By Bob Sutton
Special to The Alamance News
When Mike Pittard of Burlington was a college tennis player at Tennessee, he was invited by a friend to go dove hunting near Knoxville.
In many ways, that led to fascinating adventures for Pittard, whose tennis accomplishments morphed into much more.
“I kind of enjoyed it,” he said of skeet shooting. “I got into that pretty heavy.”
So much so that this month Pittard was inducted into the North Carolina Skeet Shooting Association’s Hall of Fame.
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“I was starting to phase out of tennis and I still like to compete,” he said. “Like tennis, there’s a lot of hand/eye coordination.”
As a skeet shooter, Pittard won four individual state championships.
“The mental part of it kind of takes care of itself,” he said.
Skeet shooting requires expertise in four shotgun classifications (12 gauge, 20 gauge, 28 gauge, .410 bore).
Pittard set a standard with a perfect “400 by 400” score in 1999 in Rocky Mount. He became the fifth North Carolinian on record to achieve that score.
“The top of the mountain is if you shoot 400 by 400,” he said. “That’s kind of the Holy Grail in that game.”
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Pittard, 59, spent about 20 years as a member of Alamance Wildlife Club. He also has a private range on a farm in Caswell County.
Skeet shooting events involve a full weekend. He eventually phased out of that level of competition in 2010.
“It kind of led to clay target shooting later on,” he said.
Pittard was all-in on tennis during high school at Williams, though he played basketball on the junior varsity level. As a sophomore, he combined with David Bayliff to win the 1982 state doubles championship.
He graduated from Williams in 1984 and from there joined the tennis program at Tennessee. He was an All-Southeastern Conference selection in 1988.
Pittard kept going with tennis pursuits, winning four North Carolina State Closed Championships (two in singles, two in doubles).
Skeet shooting became rewarding in other ways.
“That’s really the crowning achievement – all the folks you meet,” he said. “It’s a unique fraternity.”
Pittard has worked for a quarter-century in sales of Morrissette Paper and Packaging. He said his travels and connections through skeet shooting carried over to other areas.
“Going all over the country, it has been advantageous to my business work,” he said.
For years, Pittard said he traveled on the skeet shooting circuit with the late John Currin, the former president of Alamance Regional Medical Center.
The induction of Pittard and Kevin Hostinksy came September 6 at the Fort Bragg Clay Target Center as part of the 86th N.C. State Skeet Championships in Spring Lake.
