CityView Magazine - Fayetteville, NC
Issue link: http://www.epageflip.net/i/677112
42 | May/June 2016 the pellets aren't filled with paint. Ac- cording to 17-year-old Alex Caldwell, who is an avid player of both, the lack of paint makes airso games more afford- able, but it also means that when a play- er is hit by an airso pellet, the player is expected to confess to their being hit, since there is no paint splatter to say so. "It is kind of on the honor-system," Caldwell said. While much of Black Ops Paintball's business is dedicated to hosting birth- day parties, providing space for busi- nesses to conduct bonding exercises and impromptu walk-on games, the park is also used for professional tour- naments, tournaments that sponsored players like Caldwell participate in. Caldwell, like Gienger, has been play- ing paintball from a very young age, and like Gienger, the game has become a way of life for him. "I started when I was 10. I went out for a birthday party with a friend and we went to an indoor field. Everyone got shut out. We played against a bunch of speedballers. But it was a lot of fun. It really got the adrenaline pumping," Caldwell said. "I got a job working at the park when I got older," he continues, "and basically every dime I make I put back into the sport." As a sponsored player, Caldwell says that he has been able to participate in matches across the United States and even outside the country. According to Gienger, this year the park is hoping to send one of their sponsored teams to an all-expenses paid tournament in Puerto Rico. "Hopefully our team will get to do that," Gienger said. "It's a pretty good gig." Besides parties and tournaments, Gienger makes the park available to the military, which he says regularly uses the space for exercises and games dur- ing the weekdays, generally when the field is typically closed to the public. Even before Gienger joined the mili- tary, he says he grew up studying mili- tary history, and even worked to gradu- ate high school early so that he could join the Army as soon as possible. e former service member says that the