PaintballX3 Magazine Paintball X3 Magazine March 2014 | Page 75
are you from?
and I’m from Lexington,
oter for a league known as
98 – 2010.
new paintball league
lk about your past. When
and what led you to
ntball in the winter of 1989.
nd a cousin of mine found
magazine called the Shot4 of them and a box of 20
alls. We played our first
t UPS delivered the gear.
oked from there. From
4 years was spent playMost of that time was also
-workers to this great new
as also a major arms race
d guns, upgraded to 12
n upgraded those pumps
pgraded to mechanical
grade that we sought out
ded up driving just shy of
l” store known as Actionowner, Randall McCollum,
first, the thought of stepplay wasn’t given much
eded a new challenge, and
te to come play at his field.
nce, as we had never realeam. It was also my first
paintball field. Continued
playing his big games and
n a new league he was
ng called the Virginia-North
n. After a season of
roup pretty much disbandnew team was playing Jeff
cuit. My team’s field was
75
set to host a Traumahead event the next year, when that
league fell through. That led directly to the creation of the
CFOA.
Josh: Do you still play paintball today?
Larry: When I can. Which isn’t nearly often enough.
When I do get to play, I dust off my trusty EMag and other
antiques. Those times normally find me at a scenario game
or just playing some woodsball.
Josh: You created and promoted the CFOA tournament
series. During its heyday it was the largest regional
tournament series in the world. What happened? Why
aren’t you there now?
Larry: Well, in a nutshell, the economy happened. Our
region of the country was particularly hit hard by the economic collapse. When everything went to crap, and gas
was approaching $5.00 a gallon, it really opened the doors
for folks on the outer fringe of what was once CFOA turf to
do a series that was more localized for their area teams.
The CFOA’s turf before the crash was all of the Carolinas,
northern Georgia, eastern Tennessee, and we even took an
event to Florida. When the crash happened, suddenly there
were new 5Man leagues in Georgia, Florida, North Carolina,
and Tennessee. Not to mention new Xball leagues in North
Carolina and Virginia, Tennessee and Kentucky. We spent
10 years showing everyone in our region how to run a successful series; it was only a matter of time before someone
took us to task. Once these smaller, more agile leagues
were able to chip away at our customer base, the heyday
was over. As the economic collapse lingered for a couple of
years, it really took its toll on the stores and fields within
the region. I studied the demographics of the CFOA every
year as a means of providing data to potential sponsors.
In the CFOA’s monster season of 2007, the player/team
base playing that season represented over 250 stores and
fields from around the region. By the time the 2010 season
started, that 250 stores and fields was reduced to less than
50. That’s more than two hundred fields and stores gone
forever thanks to the economy. Gone with them were the
teams they sponsored or supported.
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