Centerville -- Indian Hills Community College is the latest school to add sports shooting to its athletic offerings. IHCC has announced the sports shooting program as an addition to the college's athletic department with men's and women's teams being formed this academic year for the sport, which will be based on the IHCC Centerville campus.

Jake Stalzer, a former Indian Hills baseball pitcher and avid outdoorsman, has been tapped to coach the sport. Stalzer, an Albia native, says the sports shooting program is going to be a great addition to the Centerville campus. "The campus is a great place with excellent faculty and staff," said Stalzer. "I am very excited to be leading this program in its first year of existence. It will be a tough but rewarding challenge building it from the ground up. I can't wait to watch the program grow and become one of the top collegiate programs in the state."

There are at least a half-dozen community colleges in Iowa with sports shooting programs already in place and the sport can also be found at a number of area high schools, which is where Stalzer will begin his recruiting efforts. It's one of the fastest growing sports in the country, according to Stalzer. "In 2011 there were 59 Iowa high school teams with 1,392 athletes," the IHCC coach said. "This year (2016) there are 133 Iowa high school teams with 3,545 athletes, so the number of sports shooting teams and athletes has more than doubled in five years."

Stalzer, an Indian Hills graduate who went on to get his bachelor's degree from Elon University in North Carolina, believes sports shooting is appealing because it's fun, and is a sport that offers many life lessons such as safety, discipline, patience, mental focus and teamwork.

"I like the fact that this sport gives high schoolers, who might not have thought it was possible, a chance to become college student-athletes," Stalzer said.

(Pictured: Coach Jake Stalzer)

There are sports shooting teams that compete with shotguns, rifles or pistols. The Indian Hills team will be in the shotgun category.

There are currently students on both the IHCC Ottumwa and Centerville campuses, according to Stalzer, who might have an interest in being a part of the inaugural sports shooting teams at Indian Hills. He would like to have 10 to 15 of them identified with the possibility of taking part in some competitions next spring. By the start of the next academic year, in Aug. 2017, the hope is that 30 student-athletes, both men and women, will have been recruited for the first full season for the sport, with roughly five competitions slated for the fall and spring.

Anyone with questions about the new sports shooting program at Indian Hills can contact Stalzer at 641-856-2143, ext. 2213, or 641-891-0794.

This program is supported by the Collegiate Shooting Sports Initiative Grant Program, a grant program of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, Inc.