Who Was Fred Schultz? Remembering Great Players from the Past

[Cort95]

Thanks for the post AGD. Fred Schultz did an interview in APG sometime in 93 i think, just as I was getting into the sport. I was very impressed with the things he had to say, and I have wondered many times why we don't hear from him anymore. It seems he mentioned his daughter was disabled, I can't remember the details. I hope things are going well for him, I think I still have his Brass Eagle video floating around here somewhere.

[RobAGD]

Ok kiddies here is some history for you From left to right To cute Spandex Wearing team is :

Dan Colby (Air Amercia ), Jim ( Paintball News I cant remember his last name), Guy with head down I cant tell, Rene Boucher ( Paintball News ), Tom (with his N2 Back Pack ), Billy Gardner (AA's shot mags for years)

Guy in red hat I am unsure of.

-Robert

Originally posted by AGD
Our team in Disney World, can you spot Bill Gardner and what gun he is using?

[Blake_sw]

Fred looks like Christopher Walken.

[beam]

Man, it sure would be nice if we could get him back into the sport.

[Shane-O-Mac]

guy in red hat= Tim Schloss, pursuit products. yes he did own the pro shop in st.louis. read my post above!
Shane-O

[skipdogg]

Yeah, Fred is way old school. I never met him personally but definately knew who he was. What's up with the dropping out of site thing? I think we (AO,AGD) could find him if we really tried.

[cledford]

Um, just a guess but maybe he doesn't want to be found?!?!? People might consider repecting his privacy.

On the other hand maybe he could come back and help straighten out the mess that Pro paintball today has evolved into. Then maybe he could actually make money through paintball as aTom suggested had been his dream.

-Calvin

[hitech]

Tom,
I will see if I can get a hold of him. I am going to take prints of those pictures with me to the field on Saturday. Those of us (including the owner of the field) who played with him on Constant Pursuit will get a big kick out of them. If I can get a hold of him I'll see if he wants everyone to know what he is up to. I'll tell him you asked about him.

BTW, I had always thought of Fred as someone who "tooted his own horn". I'm going to have to rethink that as he never mentioned most of that. I didn't realize he had done any of that. I do remember when we took up a collection for the Red Cross for the Earth Quake Relief fund for the '89 earth quake at the Masters in "Nashville". Myself and a team mate tried to get donations but were coming up empty. We got Fred to come with us (we played with him on Constant Pursuit) and he made the difference. We even got a short article in APG about our efforts. And then we got robbed of first in the finals, but that's another story.

[Gadget]

I still use a Fred Schultz signature edition Air America system - basically a standard AA Unireg fitted to a bottle with a very well designed cradle to hang it off the bottom of the grip. It works as well now as it did when I got it (93/94?).

[WARPED1]

Speaking of paintball gods of the past,where's Jessica Sparks been?She still around?She should be,her,Bud,Ray Gong proved pb was safe and got it legalised in New Jersey.

[Jack & Coke]

The Basics of Paintball With Fred Schultz

Fred Schultz vs. The Tank

Review: Paintball Basics with Fred Schultz

[theraidenproject]

Originally posted by WARPED1
Speaking of paintball gods of the past,where's Jessica Sparks been?She still around?She should be,her,Bud,Ray Gong proved pb was safe and got it legalised in New Jersey.

I've met Ray Gong a few times, although very briefly. He owns Top Gun, my favroite field, and I see him there whenever I go. Seems lieke a cool guy, and I owe him a great debt for legalizing paintball i nNJ. The story is here

[lopxtc]

Ive played against her several times here in the Saint Louis area ... last year she was shooting a really nice pink Orracle ... not sure if she still has it or not.

Talk to Shane, that group almost religiouslu hangs out at Xtreme ...

Aaron

Originally posted by WARPED1
Speaking of paintball gods of the past,where's Jessica Sparks been?She still around?She should be,her,Bud,Ray Gong proved pb was safe and got it legalised in New Jersey.

[hitech]

Originally posted by lopxtc
Ive played against her several times...

She filled in on our team at a tournament once. That was the time I went to a tournament for my honeymoon!

She was a very nice lady and I enjoyed talking paintball with her.

[Bartman]

I can remember the first time I meet him, like it was yesturday.

We and I see We, meaning me and mister44 where playing hte first Skyball, I think it was 1999, my first tourney with Mister44 and my first ever.

We ended up playing Stock class in the semi tourney. About half way through the first day, we ran into Fred, actuly Kennedy Howe introduced us. Fred was like wow, you guys really are here to have fun and play paintball. Fred asked , hey guys can I do anything for you? Mister44 and I piped up, you we would love to meet bob Long and Budd Orr. With out heistation, he draged us all over the skydome looking for these to people.

We found Bob Long first, all I had to say is, wow, and he took the time to talk to us, yet another great man in this industry.

After that Fred and Bob took us all over the rest of the skydome till they found Budd, and introsuced us.

All in all meeting fred had to be one of the high lights of me ever playing paintball.

Later that day I got to watch constant pursuit play(Freds team) the rocked another pro team, and Fred came down the right tape line, triple taped the 2 back players and apoloized to them for over shooting them.

I all Have to say is Fred where are you, paintball could really use you again, if not as a spocks person, but maybe as a liveing Icon of what paintball should be.

Thanks for reading, sorry it was so long, but then name alone brings me back to a happy point in the paintball playing world for me.

Bartman
Team I have No Idea
www.ihni.org
AKA Tech

[irbodden]

Originally posted by RobAGD
Ok kiddies here is some history for you From left to right To cute Spandex Wearing team is :

Dan Colby (Air Amercia ), Jim ( Paintball News I cant remember his last name), Guy with head down I cant tell, Rene Boucher ( Paintball News ), Tom (with his N2 Back Pack ), Billy Gardner (AA's shot mags for years)

Just so ya guys know Dan Colby owns Paintball Blitz in Gurnee Illinois (Also AA) and is there on Saturday and Sundays.

Really nice guy...

[personman]

Hmm.. Fred DOES look like Christopher Walken.. hmm..

[SeeK]

I remember playing with both Fred Shultz and Kennedy How at PB Sams and Fox River Games. If I remember correctly he became a grandfather and then the daughter got into some accident. He really was Mr. Paintball - the Ambassidor and was a leader from the front at the big games.

Bartman, I really wish I could have made that first TIP team at Skyball. I keep hearing how you guys beat that semi team with pumps from Tyger.

I know Kennedy How #2

[Shane-O-Mac]

yes Jessica Sparks is around! she is the editor of paintball magazine. and her partner Dan Reeves is editor of apg. so they are both heavily involved in paintball. she and dan has played several tourneys with us (Total Greif) and she is very active in helping keep paintball legal. jessica, dan, and several teammates went to michigan or wisconsion? to help keep a ban from happening, just last year. actually she played with us at the last wpf st.louis open when we won the am division. she is a very good player, and a superb stockgun player.
Shane-O

[Schnitzel]

anybody ever seen the Goggleflauge package? i swear that the guy that demo's the product looks exacly like Schultz in Jack&Coke's second pic.

[graycie]

i came into paintball too late in the fred schultz era. but i do remember that one of my old teammates' telling me that his first high end marker was a fred schultz mag, most likely he sold it ages ago. maybe some others will remember this, about a year or two ago i forget which magazine did a story on the pioneers of paintball and there was a picture of fred schultz in it with the caption of "where is he now". in the picture he looked more aged and with grayish hair. anyone know what i'm talking about?

[billmi]

Originally posted by WARPED1
Speaking of paintball gods of the past,where's Jessica Sparks been?She still around?

She's at home in MO with her husband Dan. Dan is the editor of APG, and she is the editor of Paintball Magazine. Both of them work on both magazines, and that alone keeps them very busy.

She should be,her,Bud,Ray Gong proved pb was safe and got it legalised in New Jersey.

I saw Ray Gong in California last weekend.

As for Fred "Mr. Paintball" Shultz... My first impression of him was the "slick self important Hollywood type" with his slicked back hair, black shirts shoes and pants. It wasn't a positive first impression for me. Then, I got to know him a bit better, and saw all the things he was doing. Yes, he did self-promote a lot, but he did a lot more than that to promote the sport of paintball. The self-promotion was just a means to get himself in the right position to make things happen, not a big self-importance thing. When I looked at things like the show produced at the Disney MGM theme park, and a number of other projects including lining up and hosting the paintball challenge on the first season of MTV's Road Rules, I could see he'd done a lot - not just talked about it. Last time I talked to Fred was in the late 90s, and he was still bouncing back and forth between California and Florida working in the production side of the motion picture industry. I hope all is well with him, he's one of the good guys.

As for the camo jackets - yep, those were a Tim Schloss product.

See you on the field,
-Bill Mills

[Skeeter]

Fred was a fun guy to be around... I saw him several times at the IAO, or the "Zap" IAO when I was there last. I ended up playing next to him a few times at a Paintball Sams "Toys-for-Tots" charity event back in '93 or '94. Fun guy to run with, even if he did look like Steve Perry (from Journey... for those not up on 1980's big hair rock bands.)

I still have a tape or two of him and Jerry Braun trying to provide commentary for the '95 or '96 World Cup. They had their hands full trying to cover the old-school woods games with limited cameras. Lots of "and behind that palm grass over there is..."

[Mr. T!]

He was on the video i got with my tigershark. Kinda of neat video to watch, when i had no idea what paintball was.

Speaking of old players, remember Oh Pawlak or something? He had those unique adds in APG, with some babe. Used to play with the ironmen i think.

Where did Fred go? Is he still alive?

......

[DiRTyBuNNy]

Well...on a little bit o' a tangent..what happened to Constant Pursuit? and would anyone get angry if someone got a team together under the banner of Constant Pursuit to carry the flag of tourney team whose members are also ambassadors for the game...

[hitech]

Originally posted by DiRTyBuNNy
Well...on a little bit o' a tangent..what happened to Constant Pursuit? And would anyone get angry if someone got a team together under the banner of Constant Pursuit to carry the flag of tourney team whose members are also ambassadors for the game...

Well, to put it simply, politics. When the team sizes were cut from 15 to 10 we started to fall apart. What five guys do you leave out? I was one of the ostracized five and not one bit happy about it. Fred had a VERY hard time dealing with it. He didn't like leaving anyone out, didn't handle it well and no one was happy (myself included). Also, Fred was interested in prompting, we players were interested in winning. It caused much friction. About half of the team left and started a new team (Tour De Force). Fred rebuilt the team with new players but it was never the same. Fred was more interested in prompting and most players want to win. Ironically, he would probably have a much easier time building the type of team he wanted now than he did then.

As far as using the name, I wouldn't suggest it. I wouldn't mind to much (as long as you included me ), but Fred was attached to the name. I don't think there is anything anyone could do about it, but I do believe Fred would not like the idea. If I get a hold of him I will find out his thoughts on the matter.

[Muzikman]

For anyone who ever caught them at 3am in the morning, Fred did the commentary for World Cup that was aired on ESPN. I can not remember who the other guy was with him, and that is going to bother me all day until I remember.

[swamprat33]

Hi Tom, I am the guy who bought the Fred Shultz signature series regulator that you mention.

Many thanks for all the info from you and the other guys - I do feel priviliged to own a piece of paintball history.

Best wishes to Fred - wherever he is...

Here is a pic of my Fred on my LX Automag - #CF11931

[swamprat33]

Here is another pic of my Mag with Fred....

[TigerMan]

Thanks for the bit of info Tom. I didn't come into paintball early enough to know who Fred was, and that's great to know there was someone like Fred in this sport. And I've been to that spot in Disney World numerous times, I never knew paintball was played there.