FORT BENNING, Ga. — Frank Briggs, International Rifle Team coachand former head coach of the International Pistol and Service Rifleteams, will retire this month from the federal government. Briggs is one of only 19 International Shooting Sport Federation Class A coaches in the world.
The Army Marksmanship Unit hosted his retirement dinner at the Benning Club Dec. 13.
While the head coach for Service Rifle, Briggs produced 28 national and interservice champions and set 13 national records. During his time with the international teams, the USAMU won numerous gold medals in international competitions and sent many soldiers to the Olympics.
Briggs said his success would not have been possible without the great shooters and gunsmiths of the Army Marksmanship Unit.
A resident of Columbus, Ga., Briggs started shooting in 1949. He graduated from Forest Hills High School in Queens, N.Y., where he won the Outstanding Service Medal, created especially for him.
He received a bachelor of arts degree in history from St. John’s University of New York in 1957. He was the university’s Outstanding Athlete of the Year, a two-time member of the All-American Shooting Team and a charter member of its Athletic Hall of Fame.
As a U.S. Marine Corps captain, Briggs served for four years and was captain of the Marine Corps International Shooting Team and a member of the U.S. Shooting Team that competed in the World Shooting Championships in Moscow in 1958.
He taught and coached the basketball team at Forest Hills in the early 1960s until he became the president of the Shoot-o-Rama Corporation of Waukegan, Ill., in 1967. He was the first director of Olympic Shooting Programs for the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo., before taking over as the director of public relations for Crosman Airguns in East Bloomfield, N.Y., in 1981.
He also worked as a consultant for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, authored the “You Can Be an Expert Rifleman” book and developed the “Six Step Method for Teaching Position Rifle Shooting,” which is used by many top U.S. shooting coaches. Briggs also set 18 national records and was the head coach of the U.S. Air Force International Rifle Team, the Puerto Rican Olympic Rifle and Pistol Team and the Indian and Thailand National Teams.
