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Playing paintball not quite painless

Each week this summer, Times staff writer Emily Nipps will attempt an offbeat sport or attend a unique event.

By EMILY NIPPS, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published August 8, 2002

The tire tracks through the field of tall weeds led me where I needed to go, past an old helicopter, around a paint-splattered van with no wheels and into enemy territory.

This was paintball: 30 17-year-old boys in fatigues, no restrooms and a guy named Buck Gould -- the "grandfather" as people like to call him.

"No one has been at it more than me," said Gould, who runs his business behind a ramshackle wooden desk and answers his cell phone, "Paintball."

Gould has been at it for 20 years, a long time considering the average player participates in the sport for eight months, Gould said.

A glance told me nobody at this Lutz field was a first-timer. Everyone playing on this muggy afternoon owned their own gun. I was the only one using a rental. Gould loaded my rusty gun with bath beads filled with paint and turned me loose on a 10-foot wide target.

I popped a few shots. Paintballs flew in all directions, disappearing into the weeds, the trees, the sky -- everywhere but at the target, which was pretty hard to miss. I could not hit what was literally the side of a barn.

I think Gould felt bad for me. But it was time for the next game and I was ready to go. I grabbed a face mask, joined the group and was relegated to the "non-tagged" team. We were divided into two groups: those with yellow police caution tape around their arms and those without.

Each team started at a home base on either side of the 5-acre field dotted with wooden boards, tents, rusty trailers and other obstacles to hide behind. The object was to get to the other team's base, or as a group of 14-year-old boys told me, the object was "to shoot everybody."

As we went our separate ways, I heard someone on the opposite team instruct his teammates, "Don't shoot the lady." How nice, I thought.

And how deflating. I felt like a kid playing hide-and-seek and then realizing no one was looking for me.

Don't get me wrong. I wasn't looking forward to getting shot, which would inevitably happen and would inevitably hurt. I've heard horror stories about paintball, how a friend got his lip blown to bits, how some people turn up the power on their guns, or even worse, freeze paintballs.

I wasn't too worried with this crowd, which seemed more childlike than competitive. I was hoping they would treat me like one of their own.

But as the game started, I realized that being one of their own meant getting shot. As Gould said, "Nobody's nobody out there."

I stuck close to a guy who seemed like a pro, and together we ducked behind a nailed cluster of boards, rapidly firing at other nailed clusters of boards.

"See that guy over there?" he pointed, and I made out the tip of a gun poking out from behind a board about 30 feet away.

Like a scary, bizarre video game, a masked attacker suddenly jumped out and began firing at me. I leapt behind my wall just in time to miss a "bullet," which exploded inches from me and splattered orange paint on my sleeve.

I loped from wall to wall behind my new friend, inching closer to danger. I giggled at the sound of paintballs whizzing by me, shot into the air and around the walls with abandon.

And then it happened. Before I even felt the sting, I looked down to see a splotch of pink paint on my thigh. I showed my friend, who confirmed, yes, I was dead.

I stuck my yellow tab in the tip of my gun to signify my resignation and held it over my head as I limped off the field.

Okay, maybe I didn't limp. It actually didn't hurt any more than getting snapped with a wet towel. It throbbed briefly and left a perfectly round and slightly welted bruise on my leg.

The entire skirmish took about two minutes. I was one of the first fatalities. Two minutes was enough, though, to understand why people play hour after hour, weekend after weekend. I understand the adrenaline rush, the comraderie, the fear factor.

I would have played another round if I wasn't such a wimp. No matter what anyone says, paintball hurts. At least I can say I tried it. I've got the bruise to prove it.

-- Emily Nipps can be contacted at (813) 226-3368.

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