Why Paintball is a sport.


I believe paintball is a sport because it takes hard work, skill, and decent training to make it through a paintball game without getting hit. Many people say paintball is not a sport, because the point is to run around the battlefield shooting each other with capsules of paint. Though if that is your opinion on it, you are looking at paintball the wrong way. Now lets look at basketball, if it was new and wasn't around for years, people would look at it like throwing a ball through a ring and seeing who could do that better; paintball is new, the guns alone have only been around since 1981. So just because this sport is new, does that mean it doesn't count? Basically my point is paintball needs to be taken more seriously as a legitimate sport in this country.


I know a lot of people out there disagree with me. They probably think it hasn't been around long enough to be a sport, well its actually been around for more than 10-20 years. I have personally searched through forum after forum on the internet and read what people think of paintball. 2. Well, I will say, you do not to be buffed up and working out every day of the week like a football player, because a few of this sport's main requirements is agility, and decent hand-and-eye coordination. Another thing you may say is, its not the valid list of sports or its just people shooting one another. Now if thats what you think, then heres some info, you don't see it on the sports list cause its counted number three for 'extreme' sports. And you are right in some ways, we do need to run, and we do need to shoot, running to dodge and become a hard target, shooting so your team or you don't lose. But I would argue that paintball is a sport because it does involve allot of physical activity and skill.


First of all, paintball is a sport because it involves and requires well developed skills. To be able to get somebody out you need to have decent hand and eye coordination, otherwise you may be just shooting into blank air and wasting ammo. You will also need some pretty good agility and you may also want to be good at dodging, because when you're out there and they let you go full auto or use burst, you will need to be running as fast as you can or dodging the paintball when moving from hideout to hideout on the battlefield. According to Players Club paintball, "Why do we call it a sport? It takes teamwork, physical agility, and most importantly, mental agility. You have to adapt to ever-changing situations, to differing courses, different players and varying weather conditions." So as you can see, paintball requires a lot of skills.

There is also one more thing you will need to be-able to do when playing paintball, knowing how to show decent teamwork, and how to get along with others. Many people think paintball is not a team sport, when in fact, team work is one of the keys to success in this sport. By what John Michaels says on paintballtactics.net "Teamwork is the core of paintball tactics and strategies. A team with effective team cohesion, communication, and coordination will be able to beat their opponents nine times out of out of ten regardless of other factors..". With that in mind one clearly has to be able to get along with others and be able to stragedize/plan out things with others.


In concluion, paintball is a sport. It requires just as many skills as football, basketball, hockey, soccer, and more, such as teamwork, hand and eye coordination, physical agility, and mental agility, there are a few others that aren't listed too. Maybe some day paintball will be more commen than football; After all paintball is being made into an olympic sport/event around the year 2010.