back to the rOOts

[SaS]

how far along had paintball developed in your home town when you first started?

Please try to post stories only...

I started playing in 96... bought a friends tigershark and mask for $40... There was a field in the billings hieghts but they closed within 6months of me starting.

Apparently, i picked to start playing during a 5year lull in the state, at least the region anyways... lucky me

***DO NOT DO THIS!!***
My fIrst game, unfortunatly, was in gorum(sp) park... it was at night and lasted for 15min, about one game, and then we calmly walked away(until reaching the corner of the block) when a single squad car(with a single officer inside) sweeped thE area with his/her searchlight... my next four games was out of town near where my friends family was building their new house... teams were the same, 2x2x1 (i was the 1, lucky me)


I know that it was extremely unsafe, but i didn't know any better at the time... however, that was my only game within city limiits
I've played in about 6 different spots around, but not in, Billings (which included a spot on the rims) with 4 totally different groups of ballers(grand total of about 22)... contacted mainly due to the internet... I linked 3 people up with other local groups, and even got a few calls from T-bone back in the day

Diamond Paintball, currently the only local field(only field within 130miles really), opened up about 5 years later with one 5man speedball field and 3woods. just last year...
I've been playing speedball there ever since, not to mention the Helena Scenario and the one time I went to Challange Park (in town for my cousins wedding, so i decided to go balling for a day)


Those are my rOOts... what's yours?

[big E kingpin]

about 9 years ago in my back yard, with my father i had an old school leader mask, he had a pair of shop safty gogles. he broke his nose, it was good times bonding. now he wont even get on a speed ball feild with me.

[FooTemps]

my roots?

7th grade... online! w00t!

[hitech]

In my first game we used shop safety glasses (this was at a regular field). After that I bought my own glasses as the rental ones were always scratched. I rented a splatmaster that shot 250fps on a great day. I remember getting my first mask from JT (years later). Actually, pictures of it are possibly in the JT museum. I still can't believe there were no eye accidents back then.

[LaW]

I had my first game when I was 12 (20 now), about 5 friends and I all got to gether and bought some jt whipper masks and pgp's!!!! what a blast :) and about 4 years later every person I ever played with stopped playing. I was the only one to stick with it and I will never regret it :)

[ShowTime]

i was first introduced to paintball when my uncle wanted to tryout his new gun i was 7 he told me they didnt hurt, and he just wanted to test to see if it worked lol well yep it worked and i cried lol. ever sense then i started palying

[JAM]

oh yeah, 6 of us managed to scrape up some guns ranging from a splatmaster to a SL-68 II. We played in some woods it was awesome. Then, one of us got a PMI 3 and the arms race began.

That was 10 years ago.

[ogre55]

Some time around 1991
or 1992, playing at long defunct indoor field here in Brooklyn, called Urban Survival. The rentals were Splatmaster Rapides and the masks were these no-name hockey mask type contraptions.

Within two weeks of going there I met some of my best friends that I still have to this day.

Ogre

[Evil Bob]

1982, stopped by Cambrian Surplus (which is no longer there) just off of Camden Avenue right across from Cambrian Plaza (strip mall), Campbell, CA. Went in looking for some new hiking boots for the summer, saw a flyer there for "WoodStalk", grabbed one and took it home. Called a couple friends that night and told them about it, they loved the idea. We went the following weekend.

The field was located at the end of Camden Ave up on the side of the foothills, 170 acres to play on. 40+ people there, mostly dressed in blue jeans and t-shirts, a few guys in military camo. Had the time of my life.

-Evil Bob

[ShaftyMcGee]

i started in some of the many wooded areas in vermont with some friends, we still play every month and many of us still use pumps (not me i dont like getting dumped on by the guy with the full auto) when we first started we only had 1 gun. so we played hide and go seek and the person seeking had to shoot everyone else with the gun before time was up. some of us had masks, other had safety googles and ski googles. my friend ended up going to the hospital because he decided jumping in to a thorn bush was better then being shot and he ripped his leg open. we were playing at night so dont think he's a total moron.
we play on any natural course that looks like it has good cover. my firends (i WASNT there) decided a cemetary would make a great speedball course, the cops didnt seem to think so!

[Ultimator]

I don't know about you guys but I wanna hear Tom's roots :)

For me it was about a year ago with my Spyder shutter. Across the street there is a Softball park and behind it is a pine tree farm. We cleared out everything except for the (small) pine trees and put up some boards. Played in that for about 4 months, went to a local field and was hooked. Within about 7 months of paintballing I had saved up and sold my spyder and bought (pieces of a) mag. I used a lot of Smokee_2_7's (I appreciate it to this day, Doc!) parts for his mags. Started playing hyperball and the rest is history :)

[Stupi]

Roots

Started about 7 years ago with my father, and 2 pumps we picked up at a local gun shop, and those JT masks that covered your eyes and your mouth. The salesman there had a sweet Phantom if I remember right, and told us how the mask was more than enough, and goggles were probably fine. We played in forests near our house, that we'd ride our bikes to, land that was owned by people my father had grown up with. We'd each walk away from each other for a couple minutes, then turn around, and try to find each other. He won most of the time, he has this knack for being amazingly silent in the forest. Eventually I got my Pro-Lite, which is actually for sale right now in the Markers Forum, and he got an Autococker. We began playing local fields, where I fell in love with speedball. Eventually I got my Automag, loved it, used it for probably years. Now I've got my E-Mag... this sport has changed so much.

[Gotenks]

I was 11 years old.

My neighbor asked if me and my older brother wanted to go paintballing. So we did.

I was such a wuss I didn't know anything about paintball at the time, but after I had learned I knew about their equipment. Bunch of people with angels and junk, and were really experienced and I didn't realize what I was up against. I left that day, traumatized, bloody welts all over, I told myself I was never going to play paintball again.

My friend had a birthday party half a year later, I decided I would go, don't know why, but that time I had a blast, and been hooked since, and been playing for 5 years.

[Python14]

Back in '95/'94 I saw an issue of APG in the magazine rack at Kroger. I bought it and read it from cover to cover in less than a few hours. A few days later, as fate be it, a friend of mine got some talons or some other plastic pump an we played. We didn't have masks or anything, so we wore some ski goggles and hockey masks. I didn't play again or even pick up an issue of APG till mid '96 when the Shocker was released. There were no fields in my area so I was left to dream. Well, lo and behold, my church took a trip to go paintballing a few months after that and I went ofcoarse. We went two more times before I decided to get my own stuff. I bought my own gun and mask and stuff(A classic mag). And the rest is history.