I'm out to prove you wrong

"The new generation of players has no respect for the game." "They don't know or care about the history." "All of them want something for nothing"

The typical gripes and comments regarding the "new school" players from the guys that have been in the sport the longest. And I have to agree with them, well mostly agree with them. The majority of new tournament, divisional players don't know the history of the game, and some don't care. Some get mommy and daddy buy them the new, four figure, "hot gun" on the market. They get the new gear every year at Cup, or online. And they do this when they could perfectly well work for it and pay for it themselves.

I'm not talking about the kid who gets this as birthday present, or the kid who helped his parents out at home and did chores. I'm talking about the spoiled kids.

There is a small group of new players that do care, that work for their gear and paint. These are the guys who will work, reffing for a day for a case of paint to use tomorrow at practice. The players that save all year for enough money to buy a used gun from 2 years ago.

I like to believe that I'm with the latter group. I work at a local field so I can play paintball. When I first started playing, before I was old enough to get a job, my parents paid for me to play. I had to do chores around the house, keep my grades up, the usual deal. But, right when I was old enough to start working, I did. I started out reffing at the local field for a case of paint every day. As time passed I was soon getting store credit, allowing me to get most of the pieces and parts I needed, barrels, tanks, hoppers, a gear bag. Finally I worked my way up to getting an actual paycheck. Granted it was minimum wage, but it was all I needed. I worked 8 hours a day, as much as I legally could. I got a savings account, and I saved every dime I could. I was finally able to get the expensive, top of the line, most technically advanced marker I could. Sometimes I actually hated playing on weekends, because it was time I could have been using to work. When I went home I was constantly reading up on all the latest gear, constantly gaining knowledge of everything I could. I gained knowledge from the people around me and from the experience I received reffing. I gave 100% all the time, and it paid off. Because I had researched products, read rules and gained all the knowledge I had, I earned a spot working in the ProShop.

I kept giving 100%. Every month or so we had new reffs that were taking the same path I did. I did my best to try and pass on all the information and knowledge I had.

I was lucky to get that opportunity, and I am thankful I did.

I wish all the other players had that determination, and I’m making it my job to try and give them that determination. I also made it my job to try and change the notion that the "new school" is a bunch of lazy, trend following, zombies that don't care.

The amount of fields closing down is astounding

Between working on Saturday and Sunday (today) I've received 2 calls at work asking for the owner of the shop. Both were from former field owners who were trying to liquidate paintball field supplies such as netting, poles, whole fields, merchandise and more. That's a sad truth. I'll go in depth on this subject at a later time.

NPPL 2009.... Er... USPL 2009

The USPL released the "new" rulebook for 2009. It looks very similar to that of the NPPL in 2008, with minor changes. ProPaintball.com has the low-down HERE. Personally, I never paid too much attention to NPPL, it really didn't seem like the NPPL was all that important. It seemed much like a West coast league. And compared to X-ball, isn't really all that exciting. In my opinion, 7-man should have a ROF cap. The old NPPL didn't see many big, exciting moves like we do in X-ball because every player was just sitting behind a bunker holding a lane down. The USPL could have semi-auto, with a ROF cap of 18 bps. That will keep your semi-auto fan boys happy, because they can keep they're triggers as bouncy and illegal as usual. That will hopefully keep your unlimited bps fan boys happy because it's a high ROF. Even though hitting 18 bps with a legal trigger is unheard of.

The USPL seems to be resurrecting the old NPPL, which seems like a good idea seeing that the NPPL was doing well with events. As long as the USPL can run the events correctly and run this season as the NPPL would have, it'll be considered a successful year.

I guess we'll see how it goes, Huntington Beach is only a few weeks away.

A history lesson about the D (divisional) List- part 3

Now, after the sport has created a foot-hold we have continued to evolve, slowly making the changes necessary to become what skateboarding and other extremes sports have been: mainstream. We almost reached the mainstream holy grail a few years ago, or at least got a look at what the Holy Grail could be. Again, television. In 2006 with the Smart Parts Paintball World Championships on ESPN, and then in 2007 and 2008 with "Behind The Paint" on FSN covering the pro NPPL players.

Then as it was starting to look so good, and we were in the lime light, the bubble of Pacific Paintball burst; the death of the NPPL, PB2X, the XSPL. The Liquidation of the NPPL left the PSP as the only league during the off-season. The PSP and NPPL were actually set to meet on unification of the two leagues. The PSP would have been handling the program inside the netting and the NPPL would have been handling everything outside the netting. But with the bankruptcy that meeting never happened. The PSP set out for new rule changes, lowering the BPS cap from 13.3, which changed in 2008 and now made it 12.5 BPS for Pro and Semi-Pro divisions and 10.5 BPS from everyone else. For a few weeks it looked like the PSP would be the only national tournament league. Then the USPL, a 7 man and lower divisional 5 man league came about, a player's league, for the players by the players: the Pro players. One of the most important changes was the PSP's support of regional leagues and regional events. Which caused the beginning of a new division for regional events, D5. Now most regional events consist of D2, D3, D4 and D5 5-man, or as it is called now Race2 to 2. The CFOA stands as one of the only regional leagues that holds X-ball events.Or Race2 4 or Race2 5. And now a Universal Classifation Program, lead by APPA and Chris Raehl, that is supposed to keep a D3 player a D3 player no matter where they are in the world and what tournament they play. As discussed in many VFTD (View From The Deadbox) Posts http://viewfromthedeadbox.blogspot.com/ there was a system for players to move up, but no way to maintain a ranking, basically being forced up the rankings. Then to end up getting blown away as a D2 player, when they're really an average D3 player. Resulting in being "forced out" of the tournament scene.

The change that PSP made and what cause it has on the player on the D-List is another post to come.

Another version of Paintball history

The Paintball Agenda is doing a multi-part series of posts on the history of paintball.

It can be found here:
Paintball Agenda History Part 1

A history lesson about the D (divisional) List- part 2

Television. (This is a subject for a later post in greater detail)
World Cup (in the woods playing 10 man) was on ESPN. Yeah, ESPN, cable television to the masses. It was in Kissimmee, Florida, the first Paintball World, no more than 10 minutes from where the current World Cup takes place. Television changed everything. Arguably it was the reason we came out of the woods. We had a taste of the pie in the sky and we wanted more.

Then in the last 9 years, it seems to be the greatest leap we, as a sport, have made in the marathon to a mainstream sport. Paintball was unregulated, and the 2000's brought on paintball associations, and the e dawn of the tournament series. Back then. there was 1 league, and 2 divisions in paintball. Pro and amateur. In your area there were few teams, and if you were lucky you got to practice, or get slaughtered by, a pro team as practice. And slowly, camouflage turned to bright motorcross style jerseys. Woods turned first to dirt mounds, (little known fact) then to Hyperball tubes (the black, plastic, corrugated construction tubing) and then finally to the Angel Airball fields (yup Angel, WDP, now Angel Paintball Sports). The first electronic paintball markers were invented, and the big manufactures got their fame during this time. The E-blade for the Autococker (where Eclipse got their start), the Angel markers, RT Automags, Peuno-Ventures (the company that originally made the shoebox Shocker Sport), Smart Parts, ADG, Spyder, Tippmann, Bob Long and the Intimidator, the Diablo Matrix (soon to be the Dye Matrix) were the big companies. And there was no rate of fire cap, there were no referees (you checked yourself). Then the big leagues started.

Then the split. The NPPL and PSP become two different leagues. This was the beginning of the D-List. This was the beginning of classifications, where you didn't have to play pros at every tournament. This was the very beginning of X-ball. The cutting of team sizes, from 10 to 5 in PSP and the change from 10 to 7 for NPPL. The rate of fire evolved from however fast you could pump your gun, to however fast you could pull the trigger, to however fast your gun could cycle and how fast your hopper could feed, and then finally to a universal PSP ball per second cap of 15. The NPPL was always uncapped semi-automatic. (I rarely call shooting unlimited semi-automatic a skill, because now it is no longer a "skill" but a combination of trigger-bounce and mis-named "skill"). New technology was the catalyst for the new changes, as well as moving away from the woods, away from realistic, to branding the sport differently. No longer war-games, now actual sport, branding as a sport, not a hobby.

The Short End of the Stick- USF's Story. CFPS #2

Sunday; every divisional team's dream. Surviving the prelims and moving on to play the elite in their division. But this is no PSP National event.

This is CFPS, Central Florida Paintball Series, held at CFP in Lakeland Florida. A regional event, with the theme of the series: "Race to World Cup". Winners of their respective divisions at the end of the series win entry to World Cup in October, with seeding points. Event 1 was a smaller event compared to this. Round 1 was held on Sunday January 25th, 2009. Compared to last year's SPCS events this one was small. (The SPCS is another story for another post)Event 1 was 28 paid teams, playing on 3 fields. Now compare that event to last Sunday, Event 2, and you'll see a different picture. Event 2 had 41 paid teams. Yeah, a regional 5-man event drew out 41 teams between D5, D4, D3 and Masters. The other closest 5 man series, the SPCS, which is now separate and at a new location, drew 32 teams in late February with D5, D4, D3 and three D2 teams.

The story I'm here to tell is the one you would only hear from the fans of this team, or the team members themselves. This is USF's story.

This lesson is a theme in the D-List, a theme in divisional 5-man:
You don't have to be the best team playing to win; you just have to be the best when it counts.

This rings even more true when you're using the old style of PSP 5-man scoring. (The scoring system where you get 4pts per elimination, 2pts for each of your live players, 20pts for the first flag pull and 50pts for the flag hang. The new Race2-2 plays out a little differently.

Here’s the story of USF (University of South Florida) Bulls D5 team:
These guys go to college and play paintball. This Sunday they started out going 6 wins and no losses in the prelims. They had a total score of 578, the highest scoring team in prelims. They moved on to the semi-finals. In the semi-finals the top 4 teams advance to finals, to play 3 games. The highest cumulative score will win finals. In the semis the Bulls won 2 of 3 games, combining for a score of 192. Looking at this from the outside that score would probably easily put them into the finals. But the rest of the bracket was much tighter, the highest score after Semi's being 210- Fatality Blue, then Stirr Chili and NXK Reaction tied with a score of 204, finally SPEED with a score of 198. The Bulls missed the mark by 6 points.

Here's the link to APPA for D5 Semi-Finals:
http://www.paintball-players.org/scores/L20/scores956_5_1_Scores.html

Yeah, they went 8 and 1 and didn't make the cut for finals. That's how the point system worked out. The new Race2-2 would have probably put the Bulls into finals.

Finals rolled around, and the above 4 teams moved on. Each played 3 games. Two teams went 2 and 1, Fatality Blue and Stirr Chili, both ending up with a tie score of 202. SPEED and NXK Reaction both went 1 and 2, SPEED edging out NXK by 2 points to take 3rd. Back to the tie: Fatality and Stirr Chili both played each other with Fatality winning, 4 players alive. Fatality Blue took the top spot and Stirr Chili ended the day 8 and 4 taking 2nd place.

CFPS D5-
1. Fatality Blue
2. Stirr Chili
3. SPEED
4. NXK Reaction Black

CFPS D4-
1. Fatality Red
2. ECE
3. Stealth All Stars
4. TU Stealth

CFPS D3-
1. TU Infusion
2. Merk Status White
3. Fatality Orange
4. Annihilators

MASTERS
1. CFP MASTERS
2. Men At Work
3. Wicked

A history lesson about the D (divisional) List- part 1

"It came from the woods" (as Baca Loco's description) and no, I'm not talking about the latest horror movie.

Few players know how we got where we are in tournament paintball. Now is the closest paintball has been to a mainstream sport. (Well, if the economy improves soon). Paintball, as it is known now, is much different from the "Survival Game" as it was named back in the early days. You can call "The Survival Game" the first chapter, where our story begins. Back then the game was brand new and this name was the first effort on branding the future sport.

Now looking back, that name might have turned you off if you were a new player. It also shows why the sport took the huge jump in the number of players we saw during the 90's and 2000's. The Survival Game was just as it sounds, pretty much war with paint guns. Paint was $100 or more a case and a case would almost last you a year. Back then there were no divisions, and no competition. In the 80's you would have called paintball a hobby, because it was played on the weekends, and only for pure fun.

Then in the 90's, along came the sport's time of change...the very beginning of the progress out of the woods. This is the point where the "Legendary" paintball players of today got their start, Bob Long, ChrisLaSoya, Dave Youngblood. The legendary teams, Aftershock, Avalanche, Ironmen , All-Americans, Doom Troopers (actually 1986). At this time in the evolution we moved from hobby to more and more of a sport. You had your tournament 10 man. Your first "Professional" players were here, competing on the weekends and working on home-made paint gun modifications during the week, after long days of work. DYE (DaveYoungblood Enterprises) started in a garage making aftermarket barrels. The Autococker and Automag came into existence evolved from pumps. Pump guns became semi-automatic paintball markers. Tippmann made the first semi-auto marker. The Shocker Sport, the Angel series of markers also came into the scene. Sypder and Tippmanns were high-end markers. We began using goggles, (no not the full face masks of today, but skiing-type goggles) rather than shooting glasses, or no protection. Paintball was still in the woods however. And still in the woods we had our first shot at the "Big Time", the Holy Grail of paintball, the best way to market anything to Americans, television

The First-

Welcome to the blog- "Life on the paintball D-List"
The purpose of the blog is to bring to light all the happenings of the so called "grass-roots" levels of the tournament paintball scene. (And maybe some scenario-rec ball- big game stuff along the way)

What is the D-List?-

This is the divisional level of paintball, the "grass-roots" as it's been labeled. These are the players who pay $40-80 for a case of paint, the players who work or go to school from Monday to Friday, then show up on a Saturday or Sunday to try and battle it out for Glory and Pride, with little or NO sponsorship (and if your very, very lucky, a prize or even less often money) And if your so lucky enough to get money it's not nearly how much you put in to get to this point, but money non-the less. Life on the D-list is dreams. Dreams of fame and glory that might be a little inflated right now, but the hope that in the future you can move off the D-List and to the upper-echelons of paintball- The "Pros". The hope that in the future you could actually play paintball as a "profession" and actually make enough money to do a little better than get by.

Why is the D-List important?-

This is roughly 86% or more of the paintball tournament community. These are the players that fund the upper levels of tournament paintball. This is the player with the 0ne-year-old gun and the duct-tape holding the battery door on the hopper closed. The players with little or no sponsors, and little or no money. The players who's parents help pay for equipment and entry or paint for events or practices. This is the beginning, these are the new pro-players, the new-school. These players are the future of paintball.

-Welcome to life on the D-List