taz” and that was going to be my legal name.
58 USA Shooting News | March 2014
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