The Citadel Athletics

Native Charlestonian William C. Smith remains with The Citadel rifle program after 18 years as the head coach.

He was instrumental in The Citadel being chosen to host the 2018 NCAA Championships in McAlister Field House. In addition, the Inouye Marksmanship Center hosted its sixth straight conference championship meet in 2017.

A strong believer in having his shooters face the best competition in the nation, Smith has brought in some of the top rifle programs from across the country to Charleston to compete against the Bulldogs. The home schedule routinely includes power programs such as Air Force, TCU, North Carolina State and Navy, among others.

The 2016-17 season saw rifle added back to the Southern Conference as a championship sport after a 32-year hiatus. Smith was named the conference's Coach of the Year and was one of six nominees for the Collegiate Rifle Coaches Association Coach of the Year award following a season that featured four victories and a three-match winning streak. Allison Auten earned second-team all-conference honors in air rifle following the conference championship competition. In addition, Smith produced 10 Scholastic All-Americans and a conference-best six Spring Academic All-Southern Conference Team members.

During the 2015-16 campaign, Smith guided a mixture of veterans and newcomers to a season that featured multiple personal-best scores and team season-high scores that reached as high as 4,432 points. The Bulldogs finished fourth in the final Southeastern Air Rifle Conference championship and grabbed two match victories during the season. Following the year, 12 Bulldogs were recognized as Scholastic All-Americans.

The 2013-14 team featured a great deal of individual talent, and in April 2014 Richard Hunton earned an invitation to shoot air rifle and smallbore at the USA Shooting National Junior Championships at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs.

Hunton was also named to the Collegiate Rifle Coaches Association Academic All-American team for the third time in his career. As a team, a total of 10 Bulldog marksmen received all-academic honors from the CRCA. That is based on a 3.2 grade point average and having one of the team’s five scores that count towards the scoring of a match.

Under the direction of Coach Smith, The Citadel brought home the school’s first Southeastern Air Rifle Conference Championship in 10 years and have finished among the top three in the conference every season since becoming a varsity sport again in 2001.

In 2006 The Citadel finished construction of the state-of-the-art Inouye Marksmanship Center on campus, which contains 16 points for smallbore and air-rifle at 50 feet, a facility that continues to attract top competition to Charleston.

Smith put together a slate of matches for the 2010-11 season that included Alaska-Fairbanks (2008-09 NCAA national champions) and TCU (2009-10 NCAA national champions). The Bulldogs hosted a then-record eight matches in the facility during the 2010-11 campaign.

The Citadel won the 2009 National Sectional ROTC Championship in air rifle and smallbore and finished second in the SEARC Championships in 2007, 2008 and 2009 as well as taking third in both 2005 and 2006.

The Bulldogs finished second in the SEARC in 2004 and ended the 2003 season as the runner-up in the conference with five Academic All-American shooters. The Citadel had a one-loss season and conference championship in 2002. The previous season, Smith took Bulldog shooters to individual and team NCAA sectionals.