Imagine being armed with more than 800 rounds of ammunition.
This is a reality for the members of Ohio State’s paintball club.
Over the past two decades, paintball has grown from a back woods activity to a high-intensity team sport with competitions up to the national level.
Last weekend, OSU’s paintballers competed at the national level and advanced to the semifinal round of the National Paintball League’s regional fall tournament held at Purdue University in the Boilermakers’ recently built $15,000 paintball field.
“Tournaments are our social events. We have a good time hanging out with the other schools,” said Mark Reed, club president.
About 30 schools were represented at Purdue.
Paintball is similar to the childhood games tag and capture the flag. Two teams of five compete against each other to capture a flag without being hit by a shot of paint.
Matches are five minutes long and teams receive points in a variety of ways. Points are rewarded for hitting an opponent, pulling the flag, avoiding hits and – the ultimate goal – hanging the flag in the opponents end of the field.
Most match winners are decided by the amount of points scored because it is nearly impossible to hang the flag at the other end without eliminating the entire other team, which is hard to do in five minutes, Reed said.
The guns used are capable of firing up to 15 shots per second at nearly 200 mph.
“Your adrenaline is pumping so much you hardly feel a hit,” said Jacob Dircksen, a freshman club member.
A shot, depending where it hits the body, can feel like a bee sting for a couple of minutes, he said.
Paintball has fewer injuries each year per player than golf, Reed said.
The flag is hung in the middle of the field. After the flag is pulled, the objective is to hang it on a pole in the opponents end.
Players move around inflatable bunkers for protection. If a player is hit while carrying the flag, the flag is dropped at that spot and either team can pick it up.
In tournament play, teams are grouped into a bracket and play commences in round-robin style. All the match scores for each team are added together for a team’s final score. The two teams with the highest scores advance to the next round.
Jay Casebolt, a senior club member, is a defensive player usually armed with more than 800 shots and normally uses them all. In a national competition, he once fired off 1,600 shots.
“I fire a lot but I am firing with a purpose,” he said.
Casebolt is all about paintball. He has played paintball in the Toronto Sky Dome and competes in national competitions that award $150,000 each year in winnings.
Casebolt said he wants to make paintball at OSU more competitive by creating more funding. Other Big Ten schools have fully funded teams. Cincinnati has a fully funded team and has seven players. OSU has nearly 30 players and in 2000 won the first ever national paintball championship.
