how to do it, I didn’t want other families to have to go through. So, I fi gured with all of the coaching classes I took and experience, I’d start developing more close to home,” she explaines. “I started a team at my local club, then another club, and then I took on the state team job . . . Once I divided that up, the junior clubs started having more teams, and we were able to get more competitive,” she adds. “It’s grown quite a bit.” Currently, Trickett coach-
es 36 beginners and 10 ad- vanced juniors on her Mas- sachusetts Rifl e Rebel team. Between coaching and
running matches, Trickett fi nds herself at the range at least fi ve to six nights a week. When she’s not at the range, she’s doing paper- work — scheduling, prepar- ing entries, securing targets and awards. On top of that, she works full-time and still has duties at home, such as cooking dinner, shopping or doing laundry. Of course, all of this to-
gether can be tiring for any coach who also has a life outside of the range. Fortu- nately, Maureen has a loyal group surrounding her. “It’s a lot of time. I think
a lot of people think you just show up to the range and it happens,” she says. “I am very lucky to have a very supportive parent staff that helps me with a lot of it. When things get crazy, they’re out.”
there to help me
During the day-to-day ac- tivities, sitting with the kids on her team and listening to them talk about their lives has become one of the best parts of Trickett’s coaching
duties. With her kids now out of the house, that time spent with the junior shoot- ers is a way of fi lling the void and allows her to once again play the mother role. “I think because my kids
are older now, I miss that aspect of their lives,” she says. “These kids come in and they share their lives with me, so it’s kind of like they’re my own.”
Spending countless
hours with her juniors, she’s able to build a trusting re- lationship with each one. Trickett says the kids’ ability to open up to her isn’t be- cause she’s a woman, but because she is a coach. “As a woman, I think they
sometimes look at me more like a mom, so if they need to talk, they may talk to me more easily than a male. But I think that’s the relationship they have with a coach any- way. If they have a good re- lationship with their coach, whether it’s male or female, they should be able to talk to them,” she says. “But even some of the boys in the past, they still call me mom.” As one of the few fe- male junior coaches in the sport, being surrounded by
16 USA Shooting News | September 2015
men could be intimidating to some, but for Trickett, she sees it as a positive as- pect — both for the future of marksmanship and her team members. Her opinion as a woman,
mother and coach can of- ten be taken as nurturing and inspiring — attributes for which many of the male coaches she’s encountered have given her praise. “I fi nd in this fi eld, I
haven’t really run across any negativism. If anything, the reason I became a coach is because I was encouraged by so many men. I think they felt they needed more wom- en because of the fact those girls in shooting, they like the input from both sides,” she says. Trickett does her best
to uplift girls who may be overwhelmed by the male- to-female ratio of the sport. She commends marksman- ship’s versatility, expressing that shooters can challenge themselves in the individual sport, as well as be a part of a team. Everyone can work at his or her own pace to get better. Best of all, even if you aren’t the best, everyone gets to participate.
Summed up – it’s a level
playing fi eld for all involved. “This is a sport that’s
equal for both men and women,” she said. “I think that makes it a lot less in- timidating for women.” As an added hobby, Trick-
ett has been building her own marksmanship skills, enjoying pistol and small- bore for fun. Her biggest love is long range, in which she reached High Master last year at Camp Perry. She also plans to earn her Judges License for the Paralympic World Cup — a fi eld in which she has become closely in- volved — and she is eager to continue taking classes and learning from her fellow coaches. At the end of the day, when all of the kids have gone home and the lights are turned off at the range, she returns home to the per- son who is the reason she began her coaching career: her husband, Charlie. Each day, she takes the time to remember the way he sup- ported her and how he con- tinues to support her in all that she does. “He was the one who encouraged me to go, puts up with me not being there for dinner when I’m at the range or traveling . . . but he still encourages it. As a man, and for us as a family, to support something like that is a big thing.” In the end, it’s not a mat-
ter of men versus women — it’s a matter of support. Maureen Trickett is an exam- ple of how with hard work, drive and, most importantly, reassurance from those around her, great things can happen.
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