Medford takes on head coaching role from Crawford on action shooting team
7/10/2023 1:14:38 PM | Pistol
After serving as assistant coach to Bill Crawford for the past four years, Andrew Medford brings a wealth of shooting sports knowledge and experience to the range as he takes over as head coach of the Club Sports action team, effective July 1.
Before starting as a system administrator in Liberty’s Information Technology (IT) department, Medford worked for Liberty’s police department, eventually becoming the sergeant over range and training. He was a firearms instructor involved with teaching the general firearms safety course.
“I’m super excited that I can still spend time with our student-athletes and help them learn to be safe and have a lot of fun, because I really enjoy the range,” Medford said. "That’s where I’m at home.”
He has spent this summer putting himself in position to learn more about the various disciplines and competing in the Atlantic Coast Region of the Precision Rimfire Series.
He and Crawford guided the team to back-to-back Scholastic Action Shooting Program (SASP) national titles in Talladega, Ala., which incorporated rifles and pistols, before switching affiliations to join the National Rifle League (NRL) for the 2021-22 season.
“Action shooting is interesting because it utilizes components from other shooting disciplines, with a time limit between 1 minute, 30 seconds and 1 minute, 45 seconds to complete the course of fire,” Medford said. “Often, shooters are required to move between props using different firing positions. I have been extremely proud of our students and their ability to be the safest people on a range and still complete their course of fire in a very limited time frame.”
His goal is to enter his team into a few local matches this upcoming season and to take the team to a national event.
“When we take the athletes to the matches, it’s a small community and everybody knows who you are,” Medford said. “They recognize us and it’s really nice to see how we get to influence others and show the Lord through what we are doing. It is amazing to hear what others say about our students and their character.”
In addition to his role as the Liberty Mountain Gun Club Director, Crawford will be designated as Club Sports Director of Shooting Sports, serving as a liaison between the Club Sports administrations, the coaches, and officials.
Club Sports Senior Associate Athletic Director Jeff Boettger said Crawford’s role will be more supervisory and as a program builder, looking to develop Liberty’s teams as well as those at other area colleges and universities.
“He will be looking at it from a larger perspective, a little bit higher level, helping to make all three teams better (while) figuring out better ways to use our funds in order to purchase ammo and guns to help support our teams and our athletes in a better way,” Boettger said.
By Ted Allen/Staff Writer