George Norton 3DQ $PHULFDQ *DPHV 6LOYHU 0HGDOLVW 7KUHH 3RVLWLRQ 5LÁ H “Jokes and smallbore
– that’s what I do!” says George Norton proudly dur- ing one of the Olympic Team Trials matches. And he’s really not that far
off. You can easily spot the tall, lanky 31-year-old Army 0DUNVPDQVKLS 8QLW ULÁ H shooter at any match. He’s WKH RQH SXPSLQJ KLV À VW LQ the air with the wide, agape smile after a win, laughing with his teammates off the range or creating memes for his athlete facebook page. “Hey, I’m building a brand here!” he explains jokingly. ´, NQRZ , GRQ·W UHDOO\ À W WKH mold, but you can have fun at this and not be a robot. In a sport where everything can be so boring, you’ve got to have those guys like [Mi- chael] McPhail who isn’t just a shooter. When everyone thinks of him, they might think of this tough, hard- working mean guy, but he has a big personality. Sarah Beard? She’s one of the nic- est people you’d meet in the world, but you see her on WKH OLQH DQG VKH·V D À HUFH competitor. Then you’ve got someone like me that’s kind of the jester. It’s nice to À QG WKRVH SHUVRQDOLWLHV LQ D sport that is just not meant to have personality – you’re told not to think, not to do these things, but you just can’t be like that.” But life wasn’t always like, well – this, for Norton.
“I was bullied really bad
growing up,” he said. “My parents were kind of at each other’s
throats after they
got divorced, and I was just kind of acting out and join- ing whatever crowd would accept me. I wasn’t really going anywhere and that’s when my mom took me to St. John’s Military School in Salina, Kansas when I was a sophomore in high school. I don’t know what path I would have ended up on if I had not gone there, but it wouldn’t have been a good one.”
While at St. John’s, Nor-
ton’s roommate wanted to WU\ RXW IRU WKH ULÁ H WHDP EXW didn’t want to go alone. “I had never shot before
—I thought it was the dumb- est idea,” Norton said. “He ended up signing me up for it anyway since he and I were kind of attached at the hip. The tryout starts, I
was signed up and I’m not there and I hear my name over the loudspeaker in the barracks because I’m not there and the coach comes up and is like ‘Did you want to do this?’ and I’m like ‘I’m pretty sure my roommate signed me up for it.’ He said if I wanted to, I could still do it. I ended up shooting really well, and then he offered me a spot on the team. I asked my mom if it was okay and she said ‘Yeah, you’re
in
military school, do it.’ It all started there at St. John’s. I owe them everything.” From there, he threw
KLPVHOI LQWR ULÁ H VKRRWLQJ throughout his college ca- reer and eventually entering the AMU. “Once I got that job [in
AMU], everything got turned on,” he said.
“All of these
people in my life from St. John’s forward have done so much for me…all the things
Year in Review 2015 | USA Shooting News 21
my wife has done, Rick Hawkins giving me a tryout to be on the Army team, I had no choice but to be good at it. It’s not like a pressure thing, but it’s now like I’ve EHHQ DEOH WR À QG VRPHWKLQJ that I’m good at, without all of the negative distractions of things that were in the way growing up.” He didn’t take that re- sponsibility lightly as he entered the Pan American Games where he won a sil- ver medal and the lone U.S. quota in Men’s Three-Posi- WLRQ 5LÁ H Read the rest of this story
on the USA Shooting website at
http://bit.ly/nortonstory.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84