135. Lanny Bassham: Shooting for Gold

The August 2, 1976 issue of Sports Illustrated carried the headline "She Stole the Show" on its cover, with 14-year-old Romanian gymnast Nadia Comaneci as the unmistakable star of that week's Olympic coverage out of Montreal. The issue captured the sensation of Comaneci's historic performance — the first perfect 10 ever awarded in Olympic gymnastics — alongside a broader recap of a Games still reeling from political boycotts by Taiwan and more than two dozen African nations, even as competition itself produced record-breaking swimming performances from the U.S. men's team and a dominant yet controversial showing from East Germany's women. Also woven into that week's coverage were Edwin Moses' world-record run in the 400-meter hurdles and Lanny Bassham's gold-medal moment in rifle shooting — capturing a magazine issue that, much like the Games themselves, balanced political tension with breakout athletic stardom. Bassham's path to that gold began with heartbreak in Munich in 1972, where he won silver in the small-bore three-position rifle event, a result that left him searching for what had separated him from gold. Rather than simply refining his technique, Bassham concluded that the difference was almost entirely mental — as he put it, in 1972 he'd been "standing on sand," while by 1976 he needed to be "standing on concrete." He spent the next four years developing a self-built mental training program, focused on controlling nerves, breathing, and concentration with the same precision shooters use to control a rifle, and by his own admission, he wasn't technically much better in Montreal than he'd been in Munich — the transformation was almost entirely psychological. That mental discipline paid off in dramatic fashion: after tying exactly on score with teammate Margaret Murdock, Bassham won gold on a tiebreaker, then made headlines by inviting Murdock to stand beside him on the top step of the podium, calling the tiebreaker rule unfair even in his moment of triumph. Following that triumph, Bassham channeled the mental training program that had carried him from Munich silver to Olympic gold into a broader philosophy he called Mental Management, formalized in his book "With Winning in Mind." The book distills the psychological framework Bassham developed as a competitive shooter — techniques for controlling nerves, building self-image, managing pressure, and maintaining consistency under the intense demands of elite performance — into principles applicable far beyond the rifle range. It became a foundational text not just for Olympic and professional athletes, but for a strikingly wide range of high performers, from PGA Tour golfers and Miss USA contestants to members of the FBI, Navy SEALs, and Fortune 500 executives, cementing Bassham's legacy as much for his post-competitive teaching career as for the medals he won on the range. Lanny Bassham joins us on Past Our Prime to revisit that Montreal tiebreaker in his own words — a rule he still calls unfair decades later, even as it handed him the gold, which is why he invited Murdock up to stand beside him on the podium so she could share in that moment as an equal. He'll also tell us about the turning point that shaped everything after Munich: rather than seeking out a sports psychologist to teach him how to live with finishing second, Bassham set out to learn how to win, a decision that led him to build his own mental training system from scratch. And in a twist that speaks volumes about what really matters to him, Bassham reveals that it's actually his 1972 silver medal — not the gold — that changed his life the most. All of that on this weeks Past Our Prime. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices