Tom Dorigatti
Location: Pekin, IL USA
Tom has been shooting archery since he was 11 years old. He started with an old solid fiberglass, 50# semi-Recurve bow and wooden arrows, predominantly to hunt for cotton-tail rabbits and prairie dogs. After several years, Tom moved up to a higher quality Bear Grizzle Recurve and starting hunting big game in Wyoming, basically pronghorn, mule deer, and elk, along with continued pursuit of the small game. Tom has successfully taken numerous pronghorn, mule deer, elk, and of course white-tail deer.
Tom's competitive career started in 1968. He was shooting a Bear Recurve bow, with fingers and with a Reynolds site on it when he started. In 1970, Tom became the first finger shooter in the state of Wyoming to shoot a score over 500 on a field round. That same year, he also shot the first-ever perfect score of 560 on an animal round in the State of Wyoming. Tom won several local, state, and regional awards in Wyoming up until entering the Armed Forces in 1972.
Tom took up release shooting in late 1973. Up to that time, he had achieved a high personal best of 300 on the NFAA blue face, and a high field/hunter score of 548; all with a Recurve bow and while shooting with fingers on the bowstring. He converted to a release aid in late 1973.
Tom and a friend built a longer riser version of the old SABO Recurve and mounted Jennings compound limbs onto the bow. Tom shot his first perfect field and hunter scores of 560 with this home-made compound bow. Tom still has this bow in his possession to this day.
Tom has shot competitively in at least 32 of the contiguous United States, Hawaii, Alaska, Guam, and the Azores. In addition he has shot competitively in Canada as well. He has won several State Championships and place as high as second overall in the Men's Unlimited Division in 3 Sectional Tournaments.
His personal best scores all came after Tom switched over from left-handed shooting to right handed shooting in 1986. His personal life-time high scores have all been shot right-handed. These scores include numerous 60X 300 NFAA rounds, numerous perfect 300 Vegas rounds and 450 Vegas rounds. In addition, Tom's personal best on the International round is 595, and on the American 900 Round, his personal best is 896. For NFAA Field/hunter rounds (post 1977 scoring), Tom's personal bests are 556 field, and 557 hunter, along with, of course numerous rounds above 550 and numerous perfect animal rounds.
He has been on shooting staffs of several major companies for over 25 years, and was on the Advisory Staffs for several major bow manufacturers such as Hoyt, USA, Browning, and Merlin, UK/USA.
Over the past several years, Tom's health has taken a turn. He had by-pass surgery in 2000, and as a result, has had an intentional tremor in his left side which drastically affects his ability to aim and hold steady. As a result, his scores are nowhere near what they used to be. Thus he backed off the bow manufacturer sponsorship with Merlin, USA, opting to give up his slot to someone younger and that was more capable.
Tom continues to be on the shooting staff for Archery Kinetics. In addition he is on staff for several major accessories manufacturers or custom builders, such as GoldTip Arrows, Stone Mountain Bowstrings, Carter Enterprises, FIST Quivers, Inc. on-Target 2 Software (Pinwheel Products), and True-Spot Scopes.
Tom still shoots competitively, but doesn't do this on a national level. Instead, he has taken up writing articles for Archery Focus magazine. In addition Tom researches, writes and designs Archery and Bicycling related puzzles which are published in Archery Focus magazine and bicycling newsletters. Tom's articles and puzzles have also been published in "The Glade" magazine as well as "US & International Archer". He is a licensed professional educator and has a Master's Degree in Teaching and Leadership. He keeps his involvement in archery with his writing, organizing and running Archery tournaments and leagues, and helping others to improve upon their shooting.
Tom is in the process of working on a book of Archery related puzzles and is also assembling his articles into a book format for later publishing. His approach is not one of the "what to do", but rather the "how" to do, but from a proactive, or preventive approach.
Additional hobbies include racquetball, exercise, and his latest passion of road bicycling. In 2007, Tom was recognized as the "Most Improved Rider" in his cycling club; from the first week of April until the first week of November, Tom logged over 5,000 miles on his road bicycle. This included 4 century rides (100 or more miles in one day), and 17 "metric" century rides (62 miles or more in a day).
