Baylor paintball team wins big tournament, looks to gain publicity, presence from event

By Brittney Coulter
Staff Writer

Covered in paint, the National Collegiate Paintball Association of Baylor brought home a major win from its recent season opener that it hopes will bolster its presence on campus.

The team battled its way through four preliminary games, quarterfinals, semifinals and finals to ultimately place first at its competition on Sept. 17.

This is the first overall tournament win the team has had since they were chartered in 2008.

“In past years we’ve been a pretty consistent top five finisher but we’ve never won a tournament,” Trinidad, Colo., sophomore Garrett Danielson said.

At the September tournament, Baylor beat teams from Texas Christian University, the University of North Texas, Texas A&M, the University of Houston and Texas Tech University.

“We beat out some of the best teams in our conference, so it was huge for us,” Danielson said. “It’s an awesome start to our season.”

McKinney senior Shelton Miller started the team three years ago and said the team initially served as an alternative to Greek organizations but grew into something more.

“A bunch of us had played back in high school and middle school, so we thought it would be cool and a great way of making friends,” he said.

“It became something a lot bigger than we had ever really thought it was going to be,” Miller said.

Miller said he hopes the recent tournament win will bolster their presence on campus and bring in new recruits to join the team.

“It was good to have some of the new guys out there seeing us win an event,” Miller said. “It’s a marketing tool for us to use.”

According to the team’s website, the team participates in five in-conference tournaments and travels to the National Collegiate Paintball Association National Championship annually.

The championship is three days long and held in different locations each year.

The paintball tournament has often been broadcast live by Fox College Sports .

This year, the national championship will be held in Lakeland, Fla., and will host more than 200 college teams from across the country.

The team is open to all full-time Baylor students as long as they can provide their own equipment.

Dues are $300 for the year and are used to cover travel expenses.

Practices are held once or twice every weekend at Weber’s Shooting Sports in Troy, which is approximately 25 minutes north of Waco.

Although team members say they are competitive and love to win, they said their favorite aspect of being on the team is friendship.

“I love to win, I love to play paintball, but at the end of the day being able to travel with the guys on the team and have a good time wherever we are or however well we do is why I keep playing,” Danielson said.

Students interested in joining the paintball team should e-mail garrett_danielson@baylor.edu.