The facts are that you can start a high school paintball club and team. I know because it's been done. The NCPA started our high school program the beginning of this year, and there are already at least two dozen high school clubs and teams around the country, including at least one which is officially an officially recognized school activity in Oklahoma. I'm not saying that playing is free yet, but getting support from the school is perfectly feasible.
www.high-school-paintball.com is a good place to get started. If you go to the web board there, you'll get all the direct help you could possibly need. You can also email me directly at
[email protected], I'm in WI and am down in IL fairly regularly so I could potentially talk to anyone in the administration who needs talking to, but could definitely make a couple phone calls and write a letter or two on your behalf.
And you don't need to be an official club to have a high school team. A lot of people think that if they're principal isn't in with paintball that its over - nothing could be farther from the case. Set up rec events for other students, get them the information to come out and play, do it on a regular basis, and bam, you've got a club. Get people's parents to come out with you and participate and you'd be surprised how quickly attitudes can change in your area. The key is parental involvement if you encounter initial resistence in acceptance from the administration.
The argument that it's too expensive is silly - hockey is *WAY* mor expensive and many high schools have hockey clubs and teams. Once your club is established, you won't be paying general public rates to play anyway. There are several fields in the IL/WI area willing to work with high school students to establish clubs (getting those students at your school into paintball is good buisiness for them). The NCPA is happy to back you every step of the way, and there are several other HS clubs in the WI/IL area already. HS clubs also get access to the NCPA benefits package.
So take a quick look at www.high-school-paintball.com. Any questions or need any help, post em or email me. Don't pay any attention to the people who say it can't be done - it's actually VERY easy to do, I started a club when I was in high school, although I didn't call it such at the time. Just handed out flyers to people I knew, reserved the field, and a buncha us high school folk (70-80) would go play paintball once a semester.
It's not that it's difficult to have a high school club or team, you just need to convince yourself it's possible. That's the hardest part, everything after that is easy. In the very least, get 5 kids from your high school, start practicing, and go to Nationals on April 27 at CPX.
You wouldn't believe the number of people who told us a national college league wasn't going to happen, but we just decided we were going to do it, and here it is.
- Chris