Division I Athlete
January 09, 2006 11:42 AM | General
January 9, 2006
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. -- In a small Bavarian town in Germany, where the natives ride their bicycles in the streets and schoolchildren still pass notes in class, an American exchange student found six letters on her desk already awaiting her arrival.
 |
||
| Natasha Dinsmore found a love for shooting while serving as an American exchange student in Germany a few years ago.
WVU Sports Communications photo |
Reading the notes, written in German and asking the new girl curious questions, Natasha Dinsmore saw her life unfold right before her eyes.
“This is my favorite story,” she says, two years later in of all places a rifle range in West Virginia decked out in her leathers. “I have it down pat.”
The get-to-know-me notes soon reciprocated to a classmate named Tobias, who she found out shot rifle at a nearby range.
“He said I’ll pick you up at 4 o’clock,” Dinsmore recalls. “If it wasn’t for him I would’ve never got started.”
The day Tobias took her to the range is a day she will never forget.
“October 16th, 2003,” Dinsmore repeats as if it was her birthday.
She walked into the range where members of the German National team were shooting and Tobias introduced her as “the American from school I was telling you about.”
“I said, ‘Hi, I’m here to shoot guns,’” Dinsmore says. “I didn’t know the sport existed. I didn’t even know it was an Olympic sport and I was training with them and everything.”
The shooters were like any other Germans; they were quiet and reserved. But something about having an innocent, bubbly newcomer around shot a little enthusiasm into the range.
“I thought it was the strangest thing in the world,” she says. “They gave me a gun and told me to practice. The targets are so big and half the time I wouldn’t hit it. I just fell in love. That first day I said this is so cool. They just said, ‘OK, we’ll see you on Friday.’”
So every Tuesday and Friday, in addition to her other weekly activities playing field hockey, tennis and playing a musical instrument in a band, she shot at the range adhering to the advice of her parents to become integrated with the German community through club activities.
When she called home all she talked about was shooting. As her scores went up so too did her collection of equipment the club loaned her. Her goal was to shoot a 330.
“Then I shot a 335,” Dinsmore continues. “I just cried I was so excited and everyone could tell how much I loved it.”
Dinsmore, who is from State College, Pa., but was born and grew up in Morgantown until the fourth grade, was offered a scholarship to play field hockey at Juniata College in Pennsylvania.
She was having second-thoughts about playing field hockey because of her newfound love for shooting.
“I told my dad I will not go on in life without shooting,” she admits.
Talking with a high school friend, Luke Marion, who now shoots at the collegiate level with the Naval Academy, Dinsmore was assured that she was good enough to shoot in college as well. He asked her what she shoots and Dinsmore revealed that she recently shot as high as a 376.
“Are you serious?” Marion asked.
“Yeah, it’s not very good,” Dinsmore replied because she was shooting with the German National team and they were shooting 385s and she thought she was a really bad shooter.
“You can be a collegiate shooter,” Marion responded in disbelief.
“Don’t pull my leg like that,” she deadpanned.
No kidding. Dinsmore called her mom at midnight once she found out she could become a Division I athlete. They quickly posted her scores online and soon enough college recruiters were ringing her phone.
Dinsmore, now a sophomore at West Virginia, the school her parents attended and where her father was a gymnast, is in her second year as a member of the Mountaineer rifle team.
Since taking a short respite from the sport over the semester break, it seems to Dinsmore that she hasn’t put her rifle down since that first day in Germany two years ago. She learned more about the sport, its people and its culture by serving as a coach and counselor for the Civilian Marksmanship Program over the summer shooting with more Olympians and national team members, only this time Americans.
“I got to know all the people in the shooting community and got to learn all the inside stuff,” Dinsmore says. “I got all these friends everywhere now. I didn’t know anyone and now I know everyone. I have a lot more confidence in myself now."
She marvels at the thought of befriending Olympic athletes in a sport she never knew existed.
“And my friends that shoot for the national team are going to Beijing in 2008 and they are like, ‘We’ll see you over there.’”
One of the youngsters she taught in the CMP, like her German classmates, passed her a note following a session of camp. The note had a picture and it thanked Dinsmore for teaching him to love the sport.
“If you don’t love this sport,” she reasons, “then there’s no point.”
Though Dinsmore, now improving as a counting team member for WVU, wasn’t the best shooter in any range she first stepped into, no one could love the sport and being a Division I athlete more than her.
“(Going to Germany) changed my life forever, it really did,” Dinsmore reflects. “Not only did I become a more outgoing person and I got to see the world, but it introduced me to a sport that makes me a Division I athlete.
“I saw this NCAA commercial the other day and my dad says, ‘You’re a student-athlete.’
“And that’s the coolest thing in the world, it really is.”
