As a child, Rachel Jones thought negatively about guns.

“My dad, one day I walked into the living room, he was cleaning his pistol and I was scared to death because I grew up knowing that any kind of hand gun, guns in general, were bad,” Jones, sophomore in First Year College, said.

“That’s what all kids grow up knowing. I was scared to death because my father had one, because I love my dad and I thought he was bad. I was scared and he said ‘there is nothing to be afraid of. There’s nothing wrong with it’.”

Jones said soon after that, her father got her shooting small bore.

“I started about seven or eight years ago,” Jones said. “And then I started high power shooting a year later. I wanted to see what else was there in shooting and I wanted a different kind of aspect. I enjoyed it and it was a lot of fun. I’ve never been good at sports. [Shooting] was the only sport I was ever really good at.”

A “blessing” was Jones’ best way to describe the opportunity to join the rifle team. Jones said she never planned on shooting in college and never thought about it.

“I didn’t really know about it,” Jones said. “My high power coach, that I had been with for six years, he knew Keith [Miller]. There were matches that we would shoot at for high power. Keith would actually be there, helping out. My coach was like ‘That’s the coach for the State rifle team, why don’t you go talk to him, I told him about you’.”

Jones talked to Miller, N.C. State’s head rifle coach, a number of times before the offer came to join the State rifle team. Jones came to State last fall and according to Miller, was a “big, positive surprise.”

“Last year we brought her to the team and she just took off with the coaching and the different equipment and did really well, especially in air rifle right off the bat,” Miller said. “I knew that she would progress, but I didn’t know she would progress that quickly and that much, so we were really thrilled last year.”

Teammate and senior Samantha Bullard said Jones was really quiet when she first arrived, but eventually came into her own. She said the team nicknamed Jones “Bambi” early on during her freshman year.

“If things really surprise her, she gets these Bambi eyes, like a deer in headlights,” Bullard said. “So since freshman year, her nickname has been Bambi. She does it all the time still and I don’t know why. She’s a really nice person all the time, and that’s very rare to find these days.”

Jones competed in all but one match during her freshman year and set a number of career highs, including a 562 in smallbore at the Great American Rifle Championships in February. Bullard said she only expects Jones to improve, especially since Jones recently started shooting air rifles.

“She’s already excelled into the 580’s,” Bullard said. “I didn’t shoot into the 580’s until my junior year and neither did Kat [Siegert]. So her freshman year, she shot in the 580’s, no problem. Once Katie and I leave, she’s probably going to be one of the statements for the rest of the team. She’s an extremely good shooter, and she will continue to do well.”