PaintballX3 Magazine June 2014 | Page 56

56 8 Guns of Navarone: There’s something to be said about being first. Navarone was that trend-setting team that was the first ever to secure a paintball company sponsorship (in 1987, Line SI Bushmaster markers and JT Racing, later changed to JT Paintball). Navarone’s roster featured captain Andy Greenwell, Bob Schryver, Paul Grimmy, Mike Gibbons, Bill Homa, Lucas Foster and about 20 other Riverside, California area early paintball players. Navarone was broken up into two large squads: Apocalypse (second squad), Armageddon (top squad). Navarone began playing tournament paintball as a team in 1986 and won nearly every event they entered until 1988. In 1987 they won the Air Pistol Open National Championships and the Pittsburgh June 2014 February 2014 Skirmish Pursuit Tournament, as well as the other three events they entered that year (there were only a handful of yearly paintball tournaments in the mid-1980s). So when you consider that they were almost unbeatable in their day, putting Navarone on this list is a no-brainer. Other Navarone notes of interest: Navarone’s motto was, “We will take on anyone, anywhere, anytime with 12gram.” And clearly in the pump-gun, 12-gram C02 days they were the best. “Constant air” C02 and the eventual industry-wide conversion to semiautomatic markers led many of Navarone’s players to leave the game, weakening their roster and quickly rendering the team non-competitive by the early 1990s.