Day 2, 2025 TTPOA SWAT Competition " The Greatest Show in SWAT"

Summary

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The TTPOA Podcast

Episode: Day 2, 2025 TTPOA SWAT Competition – "The Greatest Show in SWAT"
Date: October 11, 2025
Host: TTPOA Host (Brandon)
Guests: John Agnew (Outgoing Competition Coordinator), Sean (Incoming Coordinator/Region 6 Director), Jeff (Competition Committee Member), occasional contributions from others

Overview

This episode provides an in-depth, behind-the-scenes look at the 2025 TTPOA SWAT Competition. Host Brandon and his guests pull back the curtain on organizing one of the most respected law enforcement competitions in Texas, featuring candid discussions about the evolution of the event, leadership transitions, event design philosophy, technological advancements, lessons learned, and the importance of community and mentorship within the SWAT and law enforcement community.

The atmosphere is light, often humorous, but grounded in the heartfelt mission of improving officers’ skills and experiences, as well as honoring tradition and innovation.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Meet the Organizers: Roles and Backgrounds

[00:14–07:25]

• John Agnew: Outgoing Competition Coordinator, handed role to committee after running solo for years. Started with TTPOA competitions as a sniper competitor in 2000.

  • “I'm wealthy with T shirts, let me tell you. Red ones. Bags and bags. ...That’s how I get paid.” [01:21]
  • Oversaw growth from 8 to 10 events, expanded duration, and helped establish the current committee model.

• Jeff: Veteran competitor (15+ years), now on the committee, transitioning into leading next year’s sniper comp.

• Sean: Regional Director for Region 6, steps into competition coordinator role, manages both SWAT and sniper sides with new team approach.

Quote:
“So there’s three of us that are replacing one John Agnew.” — Sean [10:50]

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2. How the SWAT Competition Is Built

[07:25–17:43]

• Organizers “pull back the curtain” on planning:
  • Planning starts nearly a year out; initial meetings post-event and major collaboration begins after the winter board (February).
  • Events are designed to mimic real-world tactical challenges, with the brief only released the night before to maintain realism and adaptability.
  • Rotating locations and host agencies keep the competition fresh and bring in new ideas, with TTPOA assisting in site improvements if needed.

Quote:
“We try to make it like a call out. ...If it doesn’t make sense when you’re running and gunning it, then we change it.” — John [12:08]

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3. Logistics, Volunteerism & Unique Challenges

[11:24–16:23]

• No one gets paid; all volunteers, often taking vacation days.
• Each year involves new venues, departments, assets, and event tweaks, making plug-and-play templates limited.
• Realism, team effort, and adaptability trump profit.

Quote:
“We don’t make money on the competition. ...We just want money in the bank. So we got to take care of our vendors because they take care of us.” — John [01:34]

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4. Lessons Learned & Problem Solving

[18:24–23:11]

• Organizers recount fixing event scoring problems on the fly — often meeting at dawn and re-evaluating events just hours before teams run.
• Transparency and “doing the right thing” even after appeal windows close.
• Constant improvement: switching from paper to steel targets for clarity, feedback, and fairness.

Quotes:
“Everything looks great at face value ...What people don’t see is the behind-the-scenes of like, how the hell did that just happen? And it’s usually a scoring issue.” — John [18:27]
“We always try to do the right thing in the spirit of the competition.” — John [20:22]

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5. Evolution of the Sniper Role

[23:42–26:49]

• The role of snipers in team events has grown, with feedback sometimes split between wanting more or less sniper action.
• Incorporation of new gear (e.g., tripods) and balancing speed versus setup times.
• The sniper challenge event continues to evolve as a centerpiece of the competition calendar.

Quote:
“Snipers are typically your first in, last out. ...They need to have their shit together when they go out there.” — John [24:16]

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6. Embracing Technology: Live Scoring

[27:04–32:59]

• Real-time, web-based scoring highly praised by competitors, with kudos to the behind-the-scenes team for massive improvements.
• The stress and pain of waiting on Excel spreadsheets is a thing of the past.

Memorable Quotes:
“That is the best thing. ...We’re sitting there now, we know — all right, okay, we’re still in fourth place.” — Brandon [27:04]
“I’m a believer. I’ll tell you. I’m a believer.” — John [32:52]

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7. Vision for the Future: 2026 and Beyond

[33:20–45:15]

• The new committee is already collecting feedback from competitors to inform next year’s changes.
• Ongoing debate: unlimited vs. controlled ammo, realism vs. gamification, and balancing hard skills with logistical realities.
• “The whole competition is a living competition. It’s forever going to change.” — Sean [36:13]

Quote:
“The other thing is real life stuff. ...I would love to see the closest we can get to real life, but you start learning you just can’t.” — Jeff [36:45]

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8. Safety: The Paramount Concern

[40:22–44:18]

• Organizers share close calls and nearly catastrophic incidents that shaped rigorous safety protocols.
• Balancing realism and risk is non-negotiable.

Quote:
“We’ve seen some scary things happen. ...If I get someone killed while I’m the director of this, I don’t know, I’m a failure.” — John [41:31]

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9. Community, Tradition, and Passing the Torch

[45:27–51:11]

• Recognition of predecessors and the obligation to improve, not just maintain, the competition.
• Deep respect for founding organizers like Buck and ongoing involvement of previous leaders.

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10. The Kelly Perkle Sniper Challenge: A Living Legacy

[51:12–57:10]

• The sniper challenge renamed to honor Kelly Perkle, a passionate competitor and influential TTPOA member who left a lasting impact before his passing.
• “It was really cool to be a part of that... that was one of his biggest thank yous, biggest achievements.” — Sean [52:04–52:24]
• Lubbock’s transformation into a championship-caliber team under Kelly’s leadership.

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11. Mentorship, Advice, and Building the Next Generation

[60:11–66:35]

• Advice for new teams: personal dedication, train beyond department days, get your heart rate up, and shoot small targets.
• Challenge to veteran teams to mentor new competitors.
• Humility is key: “I love the teams that are in last place and stay for the awards. ...They got so much pride and they’re humble.” — John [65:06]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• John: “I am wealthy with T shirts, let me tell you. Red ones. ...That’s how I get paid.” [01:21]
• Sean: “So there’s three of us that are replacing one John Agnew.” [10:50]
• Brandon: “I wish you could have heard the conversation leading up...” [00:59] (Sets the comic, fraternal tone)
• Jeff: “I just want to go run it...I miss it.” [04:48]
• John: “We try to make it like a call out...build the event around real world ideology.” [12:08]
• Sean: “If your sniper’s not squared away, your team’s not doing well.” [23:42]
• Brandon: “That is the best thing. ...We’re sitting there now, we know — all right, okay, we’re still in fourth place.” [27:04]
• John: “We want these guys to come and compete. ...We don’t want to design anything where anyone goes back with major injuries because their command staff is not going to send them to compete.” [42:51]
• John: “I love the teams that are in last place and stay for the awards. ...They got so much pride and they’re humble...” [65:06]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Opening & Introduction: [00:00–03:00]
• Committee/Organizer Roles & Origins: [03:00–07:25]
• Planning & Event Design: [07:25–11:22]
• Volunteerism & Logistical Challenges: [11:22–16:23]
• Problem Solving & Lessons Learned: [18:24–23:11]
• Evolution of the Sniper Role: [23:42–26:49]
• Live Scoring & Technology: [27:04–32:59]
• Vision & Next Steps (2026+): [33:20–45:15]
• Safety, Realism, & Competition Philosophy: [40:22–44:18]
• TTPOA Culture & Passing the Torch: [45:27–51:11]
• The Kelly Perkle Sniper Challenge: [51:12–57:10]
• Mentorship/Advice to Teams: [60:11–66:35]
• Closing Banter: [66:42–end]

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Final Notes

Throughout the episode, the hosts emphasize a culture of camaraderie, humility, and relentless improvement. They invite competitors to provide feedback, veterans to mentor newcomers, and everyone to embrace both challenge and change. The legacy of TTPOA’s competition is both tradition-bound and forward-thinking, striving always to be, in their own words, “the greatest show in SWAT.”

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“You just need a fresh look on things or some new energy, because this shit gets... you’re like, okay, how much more I can do this again? And that’s not what you want, especially is for something that you volunteer and you’re serving others, you’re serving this. It’s all about the association. It’s all about the members and stuff.” — Brandon [45:51]

Train hard. See you at the competition!

Transcript

[A]

Foreign.

[B]

Podcast. A podcast for SWAT officers, military and all first responders.

[A]

We'll be talking training, tactics and leadership.

[B]

With the best subject matter experts around. All right, Howdy, folks. Back with the 2025 TTPOA SWAT competition. This is technically day three. This is podcast too, because once again, if you listen to last podcast, I screwed up the first one and didn't record, so we had to do that over again. So this is day three. It's been a long, long week, especially for the gentleman that I have now that I'm about to interview and you're going to hear from. They're going to. They're the what? The competition committee commandant. I don't know what their official titles are, but we have John, we have Sean, and we have Jeff. So we'll start in my front. That doesn't sound good.

[A]

I wish you could have heard the conversation leading up, leading up to this.

[B]

That didn't sound good at all.

[A]

And you should have seen the text.

[C]

Right out of the gate.

[B]

Oh, man, the things I say. I just throw up softballs sometime. So, John Agnew, we'll start off with you, man. Kind of tell us who you are and just kind of what your job is of hearing how much money you get paid from the TTPA every year.

[A]

I am wealthy with T shirts, let me tell you. Red ones. Yeah.

[B]

That no one can wear anywhere else.

[A]

Oh, God. Bags and bags of SWAT T shirts and competition T shirts in there. That's how I get paid with that. And they feed me and they give me place to sleep. Yeah, that's good. That's good.

[B]

So what's your role in all this?

[A]

So I'm the competition coordinator. I inherited it about 10 years ago. Buck Rogers had it before me and he ran it by himself. I ran it by myself for many years, and we finally grew it into a competition committee. The competition grew from a four day competition to a five day competition. We've gone from eight events to 10 events. So this year we have 10 events with three side matches, lots of prizes. Our vendor coordinator does a great job getting us prizes from all of our vendors. Our vendors really support us. We don't make money on the competition. We usually make money at the conference. And as a nonprofit organization, we're not looking to make money. We just want money in the bank. So we got to take care of our vendors because they take care of us.

[B]

Yeah, they definitely do a good job with that. So when you got started 10 years ago, were you a region director or anything? Or was just like, hey, I Competed and.

[A]

No, I started competing. I was on SWAT team for 14 years. I specialize as a sniper. My first competition with TTPOA was in the year 2000 in Baytown, and I was hooked after that. It was hot as hell. It was a swampy, hot area, and I had an awesome time, and I competed every year since then until I took over as a competition coordinator.

[B]

Okay, cool, man. Once again, I'm surrounded by sniper boys. Golly, I can't get away from y'.

[C]

All.

[A]

Well, snipers have two jobs. We can drag our knuckles like the Assaulters, and we can also work a.

[B]

Precision rifle and do math all at the same time. I love it.

[C]

I love it.

[B]

All right, Jeff, what's your. Why are you here, man?

[D]

Well, I competed for about 20. Well, I competed for probably 15, 16. And then I started coaching our team, and I. Every time I would come, I would get told, hey, whenever you're done, we want you over here.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

And I think I got brought over here. I get it. Get teased about it all the time.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

Hey, here's an event where could guys game it? And I'm. I was the gaming guy. I was always trying to figure out the.

[B]

Yeah, that's. So that's so important, man. I mean, that's part of SWAT in the Real World application.

[A]

So that.

[D]

That's. I just came on pretty much this year. I helped out with a sniper match and then gonna be the lead next year under Sean.

[B]

Okay.

[D]

For this sniper comp. So it takes a SWAT comp.

[B]

It takes two people to replace you?

[D]

It did.

[A]

It does. Yep.

[B]

So what a man.

[A]

The math. Yep. Thank you.

[B]

And you are. Yeah. Jeff, you were very successful over the years in. In competition and. And competing with the department you work for and stuff. So how's it been on the other side of that, man?

[D]

That's whatever everybody on this side always asks me, like, yeah, it's different over here.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

It's the most work I've ever done for that in my normal job. I've got my own training company. I've run that. And this is way more.

[B]

Way harder you, man.

[D]

And I got much more money, too. Yeah. I got 100 raise this year from what I got last year, so we're still at zero.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

You got a cool.

[B]

You got a cool rain shirt, though, this year. I'm glad they got some cool ones.

[D]

I got a lot of. A lot of shirts.

[B]

Yeah, I snagged me one, too. I was like, I want to get one of those, even though I'm not a.

[D]

But they do take, they do take care of you.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

I get fed, I get a place to sleep, and.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

And it's. It's been fun, though. It's, It's. It's a whole different world on this sign. Yeah, it does. I, I, I hate it because I miss it.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

I, I get. I just want to go run it. Not like I told you before. Like, I ran several events before anybody got down here and.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

Tested some out because I can't get away from it.

[B]

It's just, it's fun. I'm the same way. That's why I'm back competing. I'm like, I can't do that. I think there's five or six regional directors this year that are competing. Which are, which is.

[A]

I think it's six.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Because we were looking for them, we couldn't find them.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

We don't have help.

[A]

Yeah, they're competing. Yeah.

[B]

Don't y' all ban that next year, like, hey, you can't compete if you're region director and stuff, so.

[C]

Well, good.

[B]

Well, glad to have you on that. It's been, it's been good. And to my right is the handsome Sean. How are you doing, Sean?

[C]

I'm well, Brandon. How are you?

[B]

No, I'm doing well.

[C]

No. There we go. That boy.

[B]

What are you doing here, man? You got. Don't you have enough responsibilities?

[C]

Oh, my. What? I mean, I love doing podcasts with you because the information and the sharing of knowledge and just a camaraderie is amazing. So. Yeah, you're right. I do have enough responsibilities. So between, you know, worshiping God and then family and then TTPOA and work and TeachPay and work are not necessarily in that order. Yeah, the others are.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

But, yeah, regional director still in Region 6, right next door to you. So we collaborate quite a bit there. Yep.

[B]

We just put on a class with the, With Chance and Brian.

[C]

Yeah. Retinas Group. Yeah. And a competition on the back side of that.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Something. Something new. Yeah. Which segues. Segue right into where we are today. Yeah.

[B]

That was cool. That was cool. I hope to do more of that. I know we're going to be doing that at the conference this year.

[C]

We hope to. Yeah, that's. That's definite hope.

[B]

No, there's no hope. It's got, man. We've. We've talked it up too much, man. We got to do it so.

[C]

Well. You're right. There's a lot that goes into.

[B]

Chance is going to get on you.

[C]

Oh, he's on me.

[B]

And he's got a lot of rank now on you, so.

[C]

Well, yeah, he's my boss at work, but I'm his boss outside of here. Oh, okay.

[B]

I like this man.

[C]

But don't tell him I said that.

[B]

Oh, he's gonna. I want to tell him. Hey, listen to this podcast we're gonna put out tonight. You need to get your help and control one.

[C]

Right. So here we are. Why I'm on the competition side of. I'm a regional director.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Competed several times. Probably not as much as John and. And definitely not as much as Jeff. I was asked if I would step into the role of the competition coordinator, slash director, whatever you want to call it, And I gladly said yes. And now I wish I was just a regional director.

[B]

Yeah, it's a.

[C]

It's a lot.

[B]

I mean, like, realistically. So just. And this is where we were talking before y' all sat down. We kind of wanted to pull the curtain back on some of the competition stuff. It's. There's no secrets and stuff with it. So for the guys that don't know how much time, like, how are y' all starting for next year or when will y' all start for next year?

[C]

Well, let me. Let me just give you, like, a quick Reader's Digest version of what it looks like from the outside and then what it looks like on the inside. So I can remember several years ago, competing. We were in Dallas, and we put two teams of our team with Fort Worth. We put two teams in that competition, and there was a lot of sitting around time and, you know, sitting under tents and just talking and gaming and trying to figure out the next thing. Not. Not a whole lot of information. It was all on paper. Not. You know, we didn't have the technology we have today.

[B]

No.

[C]

But, you know, we got out there, The. The competition, the. The challenges, the shooting were the same. Yeah. As they are today. They're better today, I would say. But you had no idea that there was a team or a group or a person that was behind all those things happening. Yeah, you just went to a location, you did the whatever drill or whatever stage that was set up, and then you walked off, and you. You motherfucked the person who designed it or. And. Or yourself. Yep. Yep. In both, I can remember. You know, Dennis Elise and I are both snipers. We had two teams, and we had a bonus shot, and the bonus shot was a poker chip, and we both were holding. Where I have it in my shop, holding up a poker chip that has a bullet hole in it. So does he. And I'm very proud of that. Yeah. Fast forward. And I knew John and, you know, part of the organization. And then we are at conferences and then we're at competitions, and John's running the things. I'm like, who is this guy? What does he do? He kind of, like, nowhere for most of the year. Then all of a sudden, he just pops up in the month of October and tells us what to do.

[B]

Now he wants to be a boss.

[C]

Who is this guy? And so we go out on the ranges and we ro and we safety and we do all the different things and we come back and we listen to briefs and like, this is what you have to do tomorrow, and this is what you need to. You know, what happened, what was good today, what was bad today. And then you show up tomorrow, about an hour after he gets there, and you just do your thing and you complain because you didn't get food, you're out in the sun, and all the other stuff. Then fast forward. And here I am working side by side by John, and I'm like, holy smokes. Yeah. But, yeah, there's a lot of work that goes into it on the front side before we show up for day one. So I'll let John go into that because he's got a. 10 years of this. He's got a pretty. He's got an extremely good handle on it. And here's. Here's the thing. Yeah. So John is. Is stepping down as the director coordinator of competitions to focus on more important things. Work, family, stuff like that. And so I'm honored to step into his role, but I can't step into his. This is how big he's grown it from where he got it from. I'm stepping into his role with Mike Castillo to run the Sniper Challenge portion of it and Jeff Krantz to run the SWAT competition side of it.

[B]

So there's three.

[C]

There's three of us that are replacing one. John Agnew.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

So you pick the right guys. It takes three, man. Come on.

[A]

Yeah, they're highly qualified. They've been blessed. It's all them next year.

[B]

I don't give a shit.

[A]

So I'll change my phone number.

[B]

Yeah, don't call me.

[C]

I'll let John talk about what goes on the front side, especially this year, but years before, I guess, where it was before and, like, where it is now. Yeah, the product that we're putting out this week is amazing. So John.

[B]

And I think, too, before you start it, I think for.

[D]

For.

[B]

For the people that don't understand or just like you said to go compete. There's no one we joke about. There's no one that gets paid. They're all volunteers.

[A]

They're.

[B]

They're guys that are hosting.

[A]

So.

[B]

And it's in different locations. So it's not like. And it's no knock on like roundup. It's there every year. It's same event. So there's a, probably a huge template. It's like plug and play. There's some plug and play here, but man, you're coordinating with different ranges, different departments and there's new events every year. They're always dip. I mean it's so just that alone is, is chaos and stuff. So, so kudos to you, man. So how, how so how far out are you starting to prep all this or in the past and what that looks like?

[A]

Well, let me talk about what makes us special or different from other competitions. So we have a good competition or a good partnership with Florida swat Roundup International in Florida. And we've done competitions. We also judge competitions around the world as well. But what makes us different is that we are tactically based. We don't usually pass the briefs out in advance. We try to make it like a call out. We try to build the event around real world ideology. So if it doesn't make sense when you're running and gunning it, then we change it. Hey, why, why aren't they breaching the store or why are they throwing the ram here? We try to make it feel like you're going to a real call out. And then we level the playing field by giving the briefs only the night before. So what goes into it several months in advance. We've already talked about where we're going to be next year. We already get the dates for that. It takes a lot of coordination through the hotel coordinator and the host agency. And what makes the competition a success is the host agency. The host agency, like we were in Conroe today, they have done a phenomenal job and this is not their first time taking a swing at this. They've done it several times there. It's an amazing facility. And they're. They make or break the competition because they're the ones. As we coordinate and guide them and try to show them the light on the deadlines and where we need to be. We tell them, hey, these are the events we're looking for, whether it be a hostage rescue, officer down. These are some assets we might want to integrate into that event. Now you tell me how you would build it on these ranges.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

And then they design it and they bring it to us, and we say, hey, I like that. Or here's something you need to think about. Tweak it. And then they work on it some more. And then they start running it themselves and trying to figure out what they like and don't like and when.

[B]

How far out in advance is this?

[A]

This is like four months, or they're about six months. They have built the events. So we're meeting. We're meeting right after this one, usually in. After our winter board meeting in February, we're meeting with the host agency and starting to design the events and give them that guidance.

[B]

So are we helping out a lot monetarily? Sometimes, like, hey, we need to, you know, we need this range improvement, things like that.

[A]

Or we have in the past. Yes, if. If a range needs improvement, we'll spend the money and assets especially. We're going to be there for two to three years. And that's something that separates us from other competitions. Usually they stay in one spot. It's the same facility. Everyone's seen the events. They know the topography of it. And we like to kind of move every two to three years to take some stress off the host agency. Maybe they. Maybe they want to compete that next time. And it gives a variety and different ideas. So it's not just John, Sean, or Jeff designing or Mike Castillo designing the same events all the time. We want them to own that event, have pride in it, and be passionate about it. And then they knock that event out of the park, Right? And so we come in, and when they're ready to run some blind teams through, we'll pick an agency that doesn't compete. We know it's not going to compete this year. And we'll let them read the brief, run it, and we'll go, why the fuck did you just do that? And like, well, your brief said this, you know, so it was funny because, like, I'm bounding today. All right, you ran bounding today. So we did the blind run on that. And the guys get over. The sniper gets up against the car and the carbine guys start shooting. And he yells, hey, what the fuck am I shooting at? And they're like. They looked at him like, mind your business. Do your thing. And they're like. He's like, no, I don't know what to shoot.

[D]

They didn't care.

[A]

And then they started looking around and they find the binder at their feet. And we're like, they don't know the fucking binders. Are at their feet. They make some adjustments in the brief. It's just little things like that that we tweak it and then we come in for final walkthroughs and we try to look at it as if we've never seen it before through a competitor's eyes. And we go, okay. We remember all the dumb stuff we did and we remember all the dumb stuff other people. We've seen people do. And we try to go, how are they going to mess this up? We want them to have a great event. We don't want to get a lot of penalties. We want them to run and gun and shoot, have fun, do some thinking exercises and work as a team, communicating.

[B]

So this is one of those things, too. If you're having to come down there and you're vetting this and you're watching it and your department has to buy off on it because you're just not coming down. I'm going to take some personal vacation time to come down here. There's a lot of buy in, not just from the. I mean, your own department has to do that. So that's kudos to them. But I mean, that's some of the other stuff that guys just don't understand, that there's. They just don't go, well, you know.

[D]

Or we come down. I mean, I came down on my own. I mean, some of these guys are. Are coming on their own.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, we take vacation. Yeah. They don't pay us to come down. I mean, we. We get permission from our senior staff and they support us and they're proud of us for doing it and representing the state of Texas on our agency. But it's all vacation time to coming.

[B]

Down to vet these things and stuff like that.

[A]

All right, there you go.

[C]

Well, not just to vet the things, but, I mean, we're coming down and some of us, I mean, we're actually putting on the gear and running the course and trying to see it from the perspective of the operator who's going to go through it and say, hey, this worked, this didn't work, or that was too easy, or, you know, maybe you might think about this. So, I mean, Jeff and I ran quite a few of the events that you guys have been running or are running this week. During the competition. John's been instrumental, along with Buck Rogers, his predecessor, with coming down and talking to the. Talking to the folks.

[A]

Oh, that's good.

[C]

Yeah. And looking at the events, looking at the terrain and seeing what problems may arise so that we can fix that, because we'll get more in this later. But as John said earlier, we want to make it, you know, operational and realistic and want to take, you know, the, the pettiness out of it and not ding people for. Yeah, get the bullshittery out of it.

[B]

No, I, I, I, I totally agree. As, as a competitor sometimes, like, dude, really, like, come on. Well, maybe be nicer to Chansey. Maybe you won't have to burn any vacation time, so maybe he'll allow that. So you need to be nicer to him even though you're his boss in the TTPA world. So.

[C]

Yeah, I'm not as boss at a teacher.

[B]

Oh, yeah, I think you kind of said something like that.

[C]

I did.

[B]

You kind of had a little attitude, so I'm gonna chase you. Remember that when he wants to come down, do stuff like that. Just a little side note anyway, so carry on with the real star here. You, you're the real star of this show right now. So, so what things did you learn over the years that you're like, oh, that one up, I gotta change this.

[A]

One up, and things like that?

[B]

What are some kind of lessons learned?

[A]

Everything looks great at face value when you walk the range and it's like, wow, this is going to be a great event. This is awesome. And what people don't see is the behind the scenes of like, how the hell did that just happen? And it's usually a scoring issue. So we, once we're done and we're happy with the events, but it happened to us this last night. Jeff was texting, hey, I have a problem with scoring onbounding. I said, I do too. Hey, are we meeting tonight or we meet tomorrow? Hey, we'll meet in the morning. First thing we did in the morning was like, I think we're gonna have an issue. I think I slept on it. He goes, yeah, I slept on it too. I think we're a scoring issue. So immediately in the dark, at 5, 45, 6 in the morning, we were over there on bounding looking at how we were going to score this if an error occurred with a shooter shooting from a different stage. And then Jeff said, hey, the same thing's gonna happen over here on the Hostage Rescue. So we came up with a plan to mitigate that. And it saved us so much headache when we miss those little things, they come in like a storm into scoring in the command post. And then we find out, oh, shit, we got a problem. An RO is making a bad call down there, doesn't understand the brief or didn't get explained well enough. And we've got to go find. Sean was digging through the sheets the other day. This happened to another team. He goes, oh, God, how many other teams did we do this to? And we find them, dig him out, then we go find the ro, interview him, find out what happened, do some investigation, make a decision. And we usually reverse those calls because the ROs want to know, like, what the fuck up? Like, what are you going to do about it? We're like, we're going to give it to him. Like, oh, it's fucked up. Like, no, it's not. No, it's not. It's the right thing to do.

[C]

We.

[A]

Oh, we always do the right thing. I mean, sometimes even when we find out we messed this happen, we mess something up and ro mess something up. It was after the appeal time, and we sit as a. As a board, as a panel, and we. And we talk, we say, what's the right thing to do here? And we were able to award that back. And sometimes we can. We get people that are mad and might storm off and. But we always try to do the right thing in the spirit of the competition.

[D]

Yeah.

[B]

And that is hard. Like, I look doing like, 15 competitions that I can see how that is, because it's almost like sometime like the telephone game. Like, okay, well, I'm telling you this. And we know how cops don't listen half the damn time. And then they put their interpretation on it. You're like, wait a minute. Like, that's a hard thing. Because it's not just like two people. There's a shit ton of people that are out there doing that. So I could see how that would be a very hard thing to sometimes control or mitigate. So kudos to y' all for. For recognizing that and being able to just do the right thing. Because at the end of the day, man, we all put in a bunch of work and you're like, man, come on. Like, this guy did tell us the wrong thing or whatever the case may be. So kudos to y', all because that is hard. I think. I think there's. Sometimes guys don't realize that because it's behind the scenes and stuff. So is there something that really sticks out your mind that. That over the events, over the years, like, oh, dude, that was one of the most, like, shittiest things that we ever thought of, and we'll never do that again or anything like that.

[C]

No.

[A]

I mean, work with paper is such a pain in the ass sometimes. Steel, we just found. We looked, you know, over the years, and we and we look at everything we like, depending on the weather and the environment and the facilities that we have, but we'll use just about everything. But we just found that drop steel is the easiest thing to work with. The competitor sees the reaction of the steel. It falls down. It takes the, you know, whether it's a hit or not hit out of it. And, you know, it happened. It happened at this competition. We were using paper, and we failed to shuttle it back to the competitors to see it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And we realized that after it was done, and, you know, competitors were upset about that, and rightly so. And we immediately fixed it. And I told Sean that's. That's my fault. We didn't have a plan. And the lead and I did not come with a plan to get that paper back to the competitor.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And Sean and Jeff and I agree, as a shooter, as a competitor, I want to see where I'm missing. At 100 yards down a paper. I don't. I mean, we're going to take your word for it that there's two, but, you know, it's nice to see that feedback. Is it me? Is it scope? Do I suck? Is it a weapon?

[B]

Because at the end of the day, these guys are going to go back and be operational. So they do want to know that.

[D]

And it's just way more fun. The steel is. I mean.

[B]

Yeah, it is.

[D]

It's fun to hear. It's fun to watch it down.

[A]

And.

[C]

And I.

[D]

Even. I'm the. I'm the note taker. Like, I'm taking notes from all this for next year. We want to make it better. And. And that. That was one of them. If we gonna use paper and big, bold letters, beware.

[A]

Oh, here we.

[C]

We.

[D]

I mean, paper don't lie.

[C]

Yeah. You know.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

But guys are gonna want to see it. It takes longer. Now you're getting into. Did it break the line and all that. If it hits the steel and it falls, then, yeah, it's so much easier.

[B]

Unless it just spins and you're like, I got one.

[C]

That.

[A]

That I. I really was. And it was at Reveley Peak Ranch, and we did hanging steel, and they had to do 10 rounds over a door. Like through a window.

[D]

Yeah.

[A]

Standing on. Like, some guys are standing on ammo cans. Yeah. Well, so by the time you dump 10 rounds into, each team dumps 10 rounds with the paints all off that piece of steel. So an arrow has to count those impacts while everybody's shooting at once. Well, the competitor, you know, is like, I know I hit it. You know, And I was like, look, dude, I'm just standing here. No, there's a lot of ding and danging going on there, you know, and so many appeals came off of that because everybody was like, I knew. I knew I hit it. And I was like, I'm not doing this anymore. We're going to learn. Yeah, lesson learned. Not anymore on that one. So when you.

[B]

When you took over to me, from a competitor standpoint, I think it's like it was. It was this era of the sniper really started to shine, where it started changing. The events we had last night, some older guys on here, and that's kind of their opinion too, is it wasn't just showing up. And here's my one event. I shoot two targets and blah, blah, blah. And it started being, man, if your sniper's not squared away, your team's not doing well. So was that kind of something that you had envisioned or just something that just kind of came?

[A]

I think part of it's. I mean, I'll get. I'll say, yeah, a little bit. It is me. And some of it's getting feedback from our association members when we ask about it. And it's funny. I'll get like, hey, we need more snipers shooting in these events. And, hey, let's cut some of the sniper action out and do some more, you know, assaulter stuff. But, you know, snipers are typically your first in, last out. They're giving the intel. They're. They're giving the green light to the team members. They are. They're a big asset to your team, and they need to have their shit together when they go out there. So I want them to be as much involved as possible. I think. I think Jeff and Sean will agree as well, as long as Mike will is too.

[B]

Have we ever had an event with the snipers giving intel to the assault guys?

[A]

Yes.

[D]

Yeah, we did Revenue, where they've radioed. I think we've done.

[B]

Oh, that's.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Reverly people.

[D]

Yeah, we did one at Houston. I think it had the radio.

[C]

Yep.

[B]

All in that tower. Was there a tower or something like that?

[D]

Yeah, I got ding because I. I just ran back and told them because we had plenty of time, why use the radio? But I could say, I know coming up through mine, just exactly what you said it used to be the sniper had a sniper event.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

And after that, he was. You hope he was a good pistol shot, because that's what he was going to be used for.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

And now we. We've gone to incorporating almost A sniper in every event.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

And we're. We've talked about this. That may start changing back a little bit because now we do have the sniper challenge for all that. We have a whole competition for the sniper. Guys. Do we want to. You know, it's. It's something in the air. We're talking about it. So it may. We may kind of drift a little.

[B]

Bit back, but because to me also we talked about this as well is like the technology and, and the gear for snipers, man. Like tripods and I mean, bags upon bag. I'm like, dude, I saw one that I'm like, that's like a bean bag like you could lay in that you're running around with.

[D]

And I think we. And actually I think Sean was instrumental in that one competition where it. Tripods became the new thing. Like tripods were.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

Hot ticket.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

And. And I think we had a lot of events as before I came on, I was coaching, I think still. And tripods were used everywhere. And I think what we've learned is snipers take forever to get their set up and shoot and it causes delays. We've got drop dead times now or things like that.

[A]

Cease fire. Yeah, ceasefire because.

[D]

Yeah, ceasefire because of the sniper. So the sniper event, we saw it with them too.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

When it's just a sniper challenge.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

We gotta. We've got to figure out a way to not be here all day.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

No, and that is, that is the balancing act because I know as a competitor, I don't want to sit out there all day long and just wait. And, and speaking of that, I will. And we'll touch on this too. The whole having the scoring live. Kudos to y'.

[C]

All.

[B]

That is the best thing. We're sitting there now. We know. All right. Okay. We're still in fourth place. All right, cool. We're just. Okay. The team that we need to catch all. They just got seventh or whatever the case may be. It's so nice you see it all. That's amazing.

[A]

That took a lot of work. So, you know, kudos to Sean and, and Jeff for working on that and Aaron Marco and Keith Meyer.

[D]

I want to give a shout out to Aaron.

[A]

Really?

[D]

He built it kind of based off practice core.

[B]

Okay, good.

[D]

But he's been instrumental in helping us.

[B]

I'm telling you. That is so nice to. And, and then, I mean, we left the range today and I think within an hour or so we knew where we were, the standings and everything. I'm like, that's so nice.

[A]

Well, it was something that they had been working on in the background. And after being at Harris county, we had. We were using everything on Excel, and the Excel file would have a corrupt cell in it somewhere, and it screwed all the math, but we couldn't find the corrupt cell. And we sat there for an hour and a half, if not longer, waiting to do the award ceremony after these guys had competed all week. And we said, never again. Never again. And they busted their ass to make this happen. I'll let Sean talk a little bit on it.

[C]

I mean, I could tell you done something good finally, besides say Chancey was. Yeah, I was Chansey's boss.

[B]

Yeah, I'm telling. I'm telling you, man.

[C]

I'm telling you. I'm telling myself and rolling my eyes at the same time. He's a brother, though.

[B]

Oh, yeah. Good dude.

[C]

I can tell you that. Bring in the. The website version. The live version you guys see now is completely on Keith and Aaron Marco. They are behind the scenes for our website as you see it today. And the information that gets pushed out, wanting to push that out live, we. I. Or we got a lot of pushback on that because we hadn't done it before, and it was. It was a new thing, new technology. What if it fails? What if it doesn't work? And so some of this is like, you know what? Hey, let's just. Let's take the leap. And we've done all the beta, we put all the work into it. We've tried to figure out all the aha moments or the gotcha moments and. And squash those. And we gave it a go on in back in June at the Perkal Sniper Challenge. And it wasn't perfect, but it. It worked, and it worked well. And the feedback that we got was amazing. We did some tweaks on it. We didn't have full control of it, so we're kind of like calling people or texting people to say, hey, can you do this? Do. And towards the end, we turned the website off or the scores off so people couldn't see because it was so close. And here we are. Since June, we have been working with Aaron and Keith, I mean, vigilantly, on so many different things to make it better. In fact, we've been working on it so much, we all got here. Jeff and John and I got here Monday night and our Monday, and we're talking to Aaron Marco about the website, and he's like, hey, all your stuff that you've been giving me and we've been working and tweaking on is on A. A beta platform. But he goes, I'm 99.9 sure that it's going to work.

[D]

John. John doesn't know this yet.

[C]

I know.

[D]

We never told you.

[A]

They never told me any of this.

[D]

Told you what happened.

[A]

They said, don't worry about it Monday night, it's gonna be fine.

[C]

And so he goes. And so we looked at it and Jeff and I looked at it. We're both on the same computer and we're looking at all the things and we're asking all the questions.

[D]

We're breaking it. We keep finding breaks.

[C]

Yeah, we're breaking it. We're testing it, we're breaking it. Hey, you gotta fix this. This is working. Blah, blah, blah.

[B]

This is Monday.

[C]

This is Monday.

[D]

We had one that worked.

[A]

But wait until the first day of the competition, they start hand jamming those scores in and all of a sudden error codes pop up everywhere. And I'm like, what the fuck? Like, oh God, at least we have paper backup. Well, it was just human error. They were putting a what, a colon in versus a decimal.

[C]

Right, Right.

[A]

So.

[C]

So what happened Monday when we, Jeff and I agreed without John's permission, was.

[B]

He gonna fire us next year?

[C]

I'll quit if it doesn't work. He gets fired and we get the job anyways.

[A]

They've been threatened to fire me all week, so.

[C]

So we agreed with Aaron, he's like, hey, he goes, I'll get up at, at 2:41am and he goes, and I will take the old website down, I've already extracted the data and I will flip the new website in. Nobody you guys didn't see it on your side. On our side, there's so many things, so many features that are so beneficial that we can do to help further along all the things, the quick fixes.

[B]

Oh really?

[C]

So many different things. So we can spend more time concentrating on the events and you the venue and all that kind of stuff. So at 2:41am Tuesday morning, Aaron flipped it and here we come in Tuesday morning and Jeff and. I mean, that's the first thing out of the gate. I got there at. I think I got there.

[A]

I was wondering why you're so early. You were there at 5.

[C]

I got there 5am on Tuesday.

[A]

So what is he doing here?

[C]

I got there 5am on Tuesday morning. And like, what? He's the first one here, which usually is not the case. Yeah, but I'm on it and I'm checking it and Jeff gets there. I'm like, bro, come here, come here, come here. He comes over and we're looking at all the things. The thing is, what you see today. Yeah. Is a 100 improvement from what the sniper saw back in June. Oh, wow. It is amazing.

[B]

Kudos to y', all, man, and the hard work. Because I know as a competitor and talking with other guys, man, it's been so nice to have. I mean, yeah, we've enjoyed it.

[C]

There's still things that we can improve on, but I think, I mean, we're. We want Yalls feedback of where we can improve on that. And so it's working. So, yeah. Now John can relax.

[A]

I'm a believer. I'll tell you. I'm a believer.

[D]

He didn't know any better.

[A]

Yeah, it's amazing.

[B]

That was super nice.

[A]

So amazing product program they're doing.

[B]

We do, we do. We do appreciate that. All right, so moving forward. Forward. So what do we have in plan for U.S. competitors in what, 20, 26? And moving forward, is there things that you are looking at and already talking about, hey, let's try to this or try that or what do you got?

[C]

Sure. Yeah, we've got. We've. So this is. This is Jeff's forte SWAT competition. And then Mike Castillo's over the sniper challenge, and then I'm in. I'm in both camps. And we were. We are all in this, you know, up to our chest. I'm just going to say that Jeff's up to his chin or over his nose in it, so I can. At least somebody can breathe that. That's the problem.

[B]

You're a little bit taller than him, so that.

[C]

Yeah. You know, but yes, I'm gonna let Jeff talk on this without too much detail. All right. But I can tell you that. And I'm giving him the look. People can't see me giving him the look. Right.

[D]

He is. He is.

[C]

But yeah, we. We've got some. Some cool things in place, are in our. In our minds, and we're taking notes right now. So I don't want to say too much. I want to give this to Jeff. All right.

[D]

To tell you the truth, we need the feedback. To be honest, we want to make the event, all the events, the whole competition.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

What you want? I come from a USPSA background.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

I'm. I'm all about, hey, let's load up guns and go shoot a bunch of rounds and do all that. To be honest, I took a poll in one of the. In all the class, the train ups. I voted. I actually got what I didn't think I was going to get. I thought I thought most people would agree with me. Yeah. And, and we, we. The options were, hey, you want all the ammo to carry and shoot as much as you want. You want a couple of alibis or you want one for one and. And kind of the one for one and the. In the two to three alibis is what we got. But again, we want to know from the competitors. I know when I was in it, hey, I had suggestions, I filled out critiques because again, if you don't fill them out, we can't fix it.

[C]

Can I say something on that? So as a team, we're talking about this and many we've had, I can tell you we've probably had two to three hours of conversation on this over the past six months. Jeff bringing this up and we're talking about it and we are, we are looking at every angle of what does, you know, unlimited ammo look like? What does one for one ammo look like? What does alibis look like? Why should you do it here and not do it there? And a lot of conversations and it was still in the decision or we need to decide on this box. And so for Jeff to bring that up during the train ups and ask all the 40 teams that were there to get a raw poll on that, I think was an eye opener because I can tell Jeff something. But we come from two different worlds when it comes to competing or operation or whatever.

[B]

And I think that is fabulous. Like, you have to have different guys's experience and level because I look at it, I'm the same with, with Jeff. Like, I like that because that's the way I train. That's the way I like understand it. But at the end of the day, it still comes down to the hard skills of shooting. And I think it's. It's combining that and marrying the two to bake. Hey, how do we make this forever? And how do we change some stuff? I. Kudos to y'.

[C]

All. That's what's so good about this competition. From what we are going to work on and improve of the amazing product that Buck made and that John has made over the last decade and that we have the privilege of stepping into. This is a living. The living competition. It's forever going to change. So Jeff's given that poll and given the. The feedback that he didn't. That he was taken back by was. Was cool. So I'll give it back to Jeff. Yeah. Yeah.

[D]

The other thing is, is real life stuff. Like, I know, like today, you know, guys were throwing a bang and drawing the gun. Because that's the way we train real life. I. I want. I would love to see the closest we can get to real life, but when you're on this side of it, you start learning. You just can't.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

I mean, it's a game. There's a game aspect to it.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

And that's the. That's. That's the. Actually, the hard thing is weighing. Like, how can I make this the most realistic? But then it's also the game. It's the competition.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

And how do we weigh those two?

[B]

Because I. I will say, as. As a competitor for training and many years of doing this stuff, I do have to go back and kind of retrain some things, especially when it comes to loading, unloading the magazine, of getting into box, charging my gun up, because we carry a lot. So that's one of those deals where I'm like, okay. Or then dropping the magazine, not reloading. That's one of those things.

[C]

Because you do it.

[B]

You're like, okay, I got to try to.

[A]

Yeah. They call it a training scar. And we. We talk. I've had coaches come up to me and talk to me about it. Hey, you know, I think we're creating a training scar here. And I'm like, okay. Right. But there is a fine line between real world and competition because we're competing to the least common denominator, because this is training value for officers of all amount of time on the team. Right. So you got young guys, you got. Guys have been here for a decade, and guys have been here for, geez, 25 years. We see some of our friends out there still competing. We're on this side. Yeah, our friends are still competing that I started with, you know, 25 years.

[C]

Ago, but they're all limping right now.

[A]

They are.

[B]

Dude, I've been at that IV place, the Vita Medics.

[C]

I've.

[B]

I've lived in that tent, man. Or that van, man.

[C]

It's. It's.

[B]

She. She's phenomenal.

[A]

So.

[B]

But, yeah, I'm in there all the time. But to me, it goes back to once again. And I tell guys, if you're just going to be training, we got to train for the competition. And you haven't done in the 9, 10 months leading up to that. You're really not training for this competition because it should be your own personal time, your own skills that you're building to build a better shooter. And so when I do, quote, have to build these training scars, when I say that I'm going back to me personally and working on the range, because I'm going to go back in a few weeks, next week, whenever it is to go back to training the way I train. And so it is on us. Like anything else. It's our responsibility. We're big boys. And so when I hear that, I understand. But to me, they need to go back and do their own to make themselves better and get better for you. Get better for the competition by training real world, practical style. And then now you understand, here are the rules. Here are my limitations that I have to do. And this is. It's a competition. And then you have to have those hard skills coming into this.

[D]

I can speak from experience on that. Every time I trained for the competition those months, if I got a call out, I was the best prepared. Yeah, the weeks after the competition, I was the best prepared. It was that time where I didn't do anything for three months. Oh, it's a call out. Mana. Yeah, I hope I got batteries in my thing or, you know, whatever.

[C]

It.

[D]

I felt like I was way more prepared to handle real life.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

When I was training hard or the competition was coming up or it was just.

[B]

Yeah, I get it. To understand the mindset of, like, you shoot us basa. Hey, I'm going to run around, my gun's going to be unholstered. I'm going to be moving on the mat, on the, on the, on the, the range. The this and moving and shooting and. And reloading. All that kind of stuff. I understand. When I come here, hey, I have to shoot, show clear, and then holster the damn thing and then turn around and go. I understand that.

[C]

Let me, let me throw another aspect into it, because as trainers or senior operators and being, you know, on teams and for a long period of time is, you know, we're always concerned about safety. And that's number one priority is safety. And John has drilled this into our head. Every time we bring up a. The good idea ferry comes into town and always living in our head is a good idea ferry. But John brings us back to reality and says, guys, you got to think about safety. You got to think about safety. At the end of the day, this is just a competition. We don't want these guys to go home injured, hurt or killed or anything else. So John has. Has instilled in us, you know, hey, if somebody. I understand that we operate that way in the real world. But John has told us, he's like, hey, think about this. If that guy's going over an obstacle and his muzzle is covering somebody or his pistol or his rifle muzzle. Is that at the end of the day, it's not worth it for that guy to get hurt because something got snapped on his gear. I'll let John talk about this, but he has been huge on making sure that everybody goes home safe at the end of the competition.

[A]

Yeah, we've seen some. Some scary things happen. Happen to us. In Waco. A officer's bull carrier assembly broke inside the weapon. Yeah. And it was a mass casualty event. So the neck, after you shot, the next thing you did was sling your rifle and go pick up a bunch of dummies out there and move them around. Well, we had a failure there. We did not have enough RSOs or ROs on the range. And the ROs couldn't watch all of the competitors. Well, an officer was having trouble with his rifle and the RO didn't notice that he kept trying to eject the round. Eject the round. He couldn't do it. So he ended up just slinging it over his shoulder and the barrel in the up position on his back. And then he was running over to the mass casualty area and went to pick up the dummy. You had to lean over and drag your firearm barrel over your buddy's chest. Pretty much on the way over there, the firing pin was bouncing in that broken carrier and there was a round in the chamber and it went off right by his right ear back there. I can imagine how loud that was. And it was. But it made my heart sink because I was like, I remember that if I get someone killed while I'm the director of this, I don't know, I'm a failure. So like Sean said, we want these guys to come and compete. They're going to push themselves. They're going to have somebody. Minor injuries. But we don't want to design anything where anyone goes back with major injuries because their command staff is not going to send them to compete.

[B]

Yeah, because, I mean, now you. You blow out this or whatever the case may be. I mean, there is a fine line. I. I get it. And the older I get, I get a little wiser than that because, like, to be honest, some of the repelling stuff, I'm like, man, there's. I guarantee you half the guys have never pilled because that's really not. Unless you're a big department, you're not doing some of that kind of stuff. So I like last year, like, okay, two guys. Okay, you can get two guys to do that or different deals like that, like a little smarter. I mean, because not everybody can do all that some, sometimes and stuff. So I, I do. There is that other side of it. You know, you gotta, you gotta realize that because you have 15 dudes get hurt in one competition or 10, you're like, what the hell? And then there's gonna be phone calls. I mean it's, it's, it's a small world.

[A]

We do, we. And we, we on the command in the cpu, we do have injuries written on there. And as the injuries come in, we start writing around the board and we start assessing. We have a meeting at the day end the of the competition and we see, hey, were these preventable injuries? And we had that happen in Harris County. We had a strange, strangely quite a few injuries, but they were all on low obstacles. So we assessed, is it us? Do we need to change it? Does it need to be on grass? Was it on concrete? And after that assessment we realized, hey, we don't need to change anything on this event. Yeah, it was mostly the officers not warming up or pushing themselves too hard. And it's hard for us to, I can't tell you not to, to not compete. You know, I always say train hard but compete harder. I want you competing hard.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

But I want you warming up and stretching so you don't get that injury before you go back home.

[B]

Well, and to like, the reality of it is, is how you win or how you have a fast time is how efficient you are in your shooting. You can run. I mean, most people are around the same speed, give or take a little bit, but if someone is efficient and shooting and they're ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, as opposed to powder and then another pal. I mean, you can run as fast as you can, but I guarantee I'm beating you.

[D]

It just is.

[B]

And so I think sometimes people don't understand that. They're like, let's just run this fast. And there's some guys that can do both, but those are the exceptions to the most what guys are doing and stuff like that.

[C]

So, man, I think we got off track a little bit. I'd like Jeff to elaborate more on, you know, hey, we're going to, we're going to change things up and this is why. But I'm not going to tell you exactly what we're going to do.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[C]

But you know, things are, things are going to be different, you know, moving forward and hopefully every year something is, is different and unexpected.

[A]

Oh, it's going to be two dragons.

[C]

Two.

[A]

Two dragons. Not one, two.

[C]

Two dragons.

[B]

Well, I think too, like going back to what you were saying, you know, going back to Buck before you and things like that. That's the way I look at when I took over for Region 7, man. I'm standing on the shoulders of a lot of men that were. Were before me and trying to improve it. And I know when I pass this on to someone else, I want them to go, man, I'm going to stand on all. And I'm going to make it better. Not because I'm better than you.

[C]

Just.

[B]

I have different ideas. I'm a different person. I have different connections or whatever, and that's what I want. And I think that's what I'm seeing right here. And that's a good thing because, man, sometimes you just. You just need a fresh look on things or some. Some new energy, because this shit gets. You're like, okay, how much more I can do this again? And that's not what you want, especially is for something that you volunteer and you're serving others, you're serving this. It's all about the association. It's all about the members and stuff. So, Jeff, what are you looking at, man?

[D]

Like I said before, but on that point, I think, like, we still have Buck. He's still around having that experience.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

Hopefully John is still going to show up and say, because again, we may have a way to do something or we may be. And they were like. Like, hey, nine years ago, we. We tried that. And yeah, I wouldn't recommend doing it. Yeah. So having that. That background, I don't know what you want me to elaborate more on. You gave me the look to not give too much away. But like I said, if.

[C]

If I'm smiling right now, I need.

[D]

I need feedback.

[C]

You figured this out.

[D]

I want to know again, I want. Or Sean and I both want to put on. We want people to be like, that was the best competition.

[B]

Right. So it sounds to me like. Like, I'm glad y' all kind of looked at that with.

[A]

With.

[B]

With Kelly's event with the sniper deal and going, okay, well, that's in and of itself. That is for sniper gods of y', all, you know.

[C]

Well, the sniper event in February. That's a hint. Is going to be different than it was this last time and the other time, so be ready for that. So if you're a sniper and you're planning on being in that I can say it.

[B]

So Kelly's event.

[C]

Kelly's Sniper Challenge is going to be in February. In February. Ish. Yeah. Oracle. Somewhere in region 2. So it's your job to get on the Internet TTP away and figure out which region is which.

[B]

Where is Region 2?

[C]

Yeah. Plug in. Region 2 and 7 are always trying to compete with Region 6, which is, I don't know, worth area.

[B]

Yeah. Region 2.

[D]

We're going to emphasize the sniper.

[C]

There you go. Figure that out.

[D]

Emphasis on sniper.

[B]

Sniper.

[A]

Okay.

[D]

You got your own competition now.

[C]

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And on the, and on the SWAT competition, some things were switched around this year. Our president, Dan and Marco. Marco's just so you guys know, Marco's instrumental in where we are for this competition or any competition in the past few years. Yeah, he's been a huge part. He is behind the scenes. He is. He is the ultimate cat herder, if you will.

[A]

He is motivator cat and he hasn't.

[B]

Been called out yet.

[A]

Producer.

[C]

He is results. He is a Zig Ziggler of.

[A]

Yes.

[C]

Of TTPOA SWAT competition. We were going to title.

[B]

Yeah. And Marco is the vice president of the association.

[C]

Yeah. We were going to call this podcast what the. The.

[D]

The greatest.

[C]

The Greatest SWAT Show.

[D]

The greatest show in swat.

[C]

The Greatest show in swat.

[B]

Okay.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Show in.

[C]

All right. Yeah.

[B]

That's what will be the title then.

[C]

There you go.

[A]

Yep. Marco drank the water when he helped put on our first Sniper event in 2015. That's when Kelly and Colton took first place. It was an amazing thing. I mean, you could write a book on this. And he thought, I can do better. Y' all do this like shit, let me show you how to do this. And I love, I love hearing him tell the story. He's actually very humble when he tells a story. And he said, oh, shit, I can't fucking do this. So he called Buck and I, he's like, hey, I'm sorry. I talked a lot of shit to y'.

[C]

All.

[A]

Can you come down here and help me run this competition? There's a lot of fucking logistics in this and I don't. I need help. So we went down and helped him and it was awesome because we wanted to be, you know, his and we wanted to learn from it. And then it just became. It went. We had a break in that for several years. And because it took a lot to do because we have the conference and we have the competition six months apart and everyone has full time jobs and RDs and classes they're putting on. And a competitor came up to me one year and he goes, hey, man, we really missed that sniper competition. I mean, what is it going to take to get that put on again? And that, that really made me take a step back And I, God dang, like, why have I procrastinated on this? Because life just gets in the way. Yeah. And so we said, I said, I'm gonna make it happen. We're gonna make it happen. So start talking to all the snipers on the association. Brought them all together. And I said, what do you think about this? This is what I want to do.

[C]

The smartest people in the organization, by the way.

[A]

That's correct. All the thinkers. And I said, do you think this is possible? I'd love to do it again. And they were all on board. Right. So we made it a short two day competition because some snipers are probably going to come on their own dime. They're probably going to drive down, spend one night, we're going to cram as much shit we can in in two days and make it cost effective. Use a skeleton crew that won't train the association's money and put on a badass competition. So then after that, one of my proudest things as being a competition director is taking this, the main competition, to a five day event. And then the second thing is putting on a full time every annual sniper competition. I'm going to let Sean talk about how it became the Perkle Sniper Competition and why we're so proud of it.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

So Kelly, Christ brother in Christ, and he's up there sitting next to Jesus right now, looking down and watching all of us and his son and, and everybody in the SWAT community and everybody that he's touched and everybody's looking up and they can, they can see and feel the glory of Kelly and he's very passionate. When Kelly brought or came with Lubbock to compete, they came down. They competed or they came down to compete and they'd show up, then they would go, you know, drink or hang out or whatever. They didn't take the competition serious and they didn't do well. Yeah, Kelly went back and he's like, no more. We are not going to go down and do that. We're going to train for this and we're going to, we're going to place in the top five or 10, I don't remember which one it was.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

So he took it very seriously. And the standards in Lubbock are, are up there, they're high. So he went back and he pushed that, that attitude, that mentality out to his team and his folks and they came down and they competed and Kelly is very passionate. Kelly and I were getting heated discussions all the time about sniper stuff and, and ammo and weapons and stuff. Like that. Kelly was always more progressive than I was. Because of Kelly, my Amazon account has always been blown up. Time I met with Kelly, I was buying more off of Amazon than I needed to. But, you know, Kelly won the first sniper chat or sniper competition which called back then, and he won it with. With Colton. And then, you know, Kelly's very passionate about the sniper community. Taught a lot of classes. We taught classes together and John revived the sniper competition and he asked me if I would help out. I gladly stepped in. I guess that's why I'm where. Where I'm at today with taking his role. I think that was the hook that got me in. Yeah. And I was proud to do it. And as a team, we pulled off a damn good sniper competition. That was the second annual. And on the second annual was in. I guess, I think it was late August 1st part of September, right before Labor Day of 2024. And Kelly was in bad health due to his cancer. He came down with his wife, Terry, and they watched Colton and Chris compete and everybody else, not just Colton, Chris, but everybody else compete. And Colton and Chris won it for Lubbock. So they took the. The title back. But before that, we had collect and Kelly was on the committee and the team to put this challenge together. So he had very much input into that sniper competition. And he was always a little late to the meeting. So because of that, we could have a little discussion about Kelly. And in the meetings, we decided that we were going to honor Kelly and his legacy and call it the Kelly perkle sniper challenge. Not the competition, but sniper challenge. And so we did. And so when we got down, we knew the word was going to get out. I mean, as smart as he is, we don't know how he didn't know already or he faked it pretty well. We, as a committee on John's idea presented him with a title and a plaque and to tell him the day before that this was the Kelly purkle sniper challenge moving forward and forever will be. Yeah. Within the TTPOA organization. And I'm gonna get choked up. I can tell you that he was honored beyond belief for that. And it was. It's really cool to be able to be a part of that and to see him and to. To hear him and to just be thankful beyond anything. And he watched his son Colton and Chris win that competition, which was amazing. October, late October 23rd. After that competition, Kelly went to go be with the lord. But we had many conversations in his living room. He and I did one on one about Life and all the things and that that was one of his biggest thank yous biggest achievements. You know his, you know his relationship with God, his family, his three sons, his beautiful wife. All the things that he got to do. But just how TTPOA was just the family, an amazing family and supporter of him and for him. And then we ran it again this past June in Pasadena. The third annual or the Sniper Kelly Purkle Sniper Challenge. And Colton, Colton and Chris came down with 30 teams. 30.

[B]

Oh wow.

[C]

30 teams came down and they won it again. San Antonio was right behind, right on their heels and Houston SWAT was right behind them. So it was a super good showing.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

So you're probably seeing those names in the, in the top three or five, you know top five this weekend. But Kelly's attitude, mentality and culture changed. Put Lubbock on the map and they are a true contender in every competition and challenge that the TTP away. Well Prairie Fire Florida, anywhere. San Antonio, Lubbock, Houston, Plano, McKinney, Irving, Houston SWAT. Our FBI SWAT. Those names, they stand out. They're, they're a force to be reckoned with. Let me tell me. Forget about Garland either.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

And that's the other thing. I would not be surprised if we don't see a two day sniper challenge turn into a three day.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

For that.

[D]

And we make because some of the bigger ones in the country, I think we're going to rival them. Good day. We will with with prize tables and the days and, and the quality of match that we'll put on.

[B]

And that's the thing is TTOA is crushing it in all areas. And I don't say this because we're just, I just know the men that are in the positions they are, they're doing it for the greater good and that's for the organization that's to, to make things better for law enforcement, for the SWAT community. For the law enforcement community. And, and that's what it's about. And I you see it. I mean you have the president you out here that's running every, he's running his own event. You got the vice president, every guy that is and you're probably, you're not because but you got what do we say six region directors that are, that are out here competing this, this, this year. So there, there's a lot of buy in to, to all this and stuff. So I think that's what makes the organization really thrive because it's no knock on some of the other guys but I, I hear it from other People, hey, man, y' all are the cream of the crop.

[A]

And.

[B]

And I like that because, like I said, we're standing on other shoulders of. Of people who came before us that. That knocked out of the park. And we're just. We're just carrying on that tradition now.

[C]

Just so everybody knows we're not dogmatic. And I want to get a plug out to other. Other organizations within the country. Ntoa, Cato, Florida, you know, other organizations. I'm tapping into those people, having conversations with those people that are doing those competitions. John's been in contact with the. The new director of the Florida SWAT Association, Roundup International.

[A]

That's coming up next month. Yeah, weeks we'll be out there.

[B]

And the winner of this goes.

[A]

Yes. The winner of our TTOA SWAT competition goes out there. Yeah, we give them a free ride over there to try to shake things up in Florida.

[B]

And we've done it.

[A]

Yeah, we have.

[B]

We have. We have done it. And then Florida or Orlando's here competing this year, so there's. There's a good buyback and. And going back and forth in that.

[A]

Yeah, we've got.

[B]

I'd like to see some other organizations. I know Connecticut does one, and I.

[A]

Like to see a partnership with them. We sent winners up there, and they sent people down here as well. Yeah, we've guys gone over to Louisiana on their own accord. We didn't even send them. They just went over there, stole it from East Texas, Louisiana, and they're like, what the f is ttpoa? And next thing you know, we've got Ascension, ham and these same Louisiana teams coming over. I'm so proud of that. It makes me so happy to see these outlets at Stanislaus, California, come all the way over to compete. Department of Defense. These guys come to compete. The word is out. And that makes me feel great. I feel like we're putting on a good product. Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. I think we need to keep pushing just all that. So what would Yalls advice be for a new team that's thinking about this or doing it? What would y' all recommend?

[A]

I'll. Yeah, I'll just. I'm gonna come on what you said, Brandon, about Don't come on what I said. That's not what the texts were. When. When you sent me that you're hotel door was cracked and where I could find you. I think you really nailed it on the head. It's about dedication and putting your own time in. I've had officers come up to me and say, hey, I didn't do good. What Can I do better? And I said, well, what are you doing on your own time? They said, well, no, I don't have time. The department should pay me. I said, wrong attitude. You'll never win with that attitude. I said, you should be on your own time, practicing constantly, and you should shoot for small targets, aim small, miss small. But if you don't have the passion to win, you're not gonna win. If you just. If you think you're just gonna go train on your regular SWAT training days for the competition and come in and try to shine, sorry to burst your bubble. Yeah. You're not going to make it in the top 10.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

I mean, that's where I would start. I'm gonna kick it over to Jeff.

[D]

Yeah. I had this come up, actually. Not this year, but the year before. Alan. Alan called me. Hey, what should we do?

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

First time, I think they were competing.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Steve Dye was like, hey, man.

[D]

Exactly.

[B]

We're competing around today. Yeah, I ran into him today. You know, he's one of our old acs, and it was good catching up with him and. And all that kind of stuff. And he's out here supporting his guys.

[D]

That's cool. And it was simple. On top of what John said is get your heart rate up and shoot small.

[C]

Yeah. If.

[D]

If you can. If you can get your heart rate up and still shoot, you're going to do phenomenal. Yeah, I think that's. I think that's the key.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

If you can do those two things, you're gonna. You're gonna finish well.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

I'm gonna flip the script. I'm gonna say, by the time you listen to this podcast, this competition's over.

[A]

Yeah, it's.

[C]

No, but I'm gonna. I'm gonna flip it over. There are five teams that are in the top five, and most of those teams usually land in the top five, but not the top 10. So I'm going to put it on those guys. I'm going to say, if you're. If you're a seasoned team, you've competed a lot and you do well, I'm going to challenge you to reach out to those teams that are new, are not doing so well, and mentor them, talk to them, tell them, help them along.

[B]

Yeah, that's a good idea.

[D]

And we actually had that. Yeah, they had a class. Put on a class.

[C]

Yeah, just.

[D]

And those are the guys to take it from.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

And throughout the year, because I can tell you that when I go, I go teach around the country, I. I push going to competitions and Learning. And the biggest thing I've heard from, from some of the competitions are when you get, you know, some of these three guns or whatever, you get assigned to a squad, there is a badass shooter in the other squad. And the biggest thing, the biggest takeaway from the shooters that are not that badass shooter is like, I got to shoot with. I got to shoot with Brandon Hernandez. And he, he was a. He was a real person and he shared everything with me. And he was not trying to. To win it. He was trying to get me to win it. And he was helping me the whole way. I think we should see more of that.

[D]

Yeah. The, the uspsa, I tell people, go shoot that.

[C]

Right?

[D]

I got to shoot with Jerry Mitchellick.

[C]

Right.

[D]

I mean, I got my ass kicked, but, you know, I got to, I got to learn. And, and we do see that in the, the competitive shooting world, cops don't do it.

[B]

No, they don't.

[D]

And they don't do it because they're going to get beat.

[C]

And I think pro tip.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Our hint. Keep your eyes open. You might see another competition coming down the pipe. Through TTPOA reference what Jeff just talked about. You might have to hit rewind, but there it is.

[B]

All right, I like it. I like it. Well, I think too, and not to harp on that same type of, you know, unlimited ammo, blah, blah, blah, but I think a lot. I think in my personal opinion, some of that is law enforcement doesn't have a great depth in that yet. We're. We're still trying to push that out and get that out where, hey, understanding it's not just blasting and stuff. So I think there's probably some misunderstanding with, with some of that as well. And I think they're probably in the future, Will. I know that's what I'm pushing out. Some other regions are starting to do that now and stuff, but I, I try to hit as many new teams that I see. And I'm like, hey, man, how's it going? What do you. What do you like? What do you don't like?

[D]

What.

[B]

What do you think you can work on? And they're all like, man, yeah, we didn't know. I'm like, but listen, man, you're out here and there's other teams that are not out here, and they can't talk shit because you're in whatever place and it's not the top whatever. But they weren't out here. They didn't put their ass out to look bad. And you don't like what you are Doing good. What are you going to do to fix it? What are you going to take back to your team? What do you. What did you learn from this? And I think that's invaluable. And if you're a new team and you didn't do well and you're not going to come back because of pride or whatever case may be, that's on you. That's not on anybody else. That's on you. Now if your department's like, hey, we're not doing that again, you know what? If you want to come back enough, figure it out.

[A]

I love the teams that are in last place and stay for the awards. Yeah, I frickin love those teams, man. They got so much pride and they're humble and they say, hey, we suck. We had a fucking great time. I can't wait to come back and do it again.

[D]

They always say, you had a great time.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. There's training value. I wrote an article on a command magazine about the training value of the SWAT competition. There's nothing that puts you under the stress of being out in the real world, but being with your peers and getting your heart rate up and making decisions and aiming small, you know, it really puts a lot of stress on you. You come out, you look at what the big teams are doing, you look what the fast teams are doing, you look at the equipment they have, you ask, what the fuck is that? Yeah, that a laser on there? Can we have that?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, and you're looking at what the industry standard is and what people are spending their money on, what agencies are spending their money on. And then you realize, man, we need to step our game up.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah.

[D]

It brings up a huge point. When I shoot uspsa, I literally have very little stress.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

I've been shooting it forever. I. The last time I shot here, it was the most stressful I've ever been. Because five other guys are depending on you. And that's why the sniper sucks, because your misses are twice what everybody else's are.

[B]

You're like, damn it.

[D]

It is. They always are looking at you. So it is the most stressed and.

[B]

You don't want to let down your team. Because if I go out and shoot my own stuff, I'm like, yeah, I can cuss it myself or whatever. But now I'm like, damn it, dude. Sorry.

[A]

That's all your peers are looking at you and they all know who you are and they're talking about you. It's, you know, so the heat is on.

[B]

Yeah, no, it definitely is so. Well, guys, I know y' all been up for a long time and y' all gotta go do this again.

[A]

I've been up so long now, I don't even care. I'm drinking Coors Light. Jeez.

[C]

That was my decoy beer. It's at the top of the cooler. So people would open it up, be like, no, I don't want that.

[A]

Shoot.

[B]

That's my family's favorite drink. Right there is Kerr's lot, they call it.

[C]

And that's how we're gonna wrap this up, so.

[B]

Well, we do appreciate it what y' all do for us, and we know there's a ton of hard work, and I do thank y' all for what y' all done. I love the competitions of the in the events that we did today. I'm looking forward to the ones tomorrow. Maybe not jumping out of that damn three story towered of fast rope. Probably not looking for that one because.

[C]

Getting hurt, but he read the brief.

[A]

Oh, and you're going to get wet. Yeah, real wet.

[B]

Brandon, that doesn't sound good either.

[A]

So.

[B]

All right, well, you go out there and you all train hard and we appreciate you.