It’s hard to imagine how anyone who stood on the modest firing lines at Sea Girt, New Jersey, site of the first National Matches in 1903, could have possibly projected the magnitude of the historic event in 1983.
Eighty years later, million-dollar budget submissions and committees appointed to oversee multi-range operations and facility upgrades were part of the National Match infrastructure at Camp Perry. In particular, Executive Officer Maj. John Falcon and NRA National Match Coordinator John Grubar presided over a mammoth effort that included a five-year Camp Perry capital improvement plan focused on new competitor housing, a critical program component as attendance figures continued to rise.
The field of nearly 1,000 pistol competitors was the largest since 1967 and ironically, many former national title winners were absent as Donald Hamilton, the 1969 champion, was the most recent representative on hand. As it turned out, this proved to be the year for Army Master Sgt. Roger Willis who, after a steady performance that did not include one single match win, produced a 2652-138X score for the title. Willis bettered runner up Thomas Woods by 10 points and was the third straight national champion to top his guns (Smith & Wesson Model 41, Colt 45 Mark IV) with Aimpoint sights.
Willis was not a repeat champion but the distinction was manifested in other categories as Ruby Fox, John Farley and Gil Hebard won their sixth, seventh and eighth titles, respectively, among the women, police and seniors. Fox’s win was especially distinctive in that her 2625 score marked the first time that a woman surpassed 2600 at the National Matches.
Another 2600 notable occurred in the championships when eventual President’s Pistol Match winner Martin Magnan became the first National Match competitor to break the barrier solely with revolvers. Magnan’s 2607 was fired with a Smith & Wesson combination (Models 17 & 25) in weather that was less than optimal as squall conditions forced a delay in .22 team firing. Other Board match results included Alfred Ramirez of the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit as the National Trophy Individual winner while National Guard shooters topped the team event.
The bothersome wind that emerged during pistol hung on for smallbore position shooters and made the matches a real trial for all but Lones Wigger, Jr., who was no stranger to holding and squeezing in the Perry gales. In a dog fight of a tournament, the stocky soldier won, with his trademark tenacity, the kneeling matches that had become a sort of fiefdom for him. While the buffeting winds took its toll on all, Wigger admitted to being exhausted by the end of the match but it did not deter the reigning champion from notching his eighth straight victory, his 16th overall in 21 years. Wigger’s mastery of the game was underscored by the fact that, even though his winning effort was 44 points lower than what he logged in 1982 (2272 vs. 2316), he held a 36-point advantage over second-place finisher Steve Gombocz.
Kirsten Pasch and Debbie Lyman battled it out for the women’s title, splitting the metallic and any sight championships, with Pasch emerging triumphant. Dave Passmore followed his 1982 junior win with collegiate honors in 1983, while junior champion Thomas Tamas broke through the ranks in convincing fashion and finished fourth overall before going one better in the prone championship for third place overall.
The challenging weather that position shooters endured was kicked up a notch toward the end of prone when it rained hard enough on the final day to force a cancellation of the 50-yard and 50-meter matches. But it did not rain on Dave Weaver’s parade. After going toe to toe with junior phenom Tamas on the first day when both shot match high 1599s, Weaver took off like a rocket and went clean the next 10 matches, amassing 494 Xs in the process. Had it not rained he might have had a good chance of tying or breaking the 6399-556X record set by Wigger in 1975. For Weaver to collect 62 Xs out of 80 shots at short range on a scope day was not out of the question for the two-time national champion.
Tamas, the son of All-Army Rifle Team shooter and coach Arpad Tamas, earned his second junior title of the summer while the familiar Wigger name was called, not for Lones, but for daughter Deena who was the top intermediate junior. The audience that crowded Hough Auditorium was amused to see Wigger the father, so used to being on the stage himself, scramble like any other proud parent, camera in hand, for a good vantage point to snap a picture.
Carolyn Millard, who had won parts of the women’s title in the past, took complete possession of the championship for the first time along with collegiate honors while Richard Hanson, a familiar sight on the National Match firing line, won a fifth consecutive senior title firing a Winchester 52 he purchased from former NRA President George Whittington in the late 1960s.
Like pistol, the high power field this year was the largest since 1967 and when the program opened with the firing of the Board events, 1,158 shooters took to the line for the President’s Match. Senior Chief Petty Officer Ralph Legler, with borrowed rifle in hand, not only earned the victory but with it, the distinction of being the first Navy shooter since 1929 to win the prestigious event. The remaining three Board contests went to Army shooters as National Guardsman William Porter topped more than 1,100 others in the National Trophy Individual Match and Army Reserve units claimed both the National and Infantry Team awards.
Pat McCann, who had an entire year to reflect on the high power championship that eluded him by a single X, returned to Perry and won the title outright by an eight-point margin over the previous year’s champ, Mid Tompkins. With his first national title in hand, McCann didn’t let up either. Rather, he channeled the momentum into a successful defense of the Long-Range Championship.
Part of McCann’s combination for winning the three-match aggregate in 1982 was firing the high Wimbledon Cup score. In 1983, he had the top Leech Cup score and when combined with his numbers from the Wimbledon Cup and Palma Individual Matches, the Canadian Cup for the high score in the Long-Range Championship was once again his. Peter LaBerge was the 1983 Wimbledon Cup winner, while Eric St. John won the Palma Individual by six Xs over McCann.
Marine Reservist Ken Erdman became only the second shooter in National Match history to win back-to-back national service titles (fellow Marine and three-time service rifle champ Robert Goller won consecutive titles in 1970-1971) and like McCann, carried his momentum over to the long-range events, specifically the Leech Cup Match. Like the Farr Trophy in Wimbledon Cup competition for high service rifle score, in 1983 the Porter Trophy, named for former NRA President Irvine Porter, was introduced into competition for the high service score in the Leech Cup, with Erdman the inaugural recipient.
Women’s champion Noma McCullough, the first woman to win the Wimbledon Cup in 1980, earned the same distinction in 1983 for winning the Army Cup Match, a 20-shot contest fired at 600 yards. She also won the 600-yard Crowell Trophy Match. Chris Vesy was the top junior shooter while Sam Burkhalter fired the high score among the seniors.
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