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back to the motel. The next day, Rosie and
I drove my car back to the motel (we were
the only two, we say brave enough, others
said dumb enough) to take that chance.
Then, of course there was the water fight at
the motel we were staying at for a tournament on another occasion. Now, you’ve got
to understand that a water fight among our
team is no game of patty-cake. We were one
team when we faced others in such endeavors, but showed no mercy when it was
between ourselves. Not just waste baskets
from the rooms filled with the liquid sunshine, but the fire hoses at the motel. Needless to say, it was memorable.
Teams of that era would go to significant
lengths to prank members of other teams.
A case in point is what Darryl Trent of the
Ironmen did to Ron Kilbourne of the Bushwackers in England. It involved Ron’s
toothbrush and a camera. Enough said!
One we were involved in included Dave
DeHaan. Then, he was Youngblood to us.
He played with a team in the Poconos some
of us were on in 1988. Anyway, at the time
in question, Blood was on Tour DeForce
and pranked Jim Anderson on my team
by leaning a wastebasket half filled with
water against his hotel door, knocked and
ran. When Jim opened the door, he was in
his stocking feet. Immediately afterward,
he was in his wet stocking feet. Jim knew
it was Dave, and he told the team. Now,
Tour de Force did not have the loyalty to its
members that we had. In fact, if the prank
was good enough, they would not only sell
out their teammate, they would package
and deliver him. So, they gave us the key to
Youngblood’s room. At about three in the
morning, we went in with a big cooler full
of ice. Dave was sleeping. His covers were
pulled down and the cooler was emptied
on him. I never saw somebody scream in
utter silence. Not a sound. But credit Dave.
When he was aware of what happened, he
wouldn’t give us the satisfaction. He just
pulled the covers back over himself and
went to sleep.
A few years ago you took a step back from
the game, did you miss it, or was that just
a needed break?
In 2005, I sold my interests in PSP and in
Cousins Paintball. I sold off 95 acres of
the game-site land for development and
rented the rest to Cousins to maintain the
business. I still kept up with my friends in
paintball, and we held a commemorative
gathering at my place every year to toast
and remember RT, but I was in semi-retirement. I started teaching again, had some
commercial clients who periodically bought
and sold businesses, and liked the life leisure. But, something was definitely missing,
and circumstances presented themselves
where I was able to take back the field. I
did, and when I did, I saw what I was missing. The adventures were back, the challenges were back. Things had changed, and
we had to develop a whole new market of
paintball players. I reveled in the challenges, and found that I never lost my love for
the game
What have you been doing outside of paintball the last few years?
As I said before, I practiced some law, started teaching mathematics again at a local
University. One of my Calculus students
was the mother of four at a private high
school and prevailed upon me to teach a
course there. Loved it, and am now teaching four courses there.
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