Virginia >> The League’s Arlington-Fairfax Chapter teamed up with Sportable — a non-profit organization that provides adaptive sports for athletes with physical disabilities — to offer an NRA Coach Education Program for air rifle with an emphasis on adaptive shooting.

This two-day “train the coach” class provided instruction on all the basics — safety, equipment, coaching methodology and ethics, team building, training plans, risk management — plus a focus on equipment unique to disabled shooters. Trainees then returned home to offer classroom and on-the-range instruction for beginning and intermediate recreational shooters who face physical challenges.

Many of the coaches-in-training understood the limitations shooters may encounter with traditional ranges and equipment because they face physical challenges themselves. Seven of the coaches-in-training were disabled athletes — including Major John Arbino, a Wounded Warrior trained at the Arlington-Fairfax Chapter, who won a gold medal at the May 2013 Wounded Warrior Games in Colorado Springs.

The training class was supported by an Olympic Opportunity Grant and the Arlington-Fairfax Chapter, so there was no cost for the coaches to attend.