JLooney.com

OK, I didn’t really shoot Randy Couture, but I did play paintball with him this weekend. In fact, he was on my team.

Get comfy, and I will regale you with the epic tale of how I came to play paintball with 5-time UFC world-champion mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter Randy Couture.

The Plan
A few months back my friend Mo at Special Ops Paintball invited me to an event he was putting together in the middle of October in Mesquite, Nevada. It sounded cool, but I didn’t think too much more about it. Then Megan mentioned that our niece had a softball tournament in Mesquite about halfway through October.

“Well!” I said to myself “This could work out pretty well!”

“Damn straight!” said myself.

So the plan was set. The first softball game of the tournament was on Friday at 3:00, so Megan decided to ride down with her sister, and I left right after work on Friday.

Flying solo like a bat out of hell
Now, I can’t recollect as to if I’ve ever made a road trip longer than about two hours while flying solo. It was interesting. Megan was worried about me falling asleep or getting pulled over, I was worried about losing my damn mind from boredom. Well, with a Sobe No Fear energy drink, some beef jerky and Goldfish crackers, and the sound of my own voice singing at the top of my lungs to an epic playlist on the iPod and the volume all the way up, I did just fine.

And I did it in record time, too – 3 hours and 47 minutes, no stops (except for once, on the freeway in Provo for some moron that hit some other idiot. This was mostly thanks to my 100 mph rabbit I found just outside of Nephi. I was able to trail him (about a half-mile back at all times) all the way to St. George.

Now the really cool part about making such good time was that I arrived right before the last softball game started, so I got to see her play, which was really cool ’cause she’s pretty good and really fun to watch. After the game we grabbed some Mickey D’s and headed to the room at Casablanca.

Playing Paintball in the frickin’ desert
Now before I go too much further, I really want you to get an idea of just how much fun it can be to play paintball. I play woodsball, which is plenty different from the speedball stuff you see on ESPN from time to time. In speedball, you’re working with small teams on a small course with plenty of obstacles, or bunkers, and a game usually only lasts a couple of minutes.

In woodsball, you’re typically on a course that’s a couple of acres in size working with the natural terrain as well as some man-made bunkers, and the teams can range in size from a dozen or so to hundreds (really). I probably like woodsball because I don’t have to depend on your speed (which I have surrendered to my age and eating habits), but can use strategy and planning to prevail.

Let me give you just a quick glimpse of what it’s like. It’s kinda like a really extreme version of grown-up tag, but you only have to get close enough to shoot the other guy (not actually tag him), which is about 30-40 yards on a good day. And let me tell you, when you know you have to be that close, and that the other fella is basically hunting for you the same way you’re hunting for him, it’s a real adrenaline rush. Also, considering that a paintball is moving at around 285 feet-per-second (almost 200 mph!), it hurts like a mother-bitch when you get hit, so I do my best to avoid getting shot while at the same time taking out as many guys as I can. Bottom line? Paintball is good times.

Why would I, a self-proclaimed “indoors-kinda-guy” do this?
Well, number one, because even though I AM an indoors-kinda-guy, I really love to play paintball. And number two, this was for a very good cause. You see, Randy Couture is an Army Veteran and has founded a charitable organization called the Extreme Couture G.I. Foundation, which raises money and awareness for those troops wounded in action and their families. It’s a non-profit and their work is pretty cool, so it really was a pleasure to be a part of this tournament.

Now there are a few problems with playing paintball in the desert…
Not knowing where the field was, I decided that it’d be best to carpool with Mo and the boys. Well, they’d had a pretty late and raucus night, and the 7:00 am first game was just a tad to early for them, and I pretty much agreed. We left their hotel room at the Oasis around 9:30. As I expected, we drove out to the middle of the damn desert. The course was in an area with plenty of thick brush cover and lots and lots of sand. As we pulled in to the parking lot we saw a row of tents for registration, vendors and sponsors. Some of Mo’s buddies already had a shade cover set up, so we just parked next to them. As we started gearing up, one of the refs let us know that the morning games had just ended and the next game didn’t start until 1:30. So naturally, we dropped our gear and got some sno-cones, burgers and hot dogs and kicked back in the shade for awhile until game time.

Now there are a few problems with playing paintball in the damn desert, the first of which is that you’re playing paintball in the damn desert! The sand makes it hard to run, which I don’t do a whole lot of anyway on account of I get winded after three steps and have a heart attack after 10 steps. But nobody did much running. This game was all strategy and tactics – finding the right angles on the opposing forces, flanking them, and depending on marksmanship to get the job done.

Also, because of the heat, the paintballs weren’t breaking. You see, a paintball is a fine balance of strength and breakability. You want the gelatin shell that holds the paint fill to be just strong enough to withstand the rigors and pressure of being fired from the paintball gun, or marker, but brittle and fragile enough to break on contact even at long ranges after it’s slowed considerably. When the gelatin gets warm, it becomes just slightly flexible and won’t break easily. The result is frustrating for the shooter, because unless the ball breaks and splatters paint all over your opponent, they’re still in the game. It’s also extremely painful for the one on the receiving end. You see, when a paintball breaks, it dispels quite a bit of mass and energy with it, much like the “crumple zones” on your car absorb the energy of an impact. If the ball doesn’t break it’s like getting hit with a rock at 200 mph.

The damage looks something like this:

And being in the desert, even in October, it’s effing hot! It was 95 degrees outside and just unbearable.

The game we played
All that said, the game itself was pretty cool. The object was to get our blue flag into the red base on the opposite end of the course. Simple, right? Except for the aforementioned difficulty running in the sand. Oh, that, and the 60 guys on the red team standing in our way with thousands of rounds of ammo. We basically split our forces and left one small contingent to defend our base against their attack (they were trying to do the same thing we were – post their flag in our base), sent a large force up the middle for a frontal attack, and two smaller teams along the perimeter to flank the main red force and take them out from the rear.

After crawling through 200 yards of brush we ran into the red forces team that was basically doing the same thing we were creeping along the perimeter and trying to flank us. With men taking cover in the brush on both sides of a dry riverbed, we slowly pushed forward by laying cover fire and leapfrogging forward. It was during one of these leap-frogs that I got taken out. Mo and Josh were playing forward, and the tricky part of this particular move was that we’d come to a bend in the riverbed. I had to run forward past the bend and hope there was some cover from what would most certainly be heavy enemy fire. My two forward guys did a great job of covering me, but the bend proved to be a tactical advantage for the red team. As soon as I had come forward in front of where Mo and Josh were able to lay fire, I got lit up. The worst part was I couldn’t even see where the fire was coming from because they were so far back in the brush. I got hit at least a dozen times that I know of, and only two of the paintballs broke. YEEEOOOWWWWCCHHH!!!

I have bruises on the knuckles of both hands (one of the most painful places to be hit in my opinion), my back, my hip, both arms and shoulders, and a particularly nasty gut shot. Check it out. The one on my back came well after I had called myself out and was walking away with my gun in the air. Lame.

After all was said and done, it was a really good game, and the blue team ended up winning thanks to Randy’s help at the last minute.

Respect for our troops
I suppose it’s kind of appropriate that this whole event was to benefit the Extreme Couture G.I. Foundation. I’ve really got a new admiration and respect for our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan right now. I spent 6 hours in the desert at around 95 degrees, mostly in the shade, with plenty of food and water and a frickin’ sno-shack serving sno-cones all day long. When I went into the game, which was only 40 minutes long, I walked in with about 15 lbs of gear and was bitching about how hot and sweaty I was and how tired I was already.

By contrast, our men and women in the middle eastern theater of war endure average temperatures of 120 degrees all day long, day after day, carry 40-70 lbs of gear, and are in mortal danger anytime they are engaged with the enemy and many times even when they’re not.

A sincere and heartfelt thanks to each and every one of you that have ever served in our nations armed forces. I appreciate your strength and dedication.

Did you know you can buy a flask at Wal*Mart?
Neither did I! After the game as we were driving back, the other guys decided they didn’t want to pay $7 a shot at the fights, so we stopped at Wal*Mart to pick up a flask and some booze. As soon as we walked in the door, I asked Josh “where do you even begin to look for a flask?” Without missing a beat he replies “Camping supplies”. Seriously, how does someone KNOW this?

The fights
The Casablanca set up a massive white tent, complete with air conditioning, food service and a full bar, out in their north parking lot. There were 14 fights on the ticket, and with the exception of the 205+ class, they were all really good. A few of the lighter guys were real scrappers and there were two fights that ended in straight-up knockouts, one within the first 20 seconds!

After the fights they had an after party, which I just wasn’t in to. Megan was back from the game (Lauren’s team placed third overall!) and I just wanted to be with her.

And that about wraps it up. We had brunch at the hotel before leaving (mashed potatoes, cottage cheese, biscuits and gravy, a blintz, custom omelet, salad with fresh blue cheese crumbles, eggs benedict, sausage, and three cokes), then hit the road. 4 hours and 8 minutes later, we’re home.

Home is nice, too.