Nexus are without doubt, our dominant team, and rightly so, they have some of our best players with the likes of Tommy P, Jason Wheeler, Dunny and Leigh; And I think within that group of 4, they are not the archetypal pro player in that they have lost sight of who they actually are, and are not extremely grateful for any support they might get.
I don't know Jason well but I know the other 3 extremely well and those guys were always humble and prepared to help other players and as such, I would certainly hold these guys up for our younger players to aspire to ... I have the utmost respect for what they could do on the field, and as importantly, off.
The irony is, they are all, model pro players.
And from what little I know of Jason Wheeler, I would with no hesitation, put him in with this other three ... he is of the same ilk of person / player.
When I look across the UK scene at the moment, I can only see one deserving pro team, and that is Nexus.
Dave Younbgblood has invested much into this team and it's a shrewd and also, justified investment because Nexus are without doubt, one of the best teams in Europe, and Europe is a huge market now in relation to the Stateside market.
Years ago, European sales were but a fraction of the US's, but now ... things have drastically changed, tilting the balance of dollar-power significantly toward us Euros.
I'd love to see some of the Nexus players go real pro ... because?
well, I think true talent and loyalty deserve reward .. and those guys already mentioned are thoroughly deserving, that's for sure.
Clint Moore once told me on the phone, he was captain of the best team the UK has ever had which kinda made me wince a little because I had always believed that it wasn't what anybody on the team thought that defined a team, it was the teams they played against that defined them.
In other words, the competitive environment, each and every team finds themselves in, and of course, the subsequent results in that environment, are the defining qualities one looks for when assessing relative values.
A little research may well be appropriate sometimes.
I wish we did have real pro players over here, the US has them, but even then, only a handful, and I mean a handful.
The recent financial downturn in the paintball economy and the overall economy, has massively cut the support the pro teams were getting and therefore cut down the possibilities for players to achieve pro status.
But what really bashed the cr@p out of it all was the failure to get paintball on TV, this had everybody regretting the somewhat untimely investments they made into pro teams and players.
I say 'untimely' because most of the industry had gambled on the fact TV was inevitable and therefore felt honour-bound to jump on the TV bandwagon ... it would have been 'rude not to' was their philosophy it seems.
Ridiculous amounts of dosh were being bandied around at one stage.
I can remember being offered well over $100 grand just to leave Dye at the end of our first season (2003) - it was an insane amount of money and an insane time to be around pro paintball I can tell ya, truly insane.
I subsequently declined the offer by the way but can remember a certain player in my team at the time advising me to 'take the offer' and leave Dye ... it tunned out, the notion of loyalty was only ever adhered to in this guy's family when it revolved around the acquisition of money .... disloyalty and dishonesty, seemingly inextricably linked around the Kingston friary.
Sh!t, I have wandered slightly ... Dusty, apologies mate, I get carried away sometimes ... please don't delete it mate
