Paintball club is gearing up for national competitions
By Cassandra Bluett
Published: Thursday, February 10, 2005
Club president Jason Allison (top,center) says that new members are needed to compete nationally.

The Paintball Club at Western New Mexico University is preparing for battle. They have been officially on campus for a year and are ready to compete. The club hopes to travel to Huntington Beach in March to participate in a tournament against many other college paintball clubs across the country. They will face some stiff competition; some of the schools they are up against include Penn State, Purdue, and Arizona State. "We will place," says Jason Allison, confident about the team's ability.

Friday, January 28, the Paintball Club held a fundraiser to pay for entry fees and paintballs. During Madden Bowl 2005, students paid a $10 entry fee to play the popular PlayStation 2 game to win various prize packages that were donated to the club by several businesses. Their main sponsor is a paintball company out of California called System-X. They are providing the Paintball Club with uniforms and equipment for competition.

The first paintball game was played on June 27, 1981, and the first national championship was held in 1983. Now paintball is a rapidly growing sport played all over the world. The sport is not dangerous and players wear pads and facemasks to avoid any injury. Western's Paintball Club practices every Friday and play every Saturday at Knucklehead Field off of Mountain View Road. The team is always looking for new members.