Cathleen London is not your typical paintball player. She is a divorced mother of two boys with an athletic background in Downhill Skiing with a plethora of other sports she played as recreation. After her divorce she wanted to get back into athletics and for the last three years she has been competing in triathlons, talk about being athletic to the extreme. Her boys are involved in her preparation and love that their mom is an athlete. Her younger son swims which is a grueling sport in its own right and her oldest son is a great runner (not his favorite sport) and they both enjoying biking. Along with the aforementioned sports they both have played baseball from a young age until this year, where they will be picking up lacrosse in the spring, basketball, swimming and skiing in the winter. An active family is about the biggest understatement when it comes to these guys.
So with all of these activities you may ask yourself when they picked up the sport of paintball, well paintball entered into the picture when her 14 year old came home from camp a few years earlier, and after trying it out once there he desperately wanted his birthday party to be paintball themed. With the minimum age being 10 he was informed he had to wait until his brother turned 10, now before you go thinking that is cruel and unusual punishment their birthdays are only 3 days apart and at the time they were turning 10 and 12 respectively.
So two years ago when they turned 10 and 12 the birthday party was hatched and mom and the two boys had a huge amount of fun. Fast forward to a year later and her oldest son was having his bar mitzvah so she rented the whole place for a party, with his whole class in attendance, and again she played right alongside her boys. There was a few more days here and there where they played, other days she just dropped off her older son to play with others. He got his first marker at his bar mitzvah from his uncle and traded up from there, showing the paintball bug bit him with ferocity.
December came and another birthday party, while getting ready Cathleen noticed a used 2008 Planet Eclipse Ego hanging on the wall and by the end of the day it found a new home in her hands, that marker and a pair of paintball pants birthed the transformation of Cathleen into a full blown baller.
It was a full month or so before they had a chance to play again, her using her new Ego and what a difference it made. Open play seemed to be a lot more fun with the Ego compared to using rentals and this thrilled her older son knowing she was getting more and more into the sport he came to love. They soon got an email about an event called the Combine in February at Boston Paintball, basically this is an introduction into tournament ball for her. Knowing how much her son would like this she signed them up. Drills, learning the game and slinging paint built up their family bond.
Not only did her son love the experience but she did also, and she won a mask. After leaving the event they were both certain they wanted to play tournament paintball. She started looking at a 3 man junior league that has two division, one for players 15 and under and the other with no age limit. Cathleen suggested to her son that he and a school mate sign up for the young gun league but he insisted he wanted to play with mom, talk about a heart warming feeling I bet.
So along with the 3 man team they also got invited to play on a 5 man team that was starting up, so they play in both leagues. Her younger son is their alternate on the 3 man team and will probably pit for the 5 man group.
She has since bought a scuba tank for practice and play at home along with 2 bunkers to run those drills. Doing these activities has built up a very strong bond between mother and sons, and Cathleen still cannot believe how much she enjoys shooting suckas out. Her first reaction when she went to Boston Paintball was to laugh when she saw everyone all geared up, she could not believe people took the game so seriously. But now here she is, geared up from head to foot with a full understanding for the love of the game now firmly entrenched within her soul. She sees parents at events and wishes they would get out there to play.
She played her first tournament last weekend and they took 3rd place, she couldn’t be more proud…
Name: Cathleen London
Age: 47
Occupation: Physician
Marker: Ego 08 and a pev’s limited edition ego 08
Home Field: Boston Paintball
Team: TriGunz and Ultimate Supremacy
We here at the Catshack Reports know and understand the love for the sport and also for the shared bond the game can build between parents and their children. I have been playing for ten years and my oldest son has been right alongside me most of the way. Parents, get out there with your kids. Play!
Paul Forcier
Cathleen London, you’re a fox!