Welcome Barry to the Club!

By Al Myers

I just got done updating the USAWA Record List and the Century Club.  And to my excitement we have a new USAWA Century Club member, and that is BARRY PENSYL. The Century Club is for an inclusive group of All Rounders who hold over 100 USAWA records. It’s not easy to exceed 100 records in our organization, and often takes many years.  Barry has been working towards this for a long, long time.   His first USAWA record was set in 1990 at the Nationals in Akron!  So this has been a 27 year project for Barry! Big congrats Barry from myself and the rest of the USAWA.

Other than that, there were not any really big changes in the CENTURY CLUB. Our Prez Denny still holds the big lead over the rest of the field in the Mens Club, with a total of 575 USAWA Records. RJ still holds the top Women’s spot in the Womens Century Club and is closing in on 300 USAWA Records.  In the Men’s Club all the top ten members either stayed the same or increased their record count.  In the Womens Club all four members stayed the same or increased their count.  The Men’s Century Club now stands at 25 members with the addition of Barry.  The biggest record “increasers” since last count were: RJ (+17), Denny (+15), LaVerne (+11), and myself (+19).  Not much changed in the overall order – the women’s Club stayed the same and only two changes happened in the Mens Club.  LaVerne moved past THE LEGEND Howard Prechtel to 13th place, and ET moved up a place to 22nd.  One thing had me really concerned when updating this list, and that is that I found a “record error” with Dave Glasgow, who’s barely holding in the Century Club with an even 100 records.  Apparently I had made a previous mistake in the Record List by attributing a record to Dave, when it should have went to his Uncle Kenny!  So I had to made the correction which would have meant Dave had not officially reached the Century Club – but to my good luck I got to add a record for Dave when I added the Strict Pinch Grip to the Record List so he’s still in with his count of 100.  But PLEASE DAVE set a few more so you will no longer be on the “cut line”!

I’ve always been pretty good at predicting who the next Century Club member will be. I “nailed it’ with Barry, and with Eric and Randy before as well.  Now who do I predict it will be now?  My bet is on Dan Wagman! Dan is standing at 90 Records and it wouldn’t take him much work to get 10 more.  But that depends on Dan not going “off the grid” in the near future, which with Dan you never know!  So I’m going to hedge my bet and throw out another name for a future Century Club member.  Abe Smith is currently standing at 91 USAWA Records, and has shown interest in lifting this spring in the USAWA. His odds are very good that he will make the Club as well.

Be sure to check out the latest Record List update.