It is truly amazing when we take a look at college athletics and see how many sports our University really does have. One that is very new and does not get a lot of press is the WVU Paintball Team. Most of you may not know this, but paintball is the second fastest growing extreme sport in the world and its popularity is growing every day in West Virginia. Last year a few WVU students formed the paintball club, which any student can participate on no matter what their skill level might be. From that club, the WVU Competitive Paintball Team was formed. Last year was a great time for the team to get its feet wet and learn all of the inner workings of the paintball game both on and off the field.
WVU competes in the NCPA (National Collegiate Paintball Association). This is a league that is made up of all college teams across the United States and has a current roster of over 100 schools that compete at the Class A and AA levels. WVU does battle with the likes of Pitt, Penn State, Miami of Ohio, Drexel, Maryland, Virginia Tech and many more.
WVU finished in the top 25 in the nation in Class AA which was great for a first year program. This year, the team had a 30 player tryout at Mountain Valley Paintball Park (www.mvppark.com) right outside of Morgantown and secured the services of two new coaches. The two new coaches, Sean Arthurs and Travis DonBullian, have been playing the sport as tournament players for over 15 years. With the new coaches, a new roster of players and new club leadership, WVU is currently ranked 15th in the nation and is hoping to crack the top 10 before season's end.
The team most recently competed at James Madison University and took home a second place finish and at the Frost Bowl in Greensburg, PA but did not finish in the top five.
The team is completely student run and they get no funding from the University so all monies used to compete are generated by the students. It is a growing program and is gaining a lot of popularity on the West Virginia University campus. This program is not only taking very talented players and letting them compete on a larger stage, it is also teaching them how to take on the responsibility of running a team. Many lessons are being learned by the players that they will be able to take with them into their professional worlds well after paintball is over.
If you would like to learn more about the team you can visit www.wvupaintball.com.
