When Eric Hagstrom ’13 arrived on campus, he had only shot a rifle “once or twice before in Boy Scouts,” he said. Yet two weeks ago, Hagstrom, who joined the club rifle team in September, traveled to Purdue University to take part in the Intercollegiate Rifle Club Championship, which featured top clubs from across the country.
“There’s something inherently cool in shooting stuff,” said Hagstrom, the club’s treasurer and social chair. “It sounded pretty awesome, so I ended up joining.”
Founded in 1875, the team is among the University’s oldest. It has 15 current members, with internationally seasoned competitors and total novices competing side-by-side. Sandra Fong ’12, who represented the United States in the 2008 Summer Olympics, is joined by her sister and Olympic alternate, Abigail Fong ’10.
Joseph Sundra, a former Public Safety officer, has been coaching the team for 25 years.
“At the time [when I started coaching], ROTC was in charge of the team, but the Department of Defense sent down a memo saying if the rifle team was more than half filled with ROTC guys, they couldn’t supply support,” he explained. “I decided to give it a try, and it’s been a great experience all in all.”
The team participates in the Mid Atlantic Rifle Conference, facing schools with club teams — such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Virginia Military Institute, the U.S. Coast Guard Academy and the U.S. Naval Academy — in individual and regional meets. At meets, competitors shoot at a one-and-a-half-inch bull’s-eye from 50 feet away. Shooters take 20 shots from three positions: prone, standing and crouching.
“It’s all about the mental game,” Abigail Fong said of rifle shooting. “You spend the whole time in your head because you know that perfection is tangible.”
After finishing 9-7 in meets, this year’s team qualified for the Rifle Club Championship at Purdue. At the tournament, Princeton swept the top three spots in the individual Smallbore Rifle College Club Division, led by the Fong sisters, who are the club’s co-presidents. Sandra Fong scored 583 points out of a possible 600 to take the individual title while Abigail Fong followed with 564 points. Yingxue Li ’13 rounded out the top three, scoring 553 points. The team finished second in the overall standings, however, losing to Penn State 2140-2113.
Hagstrom said that the team enjoys competing with its unquestioned leaders.
“It’s great to have these world-class athletes on our team,” Hagstrom said. “When we go up against military teams like VMI, we crush them.”
Even Sundra admits that the sisters’ international experience has overshadowed his role as a coach.
“I encourage those on the team to listen to them, because often what they say means more than what I say,” he explained.
Sundra’s coaching philosophy also features a low-key approach to the team’s four weekly practices.
“I tend to go once or twice a week,” Hagstrom said. “If I have a really busy week, I can skip practice until things calm down. It’s pretty chill like that.”
The team’s recent success has also come without on-campus training facilities. Three years ago, the team lost its rifle range and training facilities when the University dismantled the old Armory on Washington Road to make room for the new chemistry building. Team members now drive 15 minutes to practice at the Citizens’ Rifle and Revolver Club in West Windsor.
Some team members, including Sundra, said she was under the impression that the University promised to rebuild the team’s facilities on campus.
“I don’t know where it started, but it filtered down through the club sports office that they were going to rebuild our rifle range,” Sundra said. “When the University promises something, it may not happen for a number of years, though.”
Associate Director of Athletics for Campus Recreation David Leach, however, denied that the University had made such a promise.
“As I was involved in helping the team find a new home, I am unaware of any such promise to build a new rifle range,” he said.
Still, Abigail Fong said that she hopes the University will eventually build a replacement range on campus. “It would be much better for the team, because it would lower the stress of transportation and make practice more flexible,” she said.
“Obviously there’s a big safety risk with a rifle range, and there’s not a lot of space at Princeton, but I’d love to have a range,” Hagstrom explained.
Like most club sports, the team also struggles to pay for its costs.
“We have a decent budget for ammo, but they never give us enough for new gear,” Hagstrom said. “Still, member dues are relatively cheap and help fund our ammo costs.”
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