Paintball team wins tournament

By Chris Furnari

When junior Eugene Bowers began playing paintball in high school he had no idea that he would one day play the sport in college, let alone for a national championship.

But that's what Bowers, who started Santa Clara's paintball team, will be doing this weekend when he and five other members of the team travel to Dallas, Tex., for the National Collegiate Paintball Championships.

The team, ranked No. 21 in the nation, will be competing against 42 teams from around the country, including UC San Diego, Cal State San Marcos and UC Irvine, who won the national tournament last year. More are expected to sign up before the tournament gets underway.

The opportunity to play in the national collegiate event isn't something Bowers envisioned when he first picked up a paintball gun.

"I started first playing with some guys in a friend's backyard (in high school)," said Bowers.

In his junior year at Bellarmine College Preparatory, Bowers was looking for a job and decided to apply at a relatively new paintball venue in San Jose. Bowers started a job as a referee at Santa Clara Paintball, a field located at the Santa Clara County fairgrounds.

"I started watching some of the teams play and thought it was pretty cool," said Bowers. "I started playing a lot more and was approached by a team to play competitively."

Bowers joined a five-man team sponsored by California Paintball supply before joining a semi-professional team named Team Exclusive.

When Bowers arrived at Santa Clara, he was still playing with the semi-professional team and traveling across the country for tournaments. He would eventually leave the team to focus on school and his involvement with the ROTC program.

Bowers then started a paintball club at Santa Clara in his sophomore year, which would serve as more of an informational group than as a team.

"We basically just answered any questions that people might have about equipment or just paintball in general," said Bowers.

After hearing about the new club sports program this year, Bowers applied to become an official tier C club sport. Once accepted, he wasted no time recruiting players.

Currently, the team has seven members and is slowly moving up the collegiate ranks in the National Collegiate Paintball Association, which includes 63 colleges across the country.

While the team has been together for under a year, they scored a tournament victory in Huntington Beach over spring break.

"The win was huge," said Bowers. "The guys on the team were pretty excited because it took so much time and effort for them to get where they are today."

The national ranking wasn't the only thing Santa Clara boasted after placing first in a field of 12 teams. Santa Clara also earned two free paintball guns from one of their sponsors as part of an incentive for winning the tournament.

"We are in the process of actually selling the guns in order to raise money for the trip to nationals," said Bowers.

Bowers remains positive about Santa Clara's chances at the national tournament, despite the team's youth and inexperience in tournament play.

"I think we can do well in the tournament," said Bowers. "The win over spring break was huge for us and shows us that we can compete even though for many of the guys it's their first year playing competitively."

The team has been practicing every weekend since it first began earlier this year. They sometimes will travel a few hours away just to practice against tough competition.

"A lot of times we will drive to Lodi because so many good teams are playing there," said Bowers.

Paintball might also be one of the most expensive club sports on campus. A single team member can expect to pay roughly $80 for every practice session. The costs include travel and entry fees and the cost of paint. Equipment and gear can cost team members thousands of dollars just to get started.

Santa Clara is fortunate enough to have a few sponsors, which help minimize some of the costs associated with the sport.

"When you play every weekend, the little costs start to add up, so any money you can save really helps," said Bowers.

Contact Chris Furnari at (408) 551-1918 or cfurnari@scu.edu.