When Eric Hollen became the new riflery coach at South High, he called a friend who was uniquely qualified to give him advice -- UAF riflery coach Dan Jordan, who has coached the Nanooks to three NCAA national championships in the last nine seasons.
Jordan said he gave Hollen two tips. First, he offered technical advice, because Hollen's expertise is pistol shooting, not rifle shooting. Second, he told him that not everyone who joins a high school riflery team wants to be an Olympian, so keep expectations mellow and make sure the kids are having fun.
Jordan never once mentioned the obvious, the thing an observer couldn't miss if watching either man run a practice. Jordan, a silver medalist in rifle shooting at the 2008 Paralympics, never said a word about what it's like to coach from a wheelchair.
Paralyzed in a 2001 farming accident, Hollen represented the United States at the 2012 London Paralympics. He's the top-ranked pistol shooter on USA Shooting's Paralympic team and is on track to compete in the Brazil Paralympics in 2016.
His military connections brought him to Alaska at the beginning of this year. A nine-year Army veteran who spent much of his career in special operations, Hollen, 49, is the Veterans Affairs Specialist for the Alaska Legislative Veterans Caucus.
He's also working on a masters degree in counseling with a military focus, and he's the first-year coach of the Wolverines.
"Man, he's a bundle of energy," Jordan said. "I think just that energy and that excitement about what he does is gonna rub off on the kids. And maybe that will be the trigger that leads somebody to say 'Maybe I can do this.' Even if it's just one kid, it's worth it."
Hollen said he took the job at South at the urging of Bruce Bowler, a director with the state's Civilian Marksmanship Program.
"He hollered at me, 'Hey, these kids need a coach or they're not gonna have a team,' " Hollen said. "It's an opportunity to give back to the sport and help me recover."
LIFE-CHANGING ACCIDENT
Hollen was pinned under a tractor while working on his horse farm in Tennessee on March 27, 2001. For a guy who had left the Army Rangers just a year earlier, life as a quadriplegic seemed like a fate worse than death.
"For a special operations guy, to be shot and killed while fighting with your brothers is acceptable, but to be injured to the point where you can't take care of yourself, that's our worst-case scenario," Hollen said.
Running a farm was no longer an option, so Hollen and his daughter Payten moved to Colorado, where he enrolled in a gunsmithing school. Eventually he decided to check out the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs.
"I said, 'Hey, I think I can shoot with your guys.' They kinda cocked an eyebrow and grinned," he said.
Coaches put him on the range with a rifle, and out of 20 shots, he put three or four in the 9-ring. Then they set him up with a pistol, and he fired six shots into the 10-ring.
"They said, 'Holy smokes, you can shoot,' " Hollen recalled. "And I said, 'Yeah, for the last 10 years or so I've been a trigger puller for Special Operations.' The thing about pistol is the setup is similar to a M92 Beretta. The trigger is lighter but the sighting system was the same to what I had been doing for a very long time."
Hollen became a frequent visitor to the training center, shooting on weekends and early mornings. He got to know Jordan, a two-time NCAA All-America shooter for UAF who was paralyzed in a 1999 rock climbing accident the summer after his sophomore year. After his accident and before returning to UAF as a coach, Jordan helped establish a Paralympics shooting program in Colorado Springs.
One day early in their friendship, the two men went to lunch.
"He said, 'Eric, this injury could very well be the best thing that ever happened to you,' " Hollen said. "Because he was a collegian champion and an overachiever in a wheelchair, I really heard what he said. I hadn't met any disabled athletes until I met Dan, and because he was in a chair and getting ready to compete in Athens, it hit home with me.
"That's what made me want to be a counselor. At this point it's 2002, 2003, and guys were coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan injured, and I knew that could be my next thing. I didn't know how long it would take me, and I could've got done with school a lot (earlier) if I didn't saddle myself with shooting too, but I had to do it. I had to do both things."
HEALTH BENEFITS
By 2007, Hollen had achieved one of his goals by qualifying for USA Shooting's Paralympic team. Pistol shooters need to score 564 out of 600 at a qualifying event, and after four years of coming close -- 560, 561, 562 -- Hollen fired a 566 in a fall selection match in Fort Benning, Georgia. Since then he has twice been named USA Shooting's Paralympic Athlete of the Year.
Besides fueling his competitive nature, shooting eases the physical pain that has been with him since his accident.
"The beauty of the sport is it's so mindful," Hollen said. "You're so focused on the shot process that the nerve pain I feel every day is alleviated during the process of executing a good shoot. I'm so focused on shooting that I don't feel that nerve pain."
Soon Hollen was an advocate for better living through shooting instead of chemistry. He started coaching disabled veterans for events like the Warriors Games and National Veterans Wheelchair Games, teaching them that it's easier to control their breathing and heart rates when they aren't on pain medication.
"So many of the vets are on different types of medication for nerve pain and things like that, and they found out pretty quick it's difficult to compete and be on any medication," he said. "They start weaning themselves until they really don't need it any more. That's the beauty of what a shooting sport brings to the table that's different from, say, handcycling.
"… Once you realize that, hey, this nerve pain is here but it doesn't have to be something I focus on all the time, you learn how to navigate it in a healthier way. The medication is meant to be a short-term fix."
COACHING ADJUSTMENTS
At South, Hollen is coaching able-bodied shooters for the first time. Being in a wheelchair doesn't limit his contributions, although being in graduate school means he misses occasional practices in order to complete classes or projects.
Though Hollen can't physically demonstrate the three positions -- prone, kneeling, standing -- he is able to communicate technique other ways. "I just manipulate their bodies into the correct position," he said.
Jordan, who is in his 10th year as UAF's head coach, said his wheelchair doesn't limit him as a coach, and his record backs him up. Under his watch, the Nanooks have produced three NCAA individual champions and several other All-Americans, and they are almost always in the hunt for the national title.
"It's kind of hard to get up on the line when there are a lot of people shooting at once and you're bumping into people with the chair, but beyond that there is no difference," Jordan said. "Maybe it's a little harder because sometimes you can't demonstrate what you're asking them to do, but I've learned over the years how to describe those things even if I can't show them.
"I use my camera a lot and take pictures and show them, 'Here's what you look like; what if we try this?' "
One of the most difficult challenges Hollen faces as a high school coach is the same dilemma Jordan encountered years ago when he spent a season as coach of the high school team at West Valley. Both men had to learn not to push their students as hard as they push themselves.
"You have to remember that not every kid there wants to go to the Olympics or shoot in college," Hollen said. "They just love to shoot. Dan told me to just remember that component of it and help them become a better shooter."
BRIGHT FUTURE
Hollen isn't sure how long his time in Alaska will last, in part because his legislative job is a political appointment, but he's pretty sure 2016 will find him in Brazil, the host of the next Summer Olympics and Paralympics.
"Once you hit a certain level, it's fairly easy to maintain the (required) score," he said. "Mostly it's the mental side, the maturity, that's giving me an edge now. After London, everything is easy."
Hollen placed 12th in 10-meter air pistol and 23rd in 50-meter free pistol at the London Paralympics, the biggest competition of his life. In attendance were his mom; his fiancee, Meg (now his wife, who works as a counselor at North Star Behavioral Health) and their daughters, Payten, 16, who attends Service High and is a competitive alpine skier, and Rian, 12, who attends Holy Rosary Academy.
Competing on such a large stage with his loved ones watching was a seminal moment, he said.
"It was kind of a way for me to turn the corner, to marginalize the injury to that point where it was all good," Hollen said. "Now I wouldn't trade the injury for anything. It's brought me so many opportunities I would have never had. It lets me be someone who gets to go out and compete for their country."