Ironically I believe we both started shooting around the same age – somewhere around 11 or 12 years old.  While I only shot for a few weeks each summer, reached a few rungs on the NRA Sharpshooter classification, then gave up, Jason took it far more seriously.  He would shoot during the evening multiple times each week and later on moved to Colorado so he can practice all of the time with some of the top trainers in the world.  Sadly, we did not maintain contact after high school but I still did keep track of his accomplishments – from the Pan American games to the Olympics.

This year all of the effort finally paid off with a bronze medal in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.  At first I was sad for him because he came in 4th place by only a single point.  However, the North Korean shooter ahead of him was stripped of his medal due to doping and the medal was then given to Jason.

Of course, I’m sure very few Americans have heard of him, but he has put the same amount of effort into his sport as the other more well known names there.  Here’s a list of some of his other accomplishments.  So again, congratulations that all of that hard work finally paid off with an accomplishment you will be proud of for the rest of your life.

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