This week on the podcast, I had Tyler Turner on to continue the discussion from last time about what the goals of the sport should be: shooters developing and getting better, or just more warm bodies in matches?

Here is an automated transcript of our discussion:

Ben: Tyler Turner. Welcome to Short Course.

Tyler: Thank you. Thank you. I’m happy to be here.

Ben: People who’ve listened to the previous episode, know that you are the one who kind of kicked off a discussion.

And this was shortly after the vote to remove Mike Foley and the discussion started to arise around what is important to keep from his time in office and what we should refocus on. And, you made a post that they made a couple of interesting claims and I wanted to give you some more space to elaborate on them.

So I mean the first one that, that probably I think is, is the most surprising one is you made the, the assertion that USPSA should actually really be interested in the development of shooters. That it shouldn’t just be about, did this guy shoot, you know, I’m putting words in your mouth, did this guy shoot 15-20 matches this year, but is he actually getting better? Is he developing?

Tyler: Yeah. And to me that that’s something that seems self-evident. I mean, this is the United States practice shooting association. We are made up of practical shooters, both pistol and cabine. if I’m not mistaken, I believe the bylaws explicitly say our role is t o encourage safe and fair shooting competition. And to me it just seems self-evident that one goal of our organization, would be that the people who are actually participating in our sport are improving as shooters. to me that seems, the whole deal, whether, a person is coming out to improve, defensive skills or just their gamer skills.

That seems to me to be the point because otherwise. What is, you know?

Ben: Well, yeah, so, I mean, so this is an interesting question. I, I, in fact, there was a, an article I want to say it was on the USPSA blog or something, you know, and it was tackling the question that, that it, it treated very seriously of, you know, is USPSA a sport or a hobby?

Um, actually I think the article said, is it a sport, a hobby or an activity? Which event?

Tyler: Event? Yep.

Ben: Where do you, yeah, where do you, what’s your thought on that? Why does it matter?

Tyler: Well, USPSA is a sport. , sports have events. You participate in a sport and you can choose your level of participation.

But I think if you start from the premise that USPSA is anything but a sport, you get these, these effects that we’re seeing you get these secondary and tertiary effects. I think it trickles down in the culture, which is something we can talk about now or later, but, to me, if you are running an organization whose purpose and goal is to foster competition to, set out a rule set for said competition. And you have winners and losers. To me, that’s a sport like any other, I think, this idea that there’s any confusion about what USPSA is speaks, speaks to the priorities and speaks to the mindset of, of previous administration. It speaks to probably the culture of our leadership, that this is even a question in their minds.

Ben: Yeah. I mean, the, the, the, the question that seems like no one really has an answer to is, you know, what, what is the purpose of the organization? Is it, is it to maximize revenue or is it to maximize the development, like you were saying of the shooters? Is it actually to, to cultivate a community of people who are getting better and, and are being assisted in that process and are being given interesting challenges that, that help them raise their skills versus just, “Hey, here’s five stages and a classifier. Thanks for your fee. Have a nice day,”

Tyler: Right. Again, the self self-evident thing to me is that the organization itself should be interested in shooter development, that people are proving that they’re putting on good competitions at that they’re fostering competitive excellence.

I think it would be amazing if the organization if they acted like they have a vested interest in people improving, becoming better shooters over time, and taking steps, organizationally, structurally operationally, that reflected that priority. Instead of, to me, it seems that USPSA the organization is very interested in raw numbers. They are interested in revenue. They’re very interested in advertising. They’re interested in industry sponsorships and collaborations. To me, that’s the least interesting part. I, as a shooter, don’t get anything out of, the partnership with, and I’m, I’m not singling anyone out, but, Federal or whoever else to see that on the website, the Facebook page, that does nothing for me, but if we have an organization who’s keenly interested in making sure we’re attracting the absolute best shooters that we are approving matches and approving stages from the top down. This means from nationals to area matches to section matches to locals, to me that’s the obvious priority here. You kind of create your own demand when you are excellent. Anything that is excellent attracts people. It’s a magnet. And I, I just, it’s a different way of assigning that priority to me far from the flash, if things are organically excellent. You have culture that’s driven by excellence. You attract. What, in my opinion, you want in a sport.

Ben: Yeah. I mean, we, the USPSA shouldn’t be going to sponsors and saying, “Hey, please, you know, what, what would it take for you to be interested in us?” We should be so dominant, so compelling, everybody should want to be a part of us because we’re where the eyeballs are.

If your gear can make it in USPSA it can make it anywhere. You know, being able to say the USPSA national champion shoots this gun or uses this ammo or whatever that, that should, that should mean something. Whereas right now it feels like the sport is chasing the sponsors.

Tyler: Yeah. Certainly chasing dollars. And that may be, you know, dollars directly that may be dollars gained through activity fees, you know, the additional participation. To me, that’s the cart before the horse. If you want to gain organic, healthy growth make the sport, make the events within the sport excellent. Make sure the people already here, your membership are excellent. And be continuously improving on that element. And I, I feel like I should preface this because I think sometimes from past comments I’ve made or anything like that, I want to avoid the, to the extent I can, this elitist GM thing, because, uh, I don’t want anyone to have the perception that I don’t want D class and C class and B class, an A-class guys in the sport.

That’s not what I’m saying at all. some of my absolute best friends, some of the absolute best people in the sport, are D and C and B, and A. I don’t want a sport of GM’s and it’s okay.

Ben: It sucks shooting on a squad full of full of guys with big egos. I mean, it’s, it’s no fun. Yeah, for sure.

Tyler: But you can be a low B class guy and be entirely invested in the sport. You can volunteer, you can put on matches. You can RO your state match. I’m not talking about, you know, if you’re not a GM, then you’re not, you’re not squat. I’m talking about, I want people in the sport who care about it. They’re here to improve it. and It’s people who they want to know what they can do for the sport as opposed to what can the sport do for them a lot of times.

Ben: And we’re not talking about, you know, oh, it should all be, you know, 20 yard partials and super fast swingers, like that isn’t fun for good shooters any more than it is a, a B class shooter. Like a good stage is, is interesting as a challenge from D glass all the way up to GM. It doesn’t, it doesn’t have to be super hard, really good stages have elements that are designed for everyone.

So yeah, I’m with you. This isn’t that if you’re not a GM within four years of joining a sport, you know, you’re irrelevant or whatever. It’s not that at all. It’s just a question of, are people being motivated by, “Oh, I got some shiny new toy. Now this is what’s going to hold my attention for two months. Oh, I need a new toy. I need a new toy.” And, and, you know, we’ve all shot with those guys that always have something new. They’re always changing and they never get better because they never learn any one thing.

Tyler: Well, and imagine, imagine if our organization said something like, Hey, you know what, instead of doing that, instead of buying the new shiny toy, instead of constantly advertising, you know, the new hotness or this, that, or the other division, like what if they explained to shooters what they told them, the truth, which is, you know, if you change guns every two months, you’re always chasing equipment and chasing gear, you’re ignoring the important part. You’re ignoring , the skills that are actually going to improve you, you know, because the weak link in your shooting is not what gun you’re shooting this month, it’s not the holster you use. It’s you and here are steps you can take to improve yourself.

Like I just think that would be so refreshing in Front Site, but it’s not even called Front Sight, anymore, right? What if they had just a real talk article in there it’s like, “Hey, dummy, like take a class.”

Ben: Or even, I mean, even if it wasn’t something that they had to read, but something that became self evident. I mean, for example, if the classifier system was less of a, of a hit or miss based on, you know, is this an 18 series or a 99 series? Right? If you, if your classifier average actually moved in relation more to your skill than into the classifier selection and you could see, wow, okay. Every time I switched guns, my classifiers dropped by 3 to 4% and then they come back up to, you know, what, if they were actually measurable and consistent to that level, people could actually observe it in themselves. Whereas now they can always say, “Oh, well, you know, that one’s really shot up.” Or, you know, “I fumbled that reload.” There are always excuses. Right. Whereas if the classifiers were actually more consistent and uniform than, than that actually would be a signal to people like, “Hey, you’re not getting better, even though you feel like you are.”

Tyler: Yeah. Yeah. But you know what, one last thing on, on the organization side, I think you talk about what you prioritize, right. And the priorities of the organization to me have been made clear both implicitly and explicitly over the last several years, which is we want warm bodies. We want participation. You know, we’re never going to breathe a word about, you know, improvement or the quality of our competitions or the stages or anything of that nature.

But Hey, we would love. You to buy some of our industry partners products, whether it be ammo or gear or guns, of course. To me, you, you talk about that, which you prioritize. And I think our priorities organizationally are

out of whack.

Ben: Yeah. I mean, when, when you have the president talking about the nine days of nationals and you know, he’s not saying it’s the highest quality, best stages, it’s, it’s that it’s the largest, right? It’s the largest practical shooting event, second, only to the World Shoot, like you said, like you can see right there that that’s the priority.

Tyler: Well, and I I’ve looked at, as far as I know, I’ve looked at every set of minutes, at least since the Foley presidency, probably, you know, some of the Strader I came in to the sport, like in the middle of the Strader administration, but I, I feel confident saying I’ve looked at every set of minutes.

I don’t recall, and this sounds like hyperbole, but it’s not, I don’t recall any metric of quality ever being referenced, but every, uh, metric I’ve ever seen has been related to participation and participation being raw numbers. And, and to me that’s not what this is about, or at least it’s not what it should be.

Ben: So this, this dovetails into something else that I think may have been a little bit surprising to folks in what you wrote, which is, and you, you you’ve been talking about growth. And I think we both agree that the sport needs to grow in a healthy, sustainable way, but then you talk about barriers to entry and that that having correct, proper barriers to entry in the sport is actually a good thing for the sport, even though, you didn’t say this, but I’ll sort of challenge you to say, you know, how do you, how do you balance that with the idea that the sport needs to grow?

Tyler: Yeah. And it’s, and it’s not ever a, a popular thing to say something should be more exclusive than inclusive. People are inclined to basically, on a knee-jerk basis, say inclusivity is a good in itself. Right? Like we, we shouldn’t stop anyone for coming out who wants to do this. The problem as I see it, and this is a nuanced thing, and, again, it goes back to the elitist thing, not my goal here, but my point is: the people who actually make it out to a USPSA match in the first place are, are a little bit strange, right? Because. It’s it’s a lot, both psychologically and equipment-wise and it’s like pulling teeth a lot of times to get people out to their first USPSA match, like who even knows what the statistic would be on gun owners in their lifetime who actually come out and shoot one USPSA match much less become like USPSA regulars or even lower odds of becoming a USPSA lifer. You know what I mean? So here’s the fundamental thing. We’re not broadcasting. Some people have it in their minds that anyone who’s a gun owner or anyone who’s an NRA member or anyone who contributes to the second amendment foundation should and would, and, and will come out to a USPSA match.

That’s not the case. We’re very much narrow casting here. The majority of gun owners either don’t know about us or have no interest if they did and coming out and running around guns for one reason or the other. Because we attract this odd subset of people. I think this premise that we need to be inclusive and that any, any person off the street with a Glock, you know we need to make it where they come out here is flawed because they’re not going to come out here.

I can tell you back in 2014, when I shot my first match I, I didn’t know anything about USPSA, but, I did know that there were certain rules. And so I got on the internet, looked up the rules, got a PDF, went through and said, okay. My, my stuff that I have, which was garbage by the way, I had like a Glock 17 in a retention holster, hooded level, free retention holster with battle belt.

Uh, yeah, so it’s not optimal, but I said, okay, I can fit here.

Ben: Well and we always want to have a place that someone, you know, whether it’s Limited or Open, where someone can show up with, with any, you know, with whatever set of gear and just finish their first match. We want, we want the sport to be inclusive in that way where you don’t have to be, you don’t have to go out and drop 2000 bucks to shoot your first match.

We’re not talking about barriers like that.

Tyler: Right? Exactly. I agree with you. But the, and you’re right on the point, because no matter what you have, unless it’s just totally unsafe unless it’s just an unsafe firearm, you can bring any handgun to USPSA and shoot it.

Ben: And that was true before the flashlights and appendix rules.

Tyler: Yeah, exactly. There’s always Open. So what I’m talking about in exclusivity is it seems to be the trend that we want to be all things to all people. And we want to cater to people’s wants and that if you want to shoot production but you also want a thumb rest and you also want a flashlight and you know, this, that, or the other well it’s, we should make it where if they want to shoot production with all those things, well, we’ll cater to that. And to me when you are, you know, bulldozing barriers to entry, you have the secondary effects you have a watering down a blurring of the lines between divisions. I’ll just give you a recent example and I haven’t fully digested this. This is just an observation of mine from the Georgia state match.

I was ROing a stage and as I watched shooter after shooter come through I can’t tell the difference between divisions anymore. And like I said, I haven’t digested this. I don’t know what conclusion to draw about that. Only to say that that’s, that’s what went through my mind when I saw these shooters come through, as I can’t tell the difference save for, you know, maybe optics or comp and Open everything looks the same. All these lines are being blurred. So. Yeah, I guess it begs the question. What, what are the purpose, uh, the purposes of divisions, what are the lines and why?

Ben: Well, and what are the purposes of each rule. So, you know, for example, something that, that people sometimes find hard to understand is in IPSC, you can use a race holster in Production and that’s seen as sort of counter-intuitive right? Isn’t Production supposed to be practical gear? The gun is, is still stock. It’s just, you don’t have to get a custom molded kydex shell for every single Production gun. You can have one race holster. So it’s more about, it’s not so much the raw speed. It’s about making it more accessible and people can say whether they agree or disagree with that rule.

You know, if you told me tomorrow that that race holsters were allowed in Production, I actually wouldn’t find that as much of an affront as say the flashlight thing, which is obviously just pandering to people who, who just make excuses. “Oh, I’d shoot USPSA. If I could have my flashlight on my gun,” it’s like, okay.

Yeah. But really whereas obviously allowing a $200 or whatever, a race holster costs, that’s not lowering the bar. It’s just making it a little more convenient for people who shoot multiple guns. Right. So there’s a logic there. But, you know, the thumb rest or, you know, flashlights it’s, you know, it doesn’t seem to be a, a logic or a thought process around enhancing competitiveness. It’s just about, well, if people want to do this, I mean, it’s a freestyle sport. What’s the downside and…

Tyler: yeah, well, it’s, it’s, it’s a permissive attitude and it’s not just for equipment rules, it’s it seems to be this culture and attitude of permissiveness and anything goes that, that permeates through the sport.

And it has these secondary and tertiary effects that I talked about because, you know, it creates at least the perception that the rules are arbitrary, that they’re they’re open, that anything is open for discussion. There’s nothing that’s hard and fast and fundamental. Everything is, it’s just a matter of you know, you can pick and choose.

And I think that has very real effects for, you know, the actual competition rules, the actual, you know, between the beeps type of stuff. Because if you, if you create this a permissive culture, where the rules, if not, um, breakable or are at least perceived as flexible or arbitrary, you create a situation and a culture, more importantly where what rule isn’t?

Ben: Yeah, the, the sport needs credibility, right? It’s like, okay, why, you know, why was two ounces plus or minus the, the weighted the listed weight. Okay. But then two became poor. Why for, you know, what’s the, if there’s not a logic underneath the rules, then it, like you say, it just, it feels like it’s, it’s just arbitrary and it can be changed.

Whereas if you try and say, well, you know, two ounces is, you know, maybe grips and a base pad or something, it’s, it’s a common variance then then it feels like the rules are actually built on a solid foundation versus just being what some fudds with 1911 in leather holsters wrote down in 1976, which was very little of what the rules are.

But yeah, when you say, oh, you know, all the rules need to change because they’re not up with the times, man. It’s like, well maybe, maybe they’re timeless. Maybe they don’t need to change because you know, whatever it is is a, is a passing fad. Maybe it’s not right. Yeah. I think red dot optics on handguns are here.

Tyler: Oh, yeah. Carry optics is a great example of true innovation, organic innovation and changing of the times. I mean, that’s here to stay. That was a response to organic demand within the, the market. That’s a good example of changing for a very concrete, specific reason to me, more so than any, any specific equipment change, you know, say let’s just use flashlights cause that’s recent, and a good example, that doesn’t give me nearly as much heartburn as this perception that I think is created by these, the constant rule changes the constant catering to to whims like you said, that that don’t have a basis in logic. I’m very concerned about the culture that creates, you know whereas I’ve mentioned they’re seen at the rules are seen as, as arbitrary open for discussion open for flexibility, you know, this is, this is how we get these, you know, the club match rules in air, I’m making air quotes, club match rules. And that’s not good for the sport. I mean, the, the hallmark of USPSA is that you can show up anywhere, any state, if they run USPSA in a foreign country, you can show up at, at a USPSA match and know exactly what you’re getting into.

I think this, this has a way of trickling down, getting into the collective psyche of the sport and it can’t be good. There has to. Some sort of fundamental principles on which, you know, we’re, we, we rely and to me the, the constant, the actions of leaders, I’ll put it this way, the actions of leadership don’t seem to be founded.

They don’t seem to have any sort of a basis on logic or a clear delineation and purpose.

Ben: It lacks vision.

Tyler: Yeah, it, it, it lacks vision.

Ben: Here’s the sport we want to build, let’s lay the bricks to build it. It’s kind of like, oh, what do you think about flashlights? Yeah, those are okay. Oh, what do you think about aftermarket hammers? Yeah, those are okay. And then you incrementally get yourself to a place where like you say all, all the divisions kind of blur together and you know, what’s the point of any of them?

Tyler: Yeah. And I, and I think that, I think we really are making it up as we go along and that can’t be good. It can’t be good. There’s, there’s gotta be a plan, you know? We’ve just like gone Superman off the cliff, there’s no slippery slope, we just like threw ourselves over the cliff. You know, one thing after the other through these constant rule changes. They’re not good for any, any organization. But especially a sport like ours that relies like the one thing the central org is to do is to clearly establish a rule book and maintain that.

And the constant change, without a clear basis, it just, it’s not good.

Ben: And I mean, this has to be, it can’t be separated from the fact that, I mean, for almost the whole time I’ve been in the sport. I mean like, like you, when I joined the president was Phil Strader, he’s a grand master shooter, but you know, since then no one on the board has been particularly high level as a shooter.

I think Foley was -is M in a couple of divisions, you know, he’s, he’s, he’s not terrible, but he’s not he’s not to that… he’s not a nationally competitive shooter and he never was. And so the fact that there isn’t even a single voice, right? You, you, at board meetings, it’s not even like there’s one person elected to represent the GM’s, right.

I mean, you know, we want to talk, talk weird reforms, you know, you can imagine just having one guy there who, you know, represents at the very least that the high end of competition and the board meetings have been, have been devoid of that, for at least five years, six years. I mean, I still have an email from Foley where I was I think it was about the hammer, the hammer changes.

And he’s like, I’ll make sure this, this view is uh, represented to the board at the next meeting. It’s like, okay. Yeah, you don’t care. You’re you’re not going to do anything. And so that voice isn’t being heard in, in the halls of power of our sport,

Tyler: Right. No, you’re you’re right. If anyone on the board listens to this and is offended, I’m terribly sorry, but like you said, I’m not aware that anyone on the current iteration of the board or in recent memory has been a high level competitor or is you know, they’re certainly active in sport.

I, I know we have they may be high level by, by a letter classification or they may, you know participate in a lot of matches, but I don’t know that these types of concerns are being discussed. Because look, I don’t know where flashlights came from. Like, I don’t know who was like clamoring, like, oh, flash light ,this was apparently a priority for the board and our N ROI. Whereas popper calibration, it just. today has been, it has been addressed and I’ll just leave, leave it alone, whether or not that was good or bad, but just today. So you’re telling me getting, we got to get flashlights in these holsters. We got to make it have to run.

That was a greater priority to our leadership than, you know, fixing proper calibration or during that.

Ben: Until proper calibration had swung the outcome of a national championship. How, how important was it? Right? When, when you get egg on your face, right, then people start to start to scramble, you know? But yeah, before that it was, it was just a bunch of GMs whining about, you know, Hey, this steel isn’t being reset properly, but then, you know, once, once it becomes a public embarrassment for the organization and calls legitimacy of the, of the championship into question, well then heads start to roll, so to speak.

Tyler: Well, and I, I think that’s how I think that’s how criticism is, is taken by our leadership. I think they really believe it’s a handful of, of GM’s, whiny GMs, who don’t like these things, and otherwise it’s not a real problem. It’s just a handful of people talking about, I really think that’s how these issues are perceived in the board and in NROI, they’re dismissed. But I’ll ask this kind of a rhetorical question, like who, who has either the most to gain or the most to lose, like then the highest level competitors in sport. They’re the most invested they’ve got the most on the line. I think they, I think you would agree that they, they have the skin in the game, the most direct view of these issues, you know, if you’re shooting, you know, 6, 7, 8 majors a year, you shoot nationals every year, I think you probably got a pretty good finger on the pulse of the problems and the issues within the sport.

Ben: Yeah. No. I mean, it means a lot to me, like, you know, when we’ll run the North Carolina state match and we’ll get compliments from people who’ve traveled overseas and shot, you know, matches all over the country, and in some cases around the world and they’d say, okay, like, this is, this is good. Like, that means something right. That view, that experience, that context, you know, if all you ever shoot is, is your state match, your area match, and then, you know, nationals, that that’s not necessarily a very broad pool to draw from.

And so, you know, there are people with this experience, there are people who have gone to world shoots, there are people who have shot, you know, some of the Extreme Euro matches that are, I think, held up as, as some of the best matches in this sport today. And we’re not listening to them. You know, those people are told, sit down, shut up. nationals don’t want to hear from it. W you know, we need to get more warm bodies in the internationals.

Tyler: Yeah. Yeah. I, uh, I just, again, another self-evident thing and maybe it’s just me. Maybe I really am just an elitist ass. But yeah, it just seems, it seems crazy that you would rather bring someone into the sport who won’t participate until they get it just the way they like it. You are making changes, you are inviting these people here, you are valuing them more than you’re valuing the, the Uber invested, the, the, the live breathe, eat, sleep USPSA guys. I mean, because effectively that’s what the actions are saying. Is that we want these people, you, you guys, you elitists, you just do your thing, stop bitching. You know, we want people who will only shoot the sport if they get a appendix carry with their flashlight in Production division.

Ben: Yeah. Because yeah. Well, cause we’re where are we going to go? You know, we’re, we’re a captive audience, so they’re sure they’re out beating the bushes, trying to get, you know, the, the marginally invested people in, when, you know, obviously that is, that is, as you say, a good, a good way to sort of drive out and demotivate the people who, who really invest, uh, the balance of their free time in the sport.

Tyler: Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, as a related point to the earlier comment about not being able to tell, the various division guns apart, it, it made me feel in that moment, like, I just, I don’t give a shit about division rules. It’s like, I’m not going to, I’m not going to enforce anything. There’s no incentive any longer for me to do that because if everything is permitted, what does it matter?

Like before I was motivated as an RO when you could readily tell the difference between divisions, you could tell what belongs in Production and what doesn’t. So it’s, it’s ironic, that by, by allowing anything it’s actually created an unenforceable situation.

Ben: Well, and, and you just, you don’t know if, what you learned in RO class a year ago, two years ago, you know, six years ago, like is even still accurate, you know? Yeah. There was a, yeah, there, there was a situation at the state match, uh, I think it was last year where we, you know, they were calling out to, to pull bags and the rule, that I had learned it in RO class was you pull bags at the end of the squad.

And so I’m like, all right, well, we’re going to keep going until the end of the squad, the Range Master pulls up, and he’s like, no, pull them off right now. Apparently that rule had changed at some point, and there was no, maybe, maybe I missed a change log, but, you know, they only post the most recent one.

You can’t see the change log going back to the last time. So, you know, at that point I was like, I was firm in, I knew what the rule was and I was going to follow it because I was trying to be a good CRO. And this evergreen rule book, you know, made a, made a fool… now, you know, 10 people on the range saw and nobody, nobody was that worried about it.

But I just, at that, that, that, that was, that was my eye-opening moment where I was like, wow, can I trust my memory of any rules anymore? And the answer is no, I have to check it every time. And that’s, that’s a frustrating place to be as someone who wants to help the sport.

Tyler: That’s right. I mean, that’s, that’s a good example of these cascading effects where you’ve, you’ve removed my incentive to keep a keen eye on, you know, these types of issues and it encourages well, yeah, whatever. I mean, maybe it’s this iteration of the rulebook. Maybe it was two or three ago. It’ll all get sorted out in the wash. You know what I mean? Like if, if, if you are ROing or CROing constantly and you know, within a year or a period of years the rule book has changed that many times, you don’t know which one you’re you’re working from, you don’t know which one current one is, and you’re just sort of de-incentivized and de-motivated to, to track that black and white of the the letter of the law, at least that, like I said, that was my very recent experience is I just lost any interest in policing that because, at this point, anything is permitted. It just doesn’t matter.

Ben: Yeah. And I think, I think when, when the sport is, you know, obviously you are someone who’s very passionate about it. You spend a lot of time in this sport. I’m not, I haven’t invested as much but, uh, you know, we we’ve spent, we both spend a lot of time in the sport and, when it’s starting to lose us, the guys that most want to do what’s good for the sport and want to be proponents of it, something’s going wrong and we need to, we need to turn around. So

Tyler: Yeah. Well, you know, I don’t see me or you or any of the other top guys, pro shooter, like none of us are shooting Jesus. Like, no one is and no one should, you know, rely totally on what a GM says, just because they’re GM of course. But I think it’s, I think it’s, it’s noteworthy at least, you know, if you’re creating, if you’re actively creating disincentives to either participate at the level you, you otherwise would or as a CRO, because I can tell you ROing is near and dear to me because I shoot and I take the shooting so seriously, I’m super invested in my performance. It, it also affects the way I CRO because I know how important it is. I know how a missed call, you know, a Charlie to an Alpha one, or, you know, missing a no shoot or missing a hard cover hit, I know that stuff matters and it can turn the result of a match. And so I’m when I CRO or RO I’m very invested in that. And I hate feeling that you know, my effort in that way is diminished or, you know, it doesn’t really matter. All this boils down to is culture. And I’m very concerned about the culture that has been cultivated, these last few years. There are people who’ve been in the sport decades longer than I have. You know, so comparatively, maybe I haven’t been around the sport that long, but even in the short time that I’ve been in the sport, you can sense and you can see, and you could feel these changes and they’re not… it doesn’t bode well, and that, that makes me sad because so much of my life is…

Ben: We both want this sport to be healthy for, for decades and something we can hand down to, to the next generation in good shape and are on a strong foundation.

Yeah, no, I agree. And that’s, that’s why I wanted to have you on and talk about these things and, yeah, this is by no means the end of the conversation. You know, one of, one of the announcements in the meeting board meeting minutes, it just came out as, I guess, that the special election is on hold until they can figure out how they’re going to re re-imagine the role of President.

So we have a while before that election happens, but that that’s, that’s kind of what spawned this. I want to, I want people like you, that, that wouldn’t normally have a chance to be heard to be heard. Cause I think you have a lot to add, so I appreciate your time, man.

Tyler: Thank you. I will make one last comment since he brought it up on the board.

Don’t you find it interesting that now, now, now they’re ready to like do board of director things, that they’re like authorized and mandated to do the bylaws. Like only just now, not at any point during the Foley presidency, but when he’s gone now, we’re going to make sure that the president doesn’t have too much authority. Like it just…

Ben: It is very strange timing. Indeed. Absurd is a good word. It is indeed. All right, man. Well, thanks for taking the time. It was good talking to you and uh, we’ll uh, talk to you next time.