Welcome the NMU paintball team at Northern Michigan University. This team was one of two that recently appeared on Google News on January 21st. NMU was featured in an article that appeared in the NorthWind Online Student newspaper.
http://media.www.thenorthwindonline.com/media/storage/paper1202/news/2010/01/21/Entertainment/Paintball.Club.Strives.For.Recognition-3856059.shtmlThe article that appeared in the NorthWind Online was enough to spark our interest in making an effort to contact the team for something of a followup interview. Enter Nikolas Boyle, Team Captain and the man that we managed to trek down and ask a few questions of.
How long has the NMU Team been together competing? How many on the roster could be considered veteran players?
The NMU Paintball team has been around since August of 2008. This year has been our first year competing at the tournament level. Last year was an organizing year, getting players and forming the team itself. On our roster I would say we have 6 “veteran” tournament players that have proven their skills both on and off the field. The remainder of the roster is made up of very hard working “rookies” who have all played paintball before have not played tournament paintball. Next season we have two new recruits joining our team, one from the PSP and another from the Millennium Cup.
As far as Team Management …. how many of you manage the team? (I understand there are three co captains) why so many managing? and how many students are on the roster?
Management of the team is built around the “Student Club” structure here at NMU. Myself, I am the president and captain of organization. I run everything the organization does and steer the team. I have the final say in everything the club does from fundraising and team dues to spending money for team gear and tournaments. The Vice-President and captain Brian St. Amour is the most experienced player on the team and our connection to the paintball community. After playing with Brian on a few practice trips over the last year I gave him a “C” because he works harder to help the other players around him than anyone else on the team. He is a true asset to the team and deserved to be recognized for his hard work. The third captain is Randy Loveless, he is in charge of the team’s new web page (nmupaintball.com) and helps with finding sponsors and brings an extremely high enthusiasm to the team. He has worked hard to help me build up this organization after joining a year ago and knows a great deal about the sport. He also received his “C” after proving his value to the organization.
Currently there are 17 registered tournament players on our roster.
The NMU Team was recently showcased on The North Wind Online Student Newspaper of the Northern Michigan University….. was it simply a common interest story or was there something more that brought about gaining the attention of the newspaper?
The article done by the North Wind Student Newspaper was done as a complete
surprise to me. I was contacted the week prior about doing an interview about what problems the paintball team has been facing as we fight for recognition from the university. The university does not distinguish the difference between a paintball marker and an actual gun (our biggest problem) it is feared that one of our players would go “rouge” in the wake of NIU and Virginia Tech. As a team we want to be able to purchase a field to practice on, and with everything we need for a new field we are talking around 7 grand and that’s a lot of money that we just don’t have, one reason why we want the university’s help. We also want to find a place indoors because the winters here can stretch from October to April on a bad year. The cold isn’t too bad but the 300+ inches of snow a year makes a winter field out of the question. I’m sure you know how that goes living in the great white north. The second reason we need the university’s help is to assist us in the cost of paying for tournaments. Sponsors help, however if we truly want to become competitive we need help to grow the team within the university.
The article itself mentions sponsorship courtesy of the NMU Reserve Officers Training Corp with a supply of various camouflage apparel. Does the team do both speedball and woodsball?….whereabouts is the teams normally found enjoying paintball?
Yes we are excited to announce that we just signed a sponsorship deal with the NMU ROTC to sponsor us for 2010. They purchased ad space on our jerseys and pit shirts. Both our tournament and woods ball jerseys feature the Army’s new digi camo design and have both the Army and ROTC logos all over them. The teams are actually two different teams within one organization similar to how NASCAR teams operate. We normally travel to our sponsor field in Wallace Michigan that is run by paintballer187.com, were both teams can play. We are looking to get a woods ball as well as a tournament field course closer to home so we can host events for both teams.
