Not only had I been captaining a team, driving them to practice three times a week (not that it was that hard. These guys wanted to be as good as they could be.) . I'd also developed a team ranking system, was writing for three paintball publications and put in occassional time as head referee, head scorekeeper and whatever else at a lot of tournaments around the country.

The ranking system I developed was an 'open' system. Any tournament which sent in their results was included. It also allowed the teams a chance to provide feedback about the events - and this was giving teams their first opportunity to have any true input into how the games were played.

Parallelling my own downard spiral was that of the national tournament scene. Fewer and fewer teams were attending, entry fees were rising, everyone felt that the quality of reffing was abysmal, and accusations of fixing and collusion between teams and promoters abounded. The big teams - the ones which travelled the country - were seriously thinking about giving up national play in favor of regionalized leagues.

Obviously I wasn't the only one who was feeling down. Following a major national event I decided to quit the game. It was just becoming too hard to keep on getting up for what usually turned out to be a disappointment. After about three months of allowing my gear to gather dust, several teammates persuaded me to back out for practice. At the end of that day, I decided I needed to make a decision: I could either give up playing forever, or I could do something about the problem.

Two weeks later I began calling teams around the US, asking them to attend a meeting which was scheduled for November, in Chicago. I'd gone through my ranking lists and had selected the top 24 travelling teams. These were the toughest competitors and the folks who were spending the most money to compete. If anyone had an interest in fixing things, it was bound to be these guys.

I called names you may be familiar with: Ironmen, All Americans, Aftershock, FL Terminators, Master Blasters, Wild Geese, Bushwackers, TX Bushmasters, Storm, Annihilators, Bad Company, Constant Pursuit, Express and many others.

I asked them to attend an open meeting to discuss the state of national play and to see if together we might not be able to do something about it.

At the time, most people involved in paintball were either predicting a miserable meeting at which nothing would be accomplished - or actively against the teams getting together. To this day I believe that many of the teams attended more out of 'fear' than out of a desire to actually come. Fear of what, I'm not sure; perhaps the fact that something might be done without their input.

By the time the meeting actually occurred, 19 teams were in attendance, as were three national tournament promoters and members of the paintball press.

It turned out to be an historic meeting. After an initial period of throwing feelings around the room we all quickly decided that the only solution to our collective problems was to form a league, and we got down to the business of scheduling events, creating budgets, discussing rules and all of the other minutae.

Several things were clear from the beginning: We had all hated having the fifteen player format taken away - we weren't about to allow the ten player format to disappear. We needed better reffing. We needed better rules and we needed to gather industry support.

That didn't prove as difficult as it might sound. I'd realized from the beginning that the only common interest that everyone in the paintball industry had was the teams: retailers were on or sponsored teams, manufacturers were on or sponsored teams, fields were owned by teams - and so on. By making the teams the central focus, we pulled the entire rest of the paintball industry along with us.

The first event we held was, for the time, a major success - and we've been rolling ever since.

The name of the league was chosen to resemble the word 'nipple'. There was only one suggestion for a name at the original meeting - the National Paintball League - which was ammended to include the word 'professional' , despite the fact that many of us felt that if you needed to add the word professional to the name, you weren't - and pronouncing it nipple was just a natural evolution. However, I did manage to pass a rule which states that the league will never create acronyms which can pronounced so they sound like other body parts... ***

The National Professional Paintball League (NPPL) is now in its fourth season. We've held five tournaments a year since 1993, plus 3 already completed in 1996 - 18 events - and we've been directly responsible for major changes in the paintball industry. The league's 'bring your own paint' policy was responsible, in some small way, for lowering paint prices for everyone who plays.

We opened tournaments up to all companies in the industry: in 1996, every single major US paintball manufacturer is a sponsor of the league - due largely to our 'no favored status' sponsorship program. We've introduced a higher standard for officiating and for tournament rules, we've preserved the ten player format (we've actually fostered the growth of many new ten player teams) and have given the teams a level of repesctability that they've never had before.

But its not without its problems. At the current time there are many serious issues which face the league. While many other leagues, series and countries have requested out rules, many have difficulty implementing the 1-for-1 rule (our penalty system which removes players to serve penalties). Their reffing is just not up to it in many cases. At the same time, the NPPL itself is facing increasing dissatisfaction with the 'teams reffing teams' system. Suspicion of collusion and game fixing are increasing.

There's also the matter of sponsorship. We've tried any number of things to draw in outside firms, and have made a little headway - but not the millions we've been looking for. Industry sponsors are beginning to regard the league as a 'drain' on their resources.

We've run into conflict over our contracts with the promoters (a smaller and shrinking pie does that to people) - most of whom are team reps as well, which has created its own degree of suspicion.

The league's major strengths have turned out to be its biggest weaknesses as well. The good people, the ones who know how to get things done and who care about making the league a success, are also the people who everyone thinks have hidden agendas. No one wants to give anyone enough power to effect necessary change - when that's exactly what is necessary.

However, despite all of this, I truly believe that the league will survive and eventually flourish. As time goes by, more and more countries will adopt the rules standards and organizations similar to NPPL will be formed. The US itself will achieve greater and greater conformity, the teams will continue to solidfy and we'll find solutions to our problems - more out of necessity than from forethought - but if we continue to move forward, who cares?

I hope that this piece has given everyone an idea of what the NPPL is about and where its going, and hopefully has helped provide some insite into the benefits of a formalized national league.

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