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A targeted life
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By Mike Lyons
[email protected]
815-937-3377
In 1957, Iroquois-West High School Marksmanship Coach Jim Miller was a freshman at University High School in Normal, embarking on a shooting career which would eventually include personal national championships and scores of marksmanship students.
His dad, a professor at Illinois State University, was supportive of his son's budding talent as a rifleman and Miller soon began shooting with the Bloomington Rifle and Pistol Club in the basement of the old fire station on Front Street, now the site of the Station House Restaurant.
"I used to take the bus to the club. In fact, in those days if you had a rifle in a case, you could ride on the bus to shoot. Try that nowadays and you'd have a SWAT meet you," he says, then laughs.
His shooting talent blossomed and in time led to an impressive string of personal accomplishments, including his 1960s shooting on the Bradley University ROTC Rifle Team and winning of Master Class ratings for four different types of National Rifle Association rifle competition.
He has won 41 state championships and 19 regional championships in NRA smallbore competitions and also is a seven-time member of the U.S. International Dewar Rifle Team, founded by the famed Scotch distiller.
Miller has also taken two national championships at the annual shoots at Camp Perry, Ohio.
The first was in 1963, a championship achieved with an O3A3 Springfield in .30-06 caliber.
"I was probably the last person at Camp Perry to win any kind of a title using an O3 Springfield," he said of the military bolt action rifle that armed U.S. troops in World War I and to some extent in World War II as well.
In 2003, Miller again captured National honors, this time by claiming the Intermediate Senior Championship, a feat accomplished with a .22-cal. rimfire rifle.
The title came almost 40 years to the day following his first national title performance.
Miller began coaching marksmanship at the old Onarga Military School in 1966 and continued until the academy closed in 1970. In 1971, Miller, then a biology teacher at Gilman High School, launched the rifle club which continues to this day.
It marked its 35th anniversary in December.
Miller's coaching credits include two state championships and five NRA sectional championship teams. He has also coached numerous individual shooters to championship titles in state and sectional level competitions. Rifle club alums include one national champion.
A targeted life
Comment on this story
By Mike Lyons
[email protected]
815-937-3377
In 1957, Iroquois-West High School Marksmanship Coach Jim Miller was a freshman at University High School in Normal, embarking on a shooting career which would eventually include personal national championships and scores of marksmanship students.
His dad, a professor at Illinois State University, was supportive of his son's budding talent as a rifleman and Miller soon began shooting with the Bloomington Rifle and Pistol Club in the basement of the old fire station on Front Street, now the site of the Station House Restaurant.
"I used to take the bus to the club. In fact, in those days if you had a rifle in a case, you could ride on the bus to shoot. Try that nowadays and you'd have a SWAT meet you," he says, then laughs.
His shooting talent blossomed and in time led to an impressive string of personal accomplishments, including his 1960s shooting on the Bradley University ROTC Rifle Team and winning of Master Class ratings for four different types of National Rifle Association rifle competition.
He has won 41 state championships and 19 regional championships in NRA smallbore competitions and also is a seven-time member of the U.S. International Dewar Rifle Team, founded by the famed Scotch distiller.
Miller has also taken two national championships at the annual shoots at Camp Perry, Ohio.
The first was in 1963, a championship achieved with an O3A3 Springfield in .30-06 caliber.
"I was probably the last person at Camp Perry to win any kind of a title using an O3 Springfield," he said of the military bolt action rifle that armed U.S. troops in World War I and to some extent in World War II as well.
In 2003, Miller again captured National honors, this time by claiming the Intermediate Senior Championship, a feat accomplished with a .22-cal. rimfire rifle.
The title came almost 40 years to the day following his first national title performance.
Miller began coaching marksmanship at the old Onarga Military School in 1966 and continued until the academy closed in 1970. In 1971, Miller, then a biology teacher at Gilman High School, launched the rifle club which continues to this day.
It marked its 35th anniversary in December.
Miller's coaching credits include two state championships and five NRA sectional championship teams. He has also coached numerous individual shooters to championship titles in state and sectional level competitions. Rifle club alums include one national champion.
