Then, Butler ran across a paint marker in an agricultural catalog. Sold by Nelson Paint in Michigan, it was called the Nelspot Marker and it looked like an unwieldy pistol with a clear plastic tube projecting out the back end. That tube was filled with round balls of oil-based paint encapsulated for Nelson by R.P. Scherer Paint Company. The marker relied on a replaceable 12-gram CO2 cartridge in the handle for power, and the balls it shot were supposed to burst open when they hit. Farmers used the Nelspot to put spots on cows to designate those that, for instance, needed a vaccination. Timber cruisers used it in the woods or on construction sites to mark trees for cutting.
So, Butler and some of Hayes’ friends ordered markers. Eventually, they had more fun than they ever believed was possible just running around and hiding and shooting at each other. In those days, shooting paintballs was kind of a random act and nobody bothered too much about wearing any kind of safety gear.
Hayes remembers the first time anyone got hit with a paintball … because it was him! He had taken a wild shot at Charles Gaines, the New Hampshire outdoorsman, and when his buddy fired back, the ball hit Hayes squarely in the ass. It “raised a little welt,” he has recalled.
The original paintball game was conceived of as a survival game. The best man wins. It was played in the woods indolobore old clothesvel and some used camo. The markers were pump-action and the paint was real, oil-based goo that only came off with a liberal dose of turpentine.
Charles Gaines
Brass Eagle Blade 02 pump is a cool-looking, entry-level, polymer-frame marker. It is similar in power and capacity to the original single-shot pump markers used by the sport’s founders in the early ‘80s although its looks are truly stylin’.
These guys had so much fun they decided to have an organized contest. Maybe it was because Hayes was almost 40 years old that he felt he had to have a reason to have this kind of fun, running around and shooting at other guys like a kid at a pool with a water pistol. He was getting old. So, they mapped out a field and made up rules and got a lot of their other friends – almost all older guys, but from all over the country – to come and play.
The first organized game of paintball was held on Saturday, June 27, 1981, near Henniker, New Hampshire. Hayes and friends like Bob Gurnsey (who is still very much involved in paintball) used an 80-acre woodlot – which, after the day was over, they realized was way too big for just a dozen players – and placed flags at about the mid-point of the sides of the field. Each side of the field was represented by a different flag color. Hayes gave every player a rough map. The goal of this first game of “capture the flag” was to collect one of each color flag without getting hit by a paintball.
Debra Dion Krischke has been in paintball almost since Day 1. Today, she operates the popular International Amateur Open tournament and industry trade show held north of Pittsburgh each year.
Here were the pioneers: Charles Gaines (writer), Hayes Noel (stock and options trader), Bob Gurnsey (sports products), Bob Jones (writer), Ronnie Simkins (farmer), Jerome Gary (film producer), Carl Sandquist (contracting estimator), Ritchie White (forester), Ken Barrett (venture capitalist), Joe Drinon (stockbroker), Bob Carlson (trauma surgeon) and Lionel Atwill (writer and author of the first “official” book about paintball).
So, who won the game … and how did it affect everyone’s notions about who would survive?
The forester, Ritchie White, won the first game, which went on for several hours. Ritchie, who was a hunter and “lumber man,” captured one flag of every color and was never shot, not even once. What is more interesting is that he never shot at anyone either!
For that first game, everyone was on their own. There were no teams. Consequently, each player used a different strategy. Some – those men eliminated quickly as it turns out – were aggressive and ran dodging and shooting after every flag. Hayes made up his mind to walk the perimeter and then go straight in toward the flags when he found them. He avoided firefights but was eventually eliminated when he got lost looking for the fourth and final flag.
So, the survival message was mixed. An outdoorsman, a forester, won the game, but his strategy was totally passive. Avoid other players and focus instead on the goal – capturing the flags without getting shot. (He may have won employing this non-interactive strategy, but one wonders if he had any fun this way.)
As a whole, the players in this first game said they had a terrific time. Hayes Noel has often been quoted as saying, “The illusion of danger was so real, it was the most exciting thing I had ever done. Every cell in my body was turned on.”
The more Hayes Noel and Charles Gaines and Bob Gurnsey thought about it, the more they realized that shooting paintballs could become a game that people all over the U.S. would enjoy playing, and they soon decided they were just the people to develop it. Plus, it tied into their ongoing and unsettled survival debate. Well, these guys didn’t just sit around dreaming, they got busy!
Paintball has come a long way since a couple guys shot at each other in the woods of New England. Representing the paintball industry, Debra Dion Krischke of TeamEffort Events , promoters of the International Amateur Open in Pittsburgh, presents its annual Lifetime Achievement Awards for 2003: (L-R) Debra Dion Krischke; former winner Laurent Hamet of France, a paintball promoter who was instrumental in developing inflatable bags for airball tournaments; Mike Ratko of ProCaps , who has dedicated years to develop ASTM standards to keep paintball safe and injuries down and who has developed the new X-Ball pro format; former winner Bud Orr, the popular president of Worr Games Products; and Dan Colby of Air America , who has pioneered player-friendly products since 1985.
TURNING FUN TO PROFIT
In spite of growing governmental imposition at every level, one thing the homo sapiens species in the U.S. is blessed with is some old fashioned cando entrepreneurial spirit. When Hayes Noel got “shot in the ass” that summer of 1981, apparently the first thing he thought of - other than “Ouch!” - was becoming the world’s first paintball guru and starting a business. At that time, the whole paintball economy, worldwide, was squat. Zero. Zip. Nada. Today, it is in the neighborhood of a billion dollars. That’s a one followed by nine zeros! It’s truly, truly phenomenal, and it is based on one wellplaced ball in the butt.
Not only that, but as many as ten million people play paintball games every year. And that’s either a huge flash-in-the-pan sport or it’s a phenomenon.
The inventors – Hayes and Charles and Bob – had so much fun shooting each other that they figured a whole lot more people would like doing it, too. So, some of these guys visited Nelson Paint in Michigan, and within a year or two, they were selling ten times as many markers for paintball games as Nelson ever sold for agriculture and timber uses. (The Nelson Nelspot Marker was actually built by Daisy , of BB-gun fame.) The paintballs – of course, in those days they were real oil-based paint – were manufactured in a two-step process. Charles Nelson manufactured the paint and then shipped it to R.P. Scherer in Florida for ball encapsulation.
“Paintball is still in its infancy,” says Ben Torricelli