SPORTS
April 30, 2001
Wingspan • Page 15
Paintball: war-like game of future
By Tera Lambert
Has the thought of playing a game
in which your friends are the targets
and flying objects are your worst
enemy sound like fun? Then here are
some tips on how to get started on a
challenging and stress-free game of
paintball.
Paintball is a series of strategy
games much like a game of hide and
seek but more of a challenge to the
players. The most commonly played
game in paintball is a variation of
“Capture the Flag” in which two
team’s attempt to capture the other
team’s flag and return to their home
base without getting hit by a
paintball. Each player is eliminated
from the game by a small sphere filled
with paint expelled from a special
kind of paintball gun. It’s like tag, for
once tagged by paint, the contestant is
out. It’s up to the best team to win.
A paintball gun is a carbon dioxide
(CO2) powered gun of .68- or .62caliber using 12-gram CO2 cartridges,
such as the ones in BB guns. The
semiautomatic or automatic pump
action gun fires a small paintball at a
safe velocity. A paintball is shaped to
fit the .68- or .62-caliber gun and
consists of a nontoxic, water-soluble,
biodegradable paint in a gelatin
capsule similar to the medicine
injures. The only injury paintballers
will experience is a slight sting or
minor welt.”
“Yes, because many people have
the tendency to wear T-shirts because
it’s a nice day or wear only the goggles
due to the park not having requirements for the face masks. I have
taken a lot of hits all over and have
never had any that could be considered painful,” he noted.
Statistics show that paintball is
generally safer than many common
sports. In comparison to other
sports, paintball is one of the safest
sports when played properly.
“Many believe that paintball
players are a bunch of survivalists and
war mongers,” Chapman said.
“Paintball is great for teaching quickthinking, strategy planning, team
work and stress relief.” He also said
many people from all walks of life,
male and female, come to play, and it’s
also a great way to get to know
different people. “It’s a challenge and
a great way to exercise, and who
knows you might actually like it,” he
said.
Most Cheyenne paintball fields are
not advertised locally but can often be
found in magazines and sporting
goods stores. Many people play in
fields west of Cheyenne. The average
field charge is $12 to $30 a day, which
includes a gun, goggles and mask for
those who need them. And paintball
players may want to spend $20 for
extra CO2and paintballs. “If you and
a group of friends can get together,
the fields usually give a discount to
Golden Eagles basketball teams
take second at 3-on-3 tournament
By Jason Hendricks
Laramie County Community
College captured second places in a
men’s and women’s three-onthree-basketball tournament at
Sheridan College.
The two men’s teams who
joined forces and represented the
college were the BAs, composed of
Casey Schmidt, Tim Walsh, Mike
Turner and Dave Murry, who won
the LCCC tournament, and the
Killer Bees composed of Brent
Martini, Josh Bott, Fil Turcer, John
Tafoya and Aaron Hanson. The
BAs were second, losing to a team
from Northwest College in Powell.
A women’s team also made the
trip to Sheridan. That team was
composed of Megan Miller, Amber
Gosler, Lisa Nelson, Keaya Jeffreys
and Maria Sorrano. They, too, took
second place, coming in behind the
team from Sheridan College.
All together five teams
participated in the three-on-three
tournament at LCCC to vie for a
spot to represent the college. They
played on Tuesdays and Thursdays in the middle of March to
determine the best teams.
Other teams who competed
were as follows: The Untouchables, with Dustin DeKay, Tyrel
Nelson, Robert Clark and PJ
McBride; No Skills, with Lloyd
Garcia, Scott Barkley and Jeff
Wagner; and Magnolia with Jay
Payne, Keith Lopez, Jason
Shufflebarger and Jason
Hendricks.
Door prizes were handed out
during halftimes and after each
game played. These prizes
included gadgets and gizmos as
well as tickets to the movies,
YMCA passes and basketball
shoes.
groups,” Chapman said.
Buying equipment starts to get
pricey, so for anybody who is seriously
involved with the game, it may be a
good investment. A good price for a
gun is $250 to $300. With the mask,
goggles, camouflage, boots and a
paintball carrying case included, and it
may cost about $400 to $500.
“If you want to find out more
about paintball, look around and find
others that play,” Chapman suggested. Another way to find more
information is to ask the people who
run the paintball fields or look in
magazines like Action Pursuit Games
and Paintball Sports Magazine. These
are the leading paintball magazines
and will list equipment suppliers,
field locations and tactics for players
who need some help.
Enjoying the outdoors and
experiencing the adrenaline rush of
being able to shoot at your friends
and trying to survive the challenge of
being the number one player is
something players have to experience
on their own.
Statistics show that paintball is generally
safer than many common sports.
In comparison to other sports, paintball is one
of the safest sports when played properly.
Betty Crocker time over; women off bench
Nike’s “Just do
it” slogan has
promoted men for
years, but just
recently women have
been filling televisions with the latest
Nikes. Yet what has
changed to allow women to get to that point of “just do
it”? Are women athletics getting the credit they deserve?
Women have come a long way in today’s society,
especially in sports. For example, women’s basketball
leagues have grown five times more since their creation
and are continually growing. In the last couple of years,
women in other sports have come out of the dark and
into the spotlight and stunned sports fans around the
world. Olympic athletes, such as Mia Hamm, Jackie Joyner
Kersee, Bonnie Blair, Lisa Fernandez and Jenny Thompson have come a long way through a lot of pain and
anguish. Growing up, I noticed men and women are
completely different in athletic competition. In school the
boys always seemed to draw most of the attention than
the girls’ teams.
Newspapers, television and spectators look for sports
competition as a form of entertainment. As a basketball
player, I have seen gymnasiums packed as people gather to
see the men play. As soon as we women took the floor
the interest level dissipated. The blood and sweat that the
men put into their games were what drew the attention to
men’s sports. After the blood and sweat is mopped off
the floor, in walked the perfume and the pretty hair that
spectators walked out on. The same attitude often applied
to the media as the women sports stories ended deep into
the sports section.
This is where the women of the Women’s National
Basketball Association (WNBA) get a paragraph about the
game on the fifth page. Does anybody really know about
the WNBA? The time it receives on television and the space
it gets in the paper are there, but not enough for people to
follow it.
I am currently employed at Echostar, one of the largest
satellite corporations in the United States. My job is not
“watching television,” but to make sure all channels are
broadcasting the way they should without any problems.
In eight hours an operator goes through at least 40 to 50
different channels, checking to make sure everything is as
perfect as it can possibly be.
As I go through my 40 to 50 channels, ESPN operates
at least four to five channels. Since I enjoy numerous
sports, I am always checking for the stats and scores of each
team I enjoy. When monitoring the ESPN channels, I tend
to notice the women’s sports, such as the WNBA,
women’s golf, soccer, etc, are hard to catch. The men’s
sports, such as the NBA, NFL, MLB, are getting anywhere
from two 15-minute segments while the women’s sports
are lucky if they get a max of 10 minutes.
The women of the WNBA are a large group of women
who have worked and strived and trained for their
moment to be on television, just as the men have. WNBA
women, such as Kara Walters from the team Fevers, is one
of the WNBA’s top scores in the league. And Yolanda
Griffith from the Sacramento Monarchs has been nominated as this month’s athlete. But we as sports fans don’t
hear about these types of accomplishments on ESPN or
from the local newspapers. If sports fans are looking for
this type of coverage or information of women sports,
they must do their homework. Only hardcore fans would
be able to follow it because it’s not easily accessible.
Men’s sports have been around since ancient Greece and
earlier civilizations. Men have always dominated the sports
world, and society knows that. Betty Crocker time is over,
and women are rising above and stepping into that level of
competition. Recognition of today’s woman is not
proportional to her accomplishments.