Shooter Spotlight: Greg Tomsen

The purpose of the “Shooter Spotlight” is to help shooters get to know their fellow competitors a little bit better. We cover a wide range of shooters from “Marksman to Master.” This is the 69th interview in the series.

Greg Tomsen with the Black Hawk Trophy in 2002. Photo courtesy of Black Hawk Rifle Club

Greg Tomsen. Photo by Hap Rocketto.

Greg Tomsen on the line. Photo by Hap Rocketto

Where do you call home?
Southbury, Connecticut

How long have you been shooting?
56 years

How did you get involved in shooting competitively?
I started going to the range with my father. He was an Olympic Champion shooter and I wanted to be just like him. The first match I fired was the Conn. State Indoor Championship. In that match I got a third place medal, and I was hooked.

What is a little known fact about yourself that your fellow competitors might not know?
Graduating from Brooklyn Technical High School, I was the defending and current New York City Rifle Champion, but I was only 4’10” the second smallest kid in my class of 1404.

What do you consider your finest shooting achievement?
The record score I fired at the 1970 National Championships in the 50 yard match. It still stands.

What is your favorite pre-match meal?
Breakfast

What is your favorite post match drink?
Coffee

Do you have a favorite shooting range?
It was the Stratford PAL range, now it’s the Bell City Range

Do you have any short term and/or long term goals?
To win the Iron Sight Senior Championship at Camp Perry, so that I could win my Dad’s Trophy.

What shooting skills are currently focusing your energy on?
Getting my Iron Sights performance as good as I can.

Thanks Greg for sharing a little bit about yourself with the pronematch.com community!

About Hap Rocketto

Hap Rocketto is a Distinguished Rifleman with service and smallbore rifle, member of The Presidents Hundred, and the National Guard’s Chief’s 50. He is a National Smallbore Record holder, a member of the 1600 Club and the Connecticut Shooters’ Hall Of Fame. He was the 2002 Intermediate Senior Three Position National Smallbore Rifle Champion, the 2012 Senior Three Position National Smallbore Rifle Champion a member of the 2007 and 2012 National Four Position Indoor Championship team, coach and captain of the US Drew Cup Team, and adjutant of the United States 2009 Roberts and 2013 Pershing Teams. Rocketto is very active in coaching juniors. He is, along with his brother Steve, a cofounder of the Corporal Digby Hand Schützenverein. A historian of the shooting sports, his work appears in Shooting Sports USA, the late Precision Shooting Magazine, The Outdoor Message, the American Rifleman, the Civilian Marksmanship Program’s website, and most recently, the apogee of his literary career, pronematch.com.
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2 Responses to Shooter Spotlight: Greg Tomsen

  1. Mike Carter says:

    I miss the monthly PTO matches the All Guard team used to run in Nashville TN when the NGMTU was headquartered there. Hap, Greg, Spike, Bill Lange, Ron Plumb, Ronnie Wigger, and a host of other fine shooters who made up the All Guard team would do their guard weekends in Nashville to shoot 50 meter 3-P and English matches each day. Hap also ran an ad hoc version of a finals shoot off as it had just been created for the 1988 Olympics in Seoul. Those matches and the opportunity to have a 50 meter outdoor practice facility in my own backyard was the epitome of my 3-P skills and made me a much better prone shooter.

  2. Eamonn Kilmartin says:

    Hi Greg, it’s Eamonn, from the Paparazzo days. Was wondering how George is doing. Last time he/we spoke was after Jim died, I think 4 years ago. I think George was having senility problems at that time.
    Hopefully you are well as I am too. If George is receptive, please tell him I said hello.

    Kind regards

    Eamonn K.

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