Glock USA is introducing Michelle Viscusi as the newest addition to Team Glock, the handgun manufacturer's practical pistol shooting team. Viscusi gained notoriety as a contestant on History Channel's TOP SHOT season 4 and is currently an E4 in the Arizona National Guard. She joins Team Glock competitors KC Eusebio and Tori Nonaka.
According to Glock, Inc. spokesman Mike Robinson, Glock scouted and ultimately chose to hire Viscusi during the 2012 summer as it sought to rebuild its shooting team after the departure of Randi Rogers earlier this year.
The 22-year-old will have served three years with the Arizona National Guard come January 2013 and is an E4 31B Military Police Officer with the 856th Military Police Company. Joining the guard was part of Viscusi's path to a career in law enforcement.
"The most I'd ever trained with a firearm was going through basic. I really enjoyed shooting the M4 and once I got out of basic I started shooting for fun." That's when she decided to apply to Top Shot.
She got the casting call while in the middle of a year-and-a-half deployment in support of Operation Copper Cactus. She was working as part of a Joint Counter Narcotics Task Force run out of Fort Huachuca. Viscusi's role was to observe and report activity along the Arizona-Mexico border.
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She ended up taking 10 days of leave for the television show in August 2011. She says her involvement in Top Shot was an exciting experience at the time, but it didn't strike her as an entry point to a career in competitive shooting until she had some time away from it. At the time, she viewed the exposure as a great way to start the modeling career she's had her sights on since she was a teenager.
"I didn't care to get involved in competition shooting," she explains. "I was more interested in becoming a model in the firearms industry." She ended up getting a modeling job with Red Star Arms and appeared in Maxim magazine after Top Shot. Her modeling career was beginning.
But, soon after her TV appearance, she shot some local pistol matches and, combined with her decent showing on Top Shot, she realized she was actually competitive with her peers in the shooting sports community.
"On Top Shot, I knew I was cast as an underdog with a military background," says Viscusi. "But after I started shooting successfully against competitors with much more experience, I realized I could become a serious shooter."
She began training with Don Golembieski as her shooting coach last fall. "I trained nearly every day with the pistol," she said. "I just wanted to get good enough to shoot Tuesday night Steel Challenge matches here." She was driving three hours back and forth from Fort Huachuca on her days off to train and compete at the time.
She did well enough to attract the attention of Glock, Inc.
Team Glock shooter KC Eusebio contacted her and scouted her during a match in California this summer. Eusebio was impressed with her talent and character and worked with her over the summer and fall to hone her shooting skills.
Viscusi is now shooting three or four matches each week while training and working behind the counter at Caswells Shooting Range in Mesa, Ariz. (all while still drilling with her MP unit each month). She's shooting USPSA, IDPA and Steel Challenge matches. "I am growing as a shooter every day," she says, "and everything I've learned I credit to KC and Don."
She also recognizes her motivation, discipline and athleticism come from not only her military experience, but also her 11 years as a competitive gymnast. "I spent years busting my ass, waking up early and getting it done," she says, "so, while I am new to competitive shooting, I am not new to the world of competitive sports."
When she isn't working, shooting, competing or sleeping, she is practicing. She uses a chambered training laser in her pistol during dry fire drills. "I practice at least an hour every day," she says. "Surrender draws, face-away draws, sitting draws, strong hand and weak hand manipulation, reloads" and other drills are all part of the regimen she learned while training with Eusebio.
Joining Team Glock was an easy decision for her. "I started shooting Glocks and I have always been all about them," she says. She is competing in production class with her stippled Glock 34 Gen4 with Ed Brown sights, a KKM barrel and a Zev Tech trigger from Glockworx.
Viscusi will make her Team Glock debut with fellow teammate Eusebio in Mesa, Ariz., on Nov. 7, 2012, at the USPSA Rio Salado Desert Classic Area Championship and finish out the season in Caguas, Puerto Rico, on Dec. 12, 2012, competing in the International Practical Shooting Federation's (IPSC) Puerto Rico Nationals.
Photo credits: Top, Ryan Guzzetta; bottom, courtesy Michelle Viscusi.
