Maddog McCoy SASS #5672

A match DQ is warranted at all levels in this game. I have given them at local matches at 2 different clubs where I am a member. One time I recommended the a shooter quit for the day as she shot her shotgun and the recoil made her drop it. Since it was person known to have problems, I suggested she quit for the day. ( I was vp of the club at the time and also posse marshal). Another shooter argued that it was only a stage DQ, but knowing that she had shot herself the year before at a match, I felt that she was unsafe and the match director agreed with me. After the match, the cowboy committee and the board of directors decided to ban her from using our club and sent her a certified letter. I felt bad about it, but as a officer of the club, it was necessary to protect the club from problems and lawsuits. The second time was a new shooter that was at his first match ever and although we tried to convince him not to shoot gunfighter and to start slow, he put 3 rounds over the berm on his 1st stage. I turned the timer over to another posse member and had a long and serious talk with him of why he was match DQ'ed. I got the club president and another club officer to try to talk with him and offer to help him learn the sport and to come and practice with them. Since he was a shooter from a different sport, he felt he knew better than us and was mad for being dq'ed on the first stage and complained he had been up half the night building a cart and getting ready for the match. Several other also tried to talk with him but he packed his gear and was never seen again. I have only been to one match that a shooter should have been match DQ'ed and he was allowed to finish the match. He was shooting gunfighter and was a very experienced shooter and the boards on the stage were very slick and he was moving with his guns out ( one in each hands with rounds yet to be fired) to the second pistol position and he fell when both feet slid out from under him and he landed on his back. Although he did not drop his guns, it was total crash and burn and both guns broke the 170. He was the posse marshal and gave himself a match DQ, but with a discussion with the posse and the match director, it was reduced to a stage DQ by a unanimous vote of the posse and the match director deferred to the posse. Personally, I think he did the right thing giving himself a Match DQ, but all things considered ( rain, mud and other violations that day) I was glad that we survived and nobody got hurt. Two stages later that day, I gave a shooter a 170 violation for pointing revolver right at me that he had just finished shooting that he had not holstered and several wanted to argue with me, however when I explained what he did, they accepted the call. The real problem was a bad stage design. Start at a window and fire a rifle, move thru the doorway to a table down range and shoot revolvers, turn around and proceed back up range thru the doorway to the other window to shoot the shotgun. When he turned around to move to the next firing position, ( back thru the doorway) his revolver was pointed at the posse and he holstered his revolver as he moved to the next firing position. He was the first or second shooter, and nobody realized the potential for a problem when moving back up range. I have been shooting sport for many years and these are the ones that stand out in my mind, however I have seen many hard calls that had to be made to keep the consistency in the game. It is important to make the call as it helps the shooter and other posse members to learn out game and be aware of the possible problems that can occur when shooting.

I had a lead man at a company that I worked at as the Maintenance Supervisor that was Hispanic and spoke English and Spanish. He was a conceited A*****E that went to upper management and undermined me and tried to get them to give him my job and terminate me on several occasions. About half the maintenance crew spoke Spanish as their first language and their English was not very good. Any time he was talking to the guys that mostly spoke Spanish and he saw me coming, he would switch to Spanish as he knew I did not speak Spanish. What he did not know was I had taken one year of Spanish in High school and had worked with enough Spanish people that I could translate most things into English if it had to to do with problems with equipment. One day I was walking up to the shop and he saw me coming and switched to Spanish to discuss a problem with a machine with 2 of the Spanish mechanics. I walked up to them and stopped and listened to their conversation for a minute, and then told them in English which circuit was messed up and what they need to check and replace to get it running. Their mouths dropped open and I turned and started to walk away as I had work to do. I got about 5 steps away when the lead man said loudly" Since when do you speak Spanish!!!??" I stopped, turned around and looked at them and said " You all have no idea what I can do." I turned and walked away and i could feel their eyes staring at my back. It cured him of speaking Spanish when I was around since he did not know for certain I did not understand what he was saying. However, he did not ever quit undermining me to management. However, I had the last laugh on all of them. The company was bought out about a year later and all management except 3 people were let go ( myself included), and he got to keep his job as lead mechanic since he was not considered management. This was on a Friday. I cleaned out my office on Saturday and went back on Monday afternoon to turn the severance package I was given so I did not sue the company for wrongful discharge. The HR Manager ( Politically correct anti-gun Hispanic Lady that hated me and tried to fire me for talking about my vacation Cowboy Shooting at work. (several long different stories here)) told me I might be lucky and find a job in a couple months and I should have a lawyer review the agreement before signing it. I looked at her and laughed and proceed to tell her I had interviewed with a Fortune 500 company that morning as a maintenance supervisor and once I did the paperwork, I would be starting with them on the following Monday. I then told her I would be back to pickup my severance check on Friday ($10,000+ in Nov 2000). She was so mad when I walked out she could not speak. It is always good to have friends in industry with job openings.

While my Mother's family was in Southern Illinois, My Dad grew up in St. Louis on the other side of the river. He got a union job at Coca Cola for a while in high school. It paid almost triple ( $2.50 hr in the 1956) of what his step-father was making as a boilermaker.. A relative had talked to Mr Egan on my father's behalf and my father received a phone call telling him where to show up and what time to be there to start his shift. Coca Cola was a closed union.

More about Southern Illinois.

I was born in Southern Illinois (Wayne County) and I know the stories about the gangs. Some of them were located in Wayne County and on the other side of the highway from where I currently live. ( The area is called Pond Creek) I was hunting with a friend one time in that area in the 1980's and we had heard some noise on the other side of the hill from us and then somebody started firing a full auto Thompson Machine Gun. We decided it was time to head home and I did not hunt that area again. There is a book called Blood Williamson that describes the fights during that time from in Southern Illinois that is a good read. The Shelton Gang ran Wayne County and was still around in the 1960's. My grandmother got picked for the jury for the trial on Black Charlie Harris but got out jury duty for the trial as my Dad's grandfather died the week of the trial and she had to watch me and my sister while my parents when to St Louis for the funeral. There is a good book on them called the Brothers Notorious. Video interview of the author. https://www.c-span.org/video/?416946-1/brothers-notorious#

My favorite safety video (or how to irritate your Safety Manager and other managers) https://www.google.com/search?q=safety+third+video&rlz=1C1CAFB_enUS631US631&oq=safety++third&aqs=chrome.6.0i131i355i433i512i543j46i131i340i433i512j0i512l8.24271j0j15&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:863d69e1,vid:s0RrhkMk2zY,st:0

I believe I will stick with my Dodge RAM........................