The Paintball Coach

Teacher, offensive coordinator and organizational guru!

Look on the sidelines of major professional sports and you’ll see them – the ones in the suits, sometimes with clipboards, many of them with illustrious playing careers of their own behind them. From calling plays, making substitutions and leading teams through victories, defeats and everything in-between, “Coach” is a position of respect earned through hard work and a willingness to lead with the big picture in mind - without actually stepping on the field to compete. This is as true in paintball as any other sport: the modern game of paintball has evolved to a point where a team coach is a critical position for any team that wants to make a serious competitive run. From understanding why things happen on the paintball field and how to control a game, to keeping a team packed with individuals together and the logistics of making sure they have water, paintballs and rental cars, the paintball team coach is an unsung hero who juggles a million tasks to help their team win!

To the untrained eye or those who don’t really know what goes into creating a paintball team, keeping that team together and competing, a paintball team coach may just look like someone who walks around with a clipboard yelling “COMMAND CENTER!” or telling a pit full of sweaty paintball players who’s on the field next. While those things DO actually happen, there’s so much more that a real, serious paintball team coach is responsible for! Yes, there’s the actual paintball side of this whole thing: the learning a field layout with the team, determining which players should play where, how to get them to those spots alive and where to put the paint to eliminate opponents. Then there’s the key bunkers and lanes that have to be controlled to dictate the action and making sure the team is performing at their best inside the net where the paint is flying. But the coach’s team actually playing competitive paintball at a tournament is the culmination of all the other work!

A paintball team coach may very well be an experienced, successful paintball player who understands the game, learned how to play it well, and enjoyed success. However, not every successful paintball player will make a great coach! A great paintball player who lacks organizational skills and can’t manage a herd of paintball players, who by their very nature are nonconformists or they’d be down at the club playing golf rather than shooting at each other with paintball guns, and making sure they have everything from food and water to paintballs and air and a ride from the airport, won’t be able to coach a team to victory. Indeed it’s the organizational side to a great coach that truly helps the team win, because when the team is organized, everything a team needs is there and nobody is confused about their role or panicking about where their gear is, they can leave the rest of the world outside the net where it belongs and play the game of paintball with no distractions. Getting a paintball team to the point where they can compete at their highest level without concern for anything else in the world at that moment is where a great paintball team coach truly shines!

You may not think about it because you’re too busy tying on your five-hundred-dollar headband and watching the game, but the coach is there so you don’t HAVE to think about it! They told you which line you were on. They told you which bunker you were going to and where to look when you got there, then what to do after you shot the California and the God – they also named the California and the God bunkers on the layout that they printed off at home, by the way. That water you’re drinking and that Uncrustable you’re pushing into your face from the cooler? They went to the store last night after they picked you and your buddies up from the airport and bought all that stuff, then got up early so they could go get ice and put it all in the cooler that they also bought. In a rental van that they rented with their points on their credit card.

Then they herded you and your buddies around the paintball field all day to your pit along with all your gear in time for your match, cleaned off the tables from the team who was there before who and broke down paint boxes to put on the ground so you wouldn’t stand in the mud and have nasty cleats before you went on the field. Those pods with the good paint in them? They didn’t fill themselves and when you guys figured out that the paint you had was too brittle – it was the coach who dragged it all back to the truck and talked with the company and tested another batch and brought a bunch of it back to the pits in time for the match. That spray bottle and microfiber on a carbiner you guys use to clean your goggles between points? That was coach. Wait a minute: was it coach that went to Dye or Planet Eclipse or HK or Virtue to get you the sponsorship so you could afford that new gun, a loader to put on it and an air tank, maybe some new pads and a pair of pants that don’t have a huge hole in the knee and a replacement for that swab you left on the field? What about all those pods – that case of pods that you don’t know where they came from, but you dip into, use and leave on the field. Coach went and got those pods and probably organized the person that’s running around on the field between points gathering them up for you so you wouldn’t have to think about anything but shooting that guy before he shoots you..

Thanks, Coach!

Coach is there when you win to give you a big hug. Coach is there when you lose, too – telling you it’s ok and you’ll all work harder and come back stronger. Coach will help you learn to snap shoot better and work on breakout drills with you. Coach will drag you to the field and do all he – or she – can do to put you in the best position to focus on the game and win. Because coach’s heart is in this too – every bit as much as yours. So on this Coach’s Day, take a second and think about all that goes into being a paintball team coach, and where you and the team might be if you didn’t have one. Thank you to all the paintball coaches out there who are the glue who hold the team together!