A few summers ago, Oshkosh’s Cameron Kumbier was sitting in the living room with his dad, Brian, watching the 2012 London Olympics.
Cameron, a juvenile trap shooter at the time, watched his idol Kim Rhode hit 99-of-100 targets, tying a world record as she won a gold medal for the United States in international trap shooting, also known as Olympic or bunker trap.
Watching her win the gold medal, Cameron immediately told his dad that he wanted to be an Olympic shooter like Rhode.
At first thought Brian chuckled and thought nothing of it, responding back “kid, you can do whatever you want.”
As Cameron starts his freshman year at Oshkosh West three years later, being an Olympic trap shooter isn’t an unrealistic goal.
“It was funny because in 2012 we watched her shoot and win the gold medal,” Brian said. “As a dad, don’t ever tell your kid to do whatever they want because he told me that after he watched that … and here we are.”
Cameron has been shooting guns since he was 8 years venerable and he was no stranger to American trap shooting.
In fact, when Cameron was in sixth grade, he tried out for the Oshkosh West High School trap shooting team because it didn’t have enough numbers, so the Wildcats were pulling members from middle school.
Head coach Dave Johnson thought about cutting him because he was so juvenile, until he saw him shoot.
“Once it warmed up and Cameron started shooting, the coach was like ‘alright, pretty impressive,’” Brian said. “He was making strides and when it came to the banquet that year, Dave had the numbers and said (Cameron) lettered for high school as a sixth grader. He said he almost kicked him off but glad he didn’t because he brought the team around and brought the scores up.”
Cameron was the youngest kid to letter for varsity on the trap team under coach Johnson. He ended up lettering all three years in middle school. The high school season starts in the spring.
But his success didn’t stop there.
After starting his career shooting American trap, Cameron is now one of the best international trap shooters in the state — and in the nation.
International trap shooting differs from the American style because in bunker trap shooting, there are 125 shots and it uses 15 fixed-angle machines — 3 per station — and delivers to the left, middle and right. In American trap you are circumscribed where you can shoot (45 degrees), but in international trap, you can turn your entire body to fire a shot. In American trap, targets are thrown 10-feet high at a distance of 10 yards in front of the house and travel about 50 yards.
In international trap, it consists of a ground level 60-foot long trench and the target is to start the gun on the house where the targets emerge.
The first time Cameron witnessed bunker trap shooting was the summer of 2013 when he and his dad made a trip to Rome, Wisconsin, to watch the Wisconsin tryouts.
“It was funny, we were sitting there and he says ‘dad, that’s like (Kim Rhode) who was on TV, that’s what she was shooting.’” Brian said. “I said ‘I don’t’ think so’ and he said ‘yeah, that’s bunker trap.’
“So we sat there for three hours watching them. We came home and next morning and I was reading newspaper and he says ‘dad, can we go back, I’d like to get more information on the bunker trap.’”
So the two went back the next day, making a 1.5-hour trip back to Rome, and Cameron and his dad talked to officials and members at the Wisconsin Trap Association Shooting Complex.
Brian started asking questions, and the two spent hours talking with people. So Brian bought a gun for Cameron and he started to shoot with other kids his age in Rome.
It didn’t long for one of the kid’s dad to notice that Cameron had some earnest natural talent.
“We went out and practiced with a few other shoots and ended up going like five times,” Brian said. “Talking with one of the dads, he said ‘Brian, Cameron has this.’ I said ‘shut up, this is a fluke.’ And the man responded ‘no, he has the talent to shoot this.’”
Sure enough, Cameron was good enough that the man recommended a shooting coach — Mike Simpson from Georgia — for Cameron.
So Cameron, his dad and his mom, Cindy, made the trip to Georgia to meet up with the coach. Brian, who was still in disbelief, told Cameron that if he wasn’t good enough to be Simpson’s coach, that there would be no more trips and investments into international shooting because of the cost.
And once again, it didn’t take long for Cameron to impress. Simpson, who was named USA’s Shooting Coach of the Year in 2011 and 2013, accepted Cameron instantly after Cameron hit 23-of-25 targets in practice.
“I didn’t want to say how good he was (to Simpson) because I wanted (Cameron) to prove it,” Brian said. “I said we’ll go out there, but if he tells me you’re not good enough to shoot this, I’m done. I’m not sticking a lot of money into it because it’s expensive.
“So he’s shooting and gets all done and coach Simpson starts clapping and says ‘you know what you just did? You just shot a 23-of-25 in bunker trap. You have talent, welcome to my team.’”
So Brian turned to Cindy with excitement and said “looks like we’re making more trips to Georgia.”
From there on, Cameron has been crushing his opponents this summer. He has a handful of first-place medals in tournaments and recently competed in two huge national tournaments – the 2015 National Junior Olympic Championships and the Scholastic Clay Target Program Nationals.
Cameron earned the bronze medal in the Olympic Championships after finishing third out of 30 in his division (12 to 14 year olds, also known as the J3 division) while finishing second in the SCTP Nationals. Both tournaments were held out in Colorado Springs, Colorado in the last week of July and the first week of August.
In the USA Shooting tournament, he hit 104-of-125 targets and at the SCTP Nationals, he hit 108-of-125. Those tournaments required shooters to qualify by hitting 75-of-125 targets.
Because this sport requires a lot of time and money, Brian said he had to make sure that Cameron was an elite shooter before investing.
So once Cameron proved himself, Brian didn’t hesitate on helping out Cameron as much as he could.
Cameron said he practices about five days a week, with each session lasting four to five hours. It makes for even longer of a day because they have to drive 1.5 hours to Rome, because that’s the only bunker trap facility in the state.
The Kumbier’s have also made several trips to Georgia, where Simpson holds his sessions to teach Cameron. Between traveling to different tournaments all summer, the family has racked up a lot of miles.
Brian also made a huge investment in a recent gun recently. After spending just over $1,000 on his first gun, Brian recently purchased a recent gun for Cameron — a Perazzi MX8.
The gun wasn’t low-cost.
“His first gun was nice, but old,” Brian said. “We probably shot over 10,000 rounds in a years’ time. But then coach (Simpson) told us in order for Cameron to progress, he needs new tools. It’s like a carpenter, if you don’t have a hammer, how do you build a house? It’s one of the things that he was lacking the hammer. He ended up getting a new gun.”
In his first time shooting his recent gun, Cameron hit all 25 of his targets.
Since watching Rhode win a gold medal in the Olympics, Cameron’s goal to be an Olympic trap shooter hasn’t changed to this day.
After spending a lot of time shooting in Georgia, he said he would love to go to college on a scholarship somewhere in the south.
“The southern colleges have scholarships for bunker trap shooting and that’s Cameron’s goals,” Brian said. “He’d like to go to school in Georgia so he can go to school and shoot down there and chase after his dream.”
Cameron is required to write down goals for himself and update them constantly and he isn’t giving up on someday making the Olympics.
“My long-term goal is to either make it to the 2020 or past that Olympics,” Cameron said. “Then for a bonus, to get a medal. My medium goal is to either get to the Olympic Trials or make the Olympic Trials and my short-term goal is to win more events.”
Alex Wolf: (920) 426-6661; [email protected]; on Twitter @Wolfa07
