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The NIU Paintball Club in 2006 at the Wisconsin Open.
Paintball Team looks to move up to national play
John Lyall gets shot with paintballs all the time.
“The best way I could describe getting hit by a paintball is comparing it to being snapped on the arm with a big rubber band,” said Lyall, a sophomore accountancy major and vice president of the NIU Paintball Club. “It’s a quick sting that usually goes away in less than 10 seconds. The more you get shot, the more you get used to it, and then it just feels like getting hit with pencil erasers.”
Since the start of the semester, the team has practiced once a month at Fox Paintball in Millington, Ill., and played in two day-long tournament events, already doubling the number of tournaments played last year, said Dave Moore, president of the club and a junior management major.
Along with tournament play, the club has had more practice time to work on field positioning skills, even though Fox Paintball is about 40 minutes away.
Lyall said there are three basic positions for the sport, which include front, middle and back players.
Though all positions have key roles during play, Lyall described the middle players as the most versatile, and backfield players as having the best communication skills.
“Front players usually get the most kills, but are also in the most danger,” Lyall said. “Since their primary goal is to move up the field as fast as possible and eliminate the opposing team quickly, they are constantly under fire.”
On-field practice is only a small part of the team’s responsibility. Paul Matejcak, a junior business administration major, also works behind the tournament glory to find sponsors for the team.
“It’s fun talking to the representatives from each company, but with everything it can also very frustrating at times,” Matejcak said.
Matejcak said that he first talks to the team to see who they would like as sponsors and then sends out a resume to the targeted businesses.
“It’s a fun sport and organization we have here,” Matejcak said. “We have something for everyone whether you play once every couple of months or once a week; we all play the same sport.”
Moore hopes that with the team’s enhanced performance, the club can move up to a higher class of play in the National Collegiate Paintball Association.
“We are a class-AA team and with the help of the Student Association financially, we hope to bump up to the class-A division in the next couple of years.”
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