Competing for a national title on the field it uses for practice is a dream scenario for any team, but for the UF Paintball Club, that scenario involves a trip to Lakeland.
Every Sunday, the team drives two hours down I-75 to practice at Central Florida Paintball, and this weekend it’ll make the same trek to compete in the National Collegiate Paintball Association National Championships.
“It’s the best field around for tournament paintball,” UF Paintball Club President Thomas Irby said. “The area (Gainesville) fields don’t have bunker layouts.”
That statement alone makes it clear that there’s a difference between this kind of paintball and what most people enjoy recreationally.
There’s intricate strategy and major time and financial commitments from those involved, and all that will come to a head this weekend.
“People hear ‘paintball tournament,’ and they’ll say, ‘Oh, you’re going to go hide out in the woods?’” said sophomore Whittaker Bullard, the club’s vice president.
There’s more of a strategy to tournament paintball than ducking behind trees.
Each of the five players has a designated role. There are two distinct sides of bunker layouts, called dorito (left) and snake (right), with a front and back player on each.
The fifth member is the “home row” player who fires shots at the other side of the field to dictate where the other team will run.
Irby said a front player will typically fire 300-to-400 rounds per game while the back players fire between 1,000 and 1,200 rounds.
Bunker layouts are rearranged frequently, and teams develop different breakout formations and scouting reports on other teams.
“We know that Ole Miss, for example, shoots strong on the snake side,” Irby said.
At this weekend’s national championships, the Gators will play two formats: Class A (18 total teams) and Class AA (50 teams).
The UF team typically competes in AA, which consists of eight to 10 games of five-on-five for one point each, but by virtue of a second-place finish at a fall tournament, it will also take on Class-A competition.
Class A is more popular in the Midwest and Northeast, where teams play as many five-on-five games as possible in 32 minutes.
Irby said a Class-A league in the Southeast may be in the works. That would likely make a dent in the players’ wallets.
The Gators have budgeted for eight-to-10 cases of paintballs (containing 2,000 each) for the Class-AA tournament and plan to need roughly 15 cases per session of Class-A play.
Even in the less-expensive Class AA, funding has not come easy for the UF team.
This year is the first time since the club’s formation in 2003 that it has received Student Government special allocations funding for entry and supplies in a tournament.
Even with the SG contribution, the club expects to be out about $800 after paint is purchased for this weekend.
And those weekly trips to Lakeland add up, too. Ten to 12 players pitch in roughly $50 every Sunday to cover field entry fees and paint. For some students, the cost of paying upward of $600 over the course of a semester is giving up their Saturday-night social lives.
Irby, who has been a member of the club for four years, said this is especially difficult for paintball club members who also take part in Greek life, as the only way to make the team is to show up to practice.
And in addition to that commitment, representing the sport in a positive way is a must.
“A lot of people make the vandalism association,” Bullard said. “They think you have a paintball gun just to shoot at cars.”
“People like to throw around ‘gun’ like it’s a bad word,” he added. “There’s a zero-tolerance policy on the team for violating UF regulations. You can’t keep it on campus, or you need to register it with UPD. Any violation of UF safety regulations means you’re off the team.”
It helps having someone to look up to. Former Gator Mike Carthy, who played for UF in 2003 before starting a professional career, is a member of the National Professional Paintball League’s Tampa Bay Damage and was MVP of the 2006 NXL All-Star Event.
“I run into them at Lakeland sometimes,” Carthy said. “I like seeing the guys and talking to them, especially the new guys who have joined since I was (last) there.”
UF begins games in the 18-team Class A competition Friday at 8 a.m. against Kennesaw State and will face Connecticut at 10 a.m. followed by a 1 p.m. game against Liberty that will be broadcast live on foxcollegesports.com.
Class-AA play, which has 50 teams, begins Saturday, and the tournament lasts through Sunday with live streaming of games available on b2tv.com.
