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. WWW.PAINTBALLX3.COM