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CHAPTER 2

IN THE BEGINNING

Unlike horseback riding or archery or darts, we know precisely when paintball was invented. We know who did it, too, and even why. Or do we? Well-known attorneys who act in the public’s interest, such as Mary O’Rourke of Florida, are schooled to understand that the testimony of eyewitnesses to a crime, for instance, will vary by a wide margin. They may even conflict, depending on their point of view or their interest in the outcome. Even the testimony of actual participants differs, and the further you are from the events themselves, the greater the participants’ versions will diverge.

VERSION 1

In 1976, a 35-year-old guy named Hayes Noel went for a walk in the woods near Charlottesville, Virginia. The woods were on a farm that belonged to a buddy, because Hayes was from New York City.

Actually, Hayes may have been feeling a little bit insecure that day. He has said he was troubled by a philosophical question, but it may have been more personal than that. If the world went to hell in a hand-basket – as it showed every sign of doing in those days – was he tough enough, resourceful enough to survive?

Now, Hayes never went to Viet Nam. He was not a big-game hunter or a Harley rider. He was a New York City stockbroker! But wasn’t making a living on the New York Stock Exchange practically as heart-pounding as stalking a wounded Cape buffalo in the long grass of Zimbabwe? Competition is competition, right? Cut-throat is cut-throat. If beetle-browed cold warrior Leonid Brezhnev touched off the Soviet Union’s big nukes, and he wasn’t killed in the initial blast, Hayes wondered if he could do whatever he had to do to survive. He really was not sure, but who could be if the unthinkable happened?

Hayes had a lot of friends. He eventually brought up his survival insecurities with George Butler and Charles Gaines . Charles was a writer and outdoorsman who lived in New Hampshire. Inside Hayes’ circle, this survival debate grew with sides roughly forming around these two philosophical positions:

1. Country people would survive some kind of holocaust better than city people because people in the country grow up hunting, fishing and practicing skills that would help them adjust to a world that had suddenly turned hostile.

2. City people would cope better in emergency situations because they learn survival skills in places like the subway or even on the chaotic floor of the stock exchange – a rather intense example of cooperation and competition all mixed together – where country people, admittedly more attuned to nature’s pace, would go bonkers.

So, Hayes invented paintball.

No, of course it wasn’t quite that simple.

VERSION 2

While grilling king mackerel and drinking gin and tonics on the patio of a home on Jupiter Island, Florida, in 1977, Charles Gaines and Hayes Noel came up with the initial concepts of a survival game as a lark or just for fun. The practical problem was finding the right equipment and getting a place to give it a shot.

Their idea was to have a game that “might contain the childhood exhilaration of stalking and being stalked, might call on a hodgepodge of instincts and skills and might allow a variety of responses to this rich old question: ‘How do I get from where I am now to where I want to be?’” They figured that if they could come up with a format, the game would appeal to kids and adults alike.

Then, Butler ran across a paint marker in an agricultural catalog. Sold by Nelson Paint in Michigan, it was called the Nelspot Marker and it looked like an unwieldy pistol with a clear plastic tube projecting out the back end. That tube was filled with round balls of oil-based paint encapsulated for Nelson by R.P. Scherer Paint Company. The marker relied on a replaceable 12-gram CO₂ cartridge in the handle for power, and the balls it shot were supposed to burst open when they hit. Farmers used the Nelspot to put spots on cows to designate those that, for instance, needed a vaccination. Timber cruisers used it in the woods or on construction sites to mark trees for cutting.

So, Butler and some of Hayes’ friends ordered markers. Eventually, they had more fun than they ever believed was possible just running around and hiding and shooting at each other. In those days, shooting paintballs was kind of a random act and nobody bothered too much about wearing any kind of safety gear.

Hayes remembers the first time anyone got hit with a paintball … because it was him! He had taken a wild shot at Charles Gaines, the New Hampshire outdoorsman, and when his buddy fired back, the ball hit Hayes squarely in the ass. It “raised a little welt,” he has recalled.

The original paintball game was conceived of as a survival game. The best man wins. It was played in the woods indolobore old clothesvel and some used camo. The markers were pump-action and the paint was real, oil-based goo that only came off with a liberal dose of turpentine.

Charles Gaines

Brass Eagle Blade 02 pump is a cool-looking, entry-level, polymer-frame marker. It is similar in power and capacity to the original single-shot pump markers used by the sport’s founders in the early ‘80s although its looks are truly stylin’.

These guys had so much fun they decided to have an organized contest. Maybe it was because Hayes was almost 40 years old that he felt he had to have a reason to have this kind of fun, running around and shooting at other guys like a kid at a pool with a water pistol. He was getting old. So, they mapped out a field and made up rules and got a lot of their other friends – almost all older guys, but from all over the country – to come and play.

The first organized game of paintball was held on Saturday, June 27, 1981, near Henniker, New Hampshire. Hayes and friends like Bob Gurnsey (who is still very much involved in paintball) used an 80-acre woodlot – which, after the day was over, they realized was way too big for just a dozen players – and placed flags at about the mid-point of the sides of the field. Each side of the field was represented by a different flag color. Hayes gave every player a rough map. The goal of this first game of “capture the flag” was to collect one of each color flag without getting hit by a paintball.

Debra Dion Krischke has been in paintball almost since Day 1. Today, she operates the popular International Amateur Open tournament and industry trade show held north of Pittsburgh each year.

Here were the pioneers: Charles Gaines (writer), Hayes Noel (stock and options trader), Bob Gurnsey (sports products), Bob Jones (writer), Ronnie Simkins (farmer), Jerome Gary (film producer), Carl Sandquist (contracting estimator), Ritchie White (forester), Ken Barrett (venture capitalist), Joe Drinon (stockbroker), Bob Carlson (trauma surgeon) and Lionel Atwill (writer and author of the first “official” book about paintball).

So, who won the game … and how did it affect everyone’s notions about who would survive?

The forester, Ritchie White, won the first game, which went on for several hours. Ritchie, who was a hunter and “lumber man,” captured one flag of every color and was never shot, not even once. What is more interesting is that he never shot at anyone either!

For that first game, everyone was on their own. There were no teams. Consequently, each player used a different strategy. Some – those men eliminated quickly as it turns out – were aggressive and ran dodging and shooting after every flag. Hayes made up his mind to walk the perimeter and then go straight in toward the flags when he found them. He avoided firefights but was eventually eliminated when he got lost looking for the fourth and final flag.

So, the survival message was mixed. An outdoorsman, a forester, won the game, but his strategy was totally passive. Avoid other players and focus instead on the goal – capturing the flags without getting shot. (He may have won employing this non-interactive strategy, but one wonders if he had any fun this way.)

As a whole, the players in this first game said they had a terrific time. Hayes Noel has often been quoted as saying, “The illusion of danger was so real, it was the most exciting thing I had ever done. Every cell in my body was turned on.”

The more Hayes Noel and Charles Gaines and Bob Gurnsey thought about it, the more they realized that shooting paintballs could become a game that people all over the U.S. would enjoy playing, and they soon decided they were just the people to develop it. Plus, it tied into their ongoing and unsettled survival debate. Well, these guys didn’t just sit around dreaming, they got busy!

Paintball has come a long way since a couple guys shot at each other in the woods of New England. Representing the paintball industry, Debra Dion Krischke of TeamEffort Events , promoters of the International Amateur Open in Pittsburgh, presents its annual Lifetime Achievement Awards for 2003: (L-R) Debra Dion Krischke; former winner Laurent Hamet of France, a paintball promoter who was instrumental in developing inflatable bags for airball tournaments; Mike Ratko of ProCaps , who has dedicated years to develop ASTM standards to keep paintball safe and injuries down and who has developed the new X-Ball pro format; former winner Bud Orr, the popular president of Worr Games Products; and Dan Colby of Air America , who has pioneered player-friendly products since 1985.

TURNING FUN TO PROFIT

In spite of growing governmental imposition at every level, one thing the homo sapiens species in the U.S. is blessed with is some old fashioned cando entrepreneurial spirit. When Hayes Noel got “shot in the ass” that summer of 1981, apparently the first thing he thought of - other than “Ouch!” - was becoming the world’s first paintball guru and starting a business. At that time, the whole paintball economy, worldwide, was squat. Zero. Zip. Nada. Today, it is in the neighborhood of a billion dollars. That’s a one followed by nine zeros! It’s truly, truly phenomenal, and it is based on one wellplaced ball in the butt.

Not only that, but as many as ten million people play paintball games every year. And that’s either a huge flash-in-the-pan sport or it’s a phenomenon.

The inventors – Hayes and Charles and Bob – had so much fun shooting each other that they figured a whole lot more people would like doing it, too. So, some of these guys visited Nelson Paint in Michigan, and within a year or two, they were selling ten times as many markers for paintball games as Nelson ever sold for agriculture and timber uses. (The Nelson Nelspot Marker was actually built by Daisy , of BB-gun fame.) The paintballs – of course, in those days they were real oil-based paint – were manufactured in a two-step process. Charles Nelson manufactured the paint and then shipped it to R.P. Scherer in Florida for ball encapsulation.

“Paintball is still in its infancy,” says Ben Torricelli , owner of Millennium Paintball Productions and a specialist in producing 24-hour paintball scenario games . “It is going to continue to grow because it has everything. Action. High-tech tools. It’s exciting and skillbased.”

The founders got with the program right away and named their first marker the “Splatmaster.” They figured they could sell the markers and paintballs in addition to licensing their game to playing fields around the U.S. They soon brought on Debra Dion Krischke , who now promotes the annual International Amateur Open north of Pittsburgh each year with DraxXus paintballs, as their public relations spokesperson.

Charles Gaines acknowledged the origins of paintball in his 1997 novel Survival Games (Atlantic Monthly Press) even though the names are changed and the ultimate action in the book is way, way out there.

For several years, the game Hayes and his business associates invented, the “National Survival Game,” which was loosely based on their original “Capture the Flag” concept, grew slowly. They had trouble convincing the mainstream press, still reeling from the hang-over from the war in Viet Nam, that their survival game was fun, that no one got hurt and that it taught practical skills. But soon, of course, like any good idea, the original disciples found they had started something they couldn’t control, something that quickly outgrew them. Survival became paintball.

Mike Ratko (left) from ProCaps in Canada has been a prime mover in the development of community standards for paintball. The ultimate result is safer play and a more widely accepted game by the general public. Dean Del Prete (right) is the President of Cousins Paintball stores and fields in New York, Connecticut and New Jersey. Cousins is one of the oldest and finest paintball operations in the world.

Today, the original paintball entrepreneurs have pretty much gone on with their lives and only a couple of them are directly involved in the game or the business. The game grew in popularity and evolved, but their “National Survival Game ,” popular for half a dozen years or so in the early-to-middle 1980s, was essentially static, perhaps because their founding philosophical question - “Could I survive?” - dictated a very personal, individual approach to the sport. And times changed from the stress of an international nuclear standoff to a decade of prosperity in the U.S.

A game of survival is a thrilling concept, but in the U.S. it has a tendency to be viewed essentially as a solitary, individual game. The “I” is paramount. With some exceptions such as tennis or golf, most other sports played with a ball are team events: football, soccer, basketball, baseball … even polo and water polo. Founding a sport based on the ascendancy of a single individual, who physically eliminated his opponents, like in boxing, was bound to be confining. Even hunting and archery have met those invisible boundaries. Today, paintball is larger than its founders ever imagined. In the years since the first shot heard round the world, here is how the sport has evolved.

“Survivors will always live to tell of surviving by doing just the opposite of others who have survived. Medical experts have often told survivors that by all rights they should be dead. Instead of dying they had the WILL to live. YOU, TOO, MUST ENLIST THIS WILL, that sense of self-preservation, which starts with a deep breath and the determination not to give way at any cost.” - Anthony Greenbank , pg. xi, The Book of Survival (Revised) Hatherleigh Press (WW Norton & Co.) 5-22 46th Ave. Suite 200, Long Island City, NY 11101

Style of Play: The early game was based on principles of individual initiative and individual decision-making: every man for himself. Today’s game is all about team play, communication, coordination, mutual support and certainly, just like the very first firefight, straight shootin’.

“Never surrender … unless you are completely surrounded.” Actor, author, crooner and paintball activist William Shatner of Star Trek.

Where to Play: The first recognized game in June 1981 was held in the woods on what would today be considered a “rogue field.” Just 25 years ago, there were no fields and virtually no rules except the injunction to “be a good sport.” Then, in April 1982, Caleb Strong opened the first outdoor playing field in Rochester, New York. Now, licensed outdoor paintball fields with strong insurance coverage and enforced rules for safety and play abound in the U.S. and can be found in dozens of foreign countries. There are even a significant number of indoor playing venues, tournaments and national championship events.

Marker: In the first games, players shot one ball at a time out of a see-through, gravity-fed tube that held 10 balls and stuck straight out of the back of the marker. Their Nelspot markers , such as the famous “007,” were limited by the CO₂ power remaining in a replaceable 12-gram cartridge, which might deliver 30 to 40 good shots. This meant that accurate shots were more lucky rather than predictable. With one of today’s markers, like a PMI Pro TS with electronic Storm frame equipped with a 68 cu/in Pure Energy 3000 psi carbon-wrapped bottle of nitrogen or compressed air, you can expect to get between 1400 and 1800 shots, all expelled with identical velocity and a high degree of accuracy out to possibly 40 or 50 yards. And the standard loader holds 200 or more paintballs ready to rip.

THE START OF THE ADDICTION: FIRST TIME by Matthew Smith

Sweat pouring off your face, adrenaline pumping through your veins, diving into the mud without a single thought, hearing the sound of balls flying by your head, just like cowboys and Indians as a kid.

What is it that is so addictive about paintball you ask? If the pure thrill and adrenaline rush don’t appeal to you, then you better keep your day job. For the rest of us, we’ll keep our day jobs to support the paintball addiction!

What’s the strategy? For those of us with only a few seconds to decide, we come up with a little game plan. The horn blows and it is war. Running through the woods, only thinking of one thing: get the other team before they get you. Getting the flag doesn’t seem like an option until some of the opposing team members are eliminated.

I don’t think I even remember hearing my heart beat, or feeling the condensation in my mask from my breathing. I didn’t notice the mud that I was laying in until I looked at my clothes after victory was achieved. It was such a strange feeling, playing cowboys and Indians with rounds that were actually flying by my head. Not strong enough to seriously hurt you, but fast enough to sting and make you duck as far down as you can behind a tree stump.

Do I stick my head out and shoot or do I move to gain a better position?

The bunker is 60 feet away. I can barely see the four guys inside and I have no shot. I’ve already wasted 20 rounds from this spot. Pinned down by one guy behind a bunker 40 feet away. What do I do? Do I move and take a chance of getting hit or do I stay where I am. Well, I’m, no good here.

I quit firing and wait, watching the opposing team take a dozen shots at a different member of my team. This is my chance to move. Gaining 10 yards on him, there’s a small hole in his cover. Standing up with no cover, I fire as fast as I can, both at the tower and at this opponent in front of me. He is crouched down with his head almost between his knees.

I end up taking out two guys in the tower and the one in front of me, too. “They’re out, let them off the field!” the ref shouts.

Ducking to cover, the two remaining opponents in the tower never see me. Here’s my advantage. My other team members are drawing their fire and they‘ll never see me coming.

Being sneaky and cunning throughout the game is my personal strategy. I usually only take three to four shots from one spot and then I move if I can. In woods-style games, I always try to get close first and make sure I have a clear shot before firing. If I don’t get my target by the third or fourth shot, I most likely wasn’t going to get it from that position. I also know that once I shoot, my position is unsecured and I take on heavy fire.

The flag is to my left and the tower is straight ahead. What should I go for? Take out the tower or go for the flag and risk being shot? Better to take out the tower, I think.

As I head in, one of my team sprints for the flag and I take control of the building. A horn blows. Game over.

What an experience! I will never forget this and I suggest that everyone try it at least once in his or her life. If you don’t fall in love with it, there has to be something wrong with you.

“That was the biggest rush I’ve had since basic training, 20 years ago,” my dad, James Smith, said.

Courtesy of Matthew Smith and www.warpig.com

Paintballs: Yep. The founders played with the real thing, actual paint goop that took turpentine to dissolve. That’s good for your soft skin and baby-face complexion! According to 64-year-old Nelson Paint , the original paintball supplier, Charles Nelson was the first person to develop a ball of paint that could be shot out of a CO2 marker. Timber cruisers – men who surveyed woodlots and decided how much and what quality timber was available for cutting – used these first paintballs for marking trees. (Nelson still makes oil-based paintballs for timber cruisers.) With names like Chaos, Fury, Anarchy and Upheaval, today’s water-based Nelson balls scrub off with soap and water. Unlike the early versions, these balls are almost perfectly round, and if stored properly, they stay that way.

Headgear: Early players might have worn baseball caps and maybe some protective goggles from the hardware store or just their own glasses. Today, no one – field owner, player, judge, photographer or observer – is allowed on an active field without complete face, ear and, if possible, neck protection. Today’s players wear safety gear designed specifically for paintball, like Raven ’s NVX, an adjustable combo facemask, eyeshade and lens system.

Clothing: Blue jeans, tee shirts and tennis shoes or long sleeve tan work shirts and leather boots were the fashion on early fields. Old clothes were mixed with WW II army surplus woodland camo and tiger stripe from Viet Nam, feeding an early and unfavorable reaction to survival paintball games as militaristic, shabby and lower class. Certainly not a game for respectable families. Then, starting in the early 1980s, entrepreneurs like Jim Crumley (Trebark), Bill Jordan (Realtree and Advantage) and Toxey Haas (Mossy Oak) realized there was a men’s market for boutique camo patterns, primarily in the hunting field. For its first decade, camo was the paintball garment standard. You still see old clothes and camo on the playing fields, but a whole new style has developed for paintball. Radical rap! These days, hot colors and bright, fun patterns are standard on playing fields. JT USA’s Yellow Flame jersey and gloves, special all-purpose shoes with cleats, and black sock hats from Ronin Gear emphasize the development of merchandise for what has become a young person’s market. Ain’t no more shabby chic except at your local rec ball field.

PAINTBALL TIME CAPSULE

Paintball as an individual survival game was based in the socially and politically turbulent ‘70s, but this was also a time of extreme technological innovation. To understand the debate that is the foundation of our game, here is a quick look at some of the background events that shaped it and the men and women who developed it.

1970	Daisy builds first paintball marker for agriculture and forestry purposes. “Cold War” pits U.S. against Soviet Union in nuclear standoff.World Trade Center twin towers are completed in New York City.
1971	U.S. and South Viet Nam invade Laos. The first microprocessor is available.
1972	U.S. begins withdrawal from Viet Nam. Watergate scandal begins to overwhelm President Richard Nixon.Apollo 17’s Eugene Cernan is last man to walk on to the moon.
1973	U.S. Supreme Court rules in the Roe vs. Wade case.Vice President Spiro Agnew resigns.
1974	Richard Nixon resigns: Gerald Ford sworn in as president.Hank Aaron beats Babe Ruth’s home run record.The first pocket calculators appear.
1975	Saigon falls to North Viet Nam.The first home computer does not have a screen or printer.Disposable razors are introduced.
1976	Jimmy Carter becomes president.Apple Computers is launched.VHS VCRs are introduced.
1977	U.S. turns Panama Canal over to Panama.
1978	In Jonestown, Guyana, 900 Americans commit suicide.“Garfield the Cat” cartoon is syndicated.
1979	The Ayatollah Khomeini takes power in Iran.The Soviet Union invades Afghanistan.

Paintball took off in popularity in the mid-1980s. Economically, those were boom times. The stock market got bullish and stayed that way. Money, happiness and prosperity seemed within the grasp of every citizen. And there was trouble in the Soviet Union’s international worker’s paradise because “The Wall” between East and West Berlin was going to fall this decade, something baby boomers, the children born in the decade immediately following World War II, never thought they would live to see. And almost immediately, our game began to change from an individual survival event to a team-oriented game of paintball.

1980	Ronald Reagan elected to the U.S. presidency.Bill Gates licenses MS-DOS to IBM (for virtually nothing!).The Empire Strikes Back is released.
1981	First paintball game with Bob Gurnsey , Hayes Noel and Charles Gaines.The disease AIDS is first identified.Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II wounded by assassins.World population is estimated at 4.5 billion.
1982	Caleb Strong opens the first outdoor paintball field in Rochester, NY.Hayes Noel markets paintball as the National Survival Game (NSG).PMI (Pursuit Marketing, Inc.) becomes first paintball products distributor.Barney Clark receives first artificial heart.
1983	First NSG National Championships have a $14,000 cash purse.First Canadian paintball field opens in Toronto.Sally Ride is first woman in space aboard Space Shuttle Challenger.U.S. invades Caribbean island of Grenada.
1984	Called “Skirmish Games,” paintball gets a start in Australia.Caleb Strong opens the first indoor paintball field in Rochester, NY.Paintball as “The Ultimate Challenge” takes hold in England.Ronald Regan is re-elected U.S. president.
1985	Mikhail Gorbachev becomes leader of the Soviet Union.Palestinian terrorists hijack Achille Lauro ocean liner.
1986	Space Shuttle Challenger explodes.Halley’s Comet is visible.U.S. heavily involved in Nicaragua.
1987	Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister in Great Britain. Severe earthquake rocks Los Angeles.
1988	The IPPA (International Paintball Players Assn .) is founded to promote paintball.
1991	Paintball begins in France, Denmark and other European countries.
1992	NPPL , the National Paintball Player’s League, is organized.
1996	Paintball fields and pro shops can be found in 25 countries.

In America, the entrepreneurial spirit is still strong. When the founders of paintball decided to develop the National Survival Game, woodsy play became a business. Today, a strong business community is necessary to hold professional tournaments, develop safety standards and build expensive, high-tech equipment. Johnny Postorivo is chief operating officer of the world’s largest paintball wholesaler, National Paintball Supply, and his second objective is to promote safe and reliable gear that is fast and efficient. His first objective, just like those founders of the game, is to make a profit for his company, because in America, nothing goes forward without a profit.

Your Basic Paintball Marker

All paintball markers use air pressure from an air tank (or a 12-gram cartridge) to fire a paintball. The velocity of the paintball leaving the barrel is usually 250 to 300 fps, the maximum allowed at tournaments (290 fps is the maximum permitted on most playing fields). Air tanks come in different sizes. The bigger the tank, the longer you can play before requiring a refill. Sizes begin at 4 ounces and go up to 20 ounces.

1. Feeder (also called a hopper or loader): Paintballs drop one at a time from this refillable bulk feeder into the marker.

2. CO2 Tank: Air is pressurized at 750 to 1000 psi. Air leaves the tank through a valve into an airline. High-pressure air (HPA) is a non-CO2 system and requires a regulator. HPA tanks are pressurized to thousands of psi and are typically larger than CO2 tanks.

3. Air Line: Air travels up the line and into the chamber.

4. Trigger: Pulling the trigger activates the hammer. The hammer slides forward, pulling the bolt over the exhaust valve while pushing the exhaust valve forward to the chamber. Air shoots out of the chamber, through the exhaust valve and through the bolt.

5. Barrel: The released air leaves the bolt, forcing the paintball out of the barrel.