Question about US vs Europe

[raehl]

Originally posted by Mark
By definition, a team is ROOKIE if they have no more than one player who has played NPPL Novice and one player who has played NPPL Amateur, or if they don't have an Amateur, no more than three players who have played NPPL Novice. This straight from Lane, as I had a good conversation with him to be absolutely sure my team was eligible for rookie since while most of us havn't played NPPL before, many of us are going on 4+ years of tourney ball. posted by raehl


So you wanted to play at a level that by your own previous posting would make you count as a "sandbagger"?

How do you figure? I'm not playing myself personally (not that it would matter). One player on the team has played one NPPL Novice tournament. The rest have never played NPPL, and about half have not even played 10-man. Explain to me again how we're "sandbagging"? My point in the original post was that NPPL/PSP is *NOT* designed around NEW teams. NPPL/PSP Rookie is like Major League Baseball Rookie. It means new to the league, NOT new to paintball, because new paintball players arn't going be playing 10-man, much less 10-man at $175/pop in entry fees. Thus while our players have 1-7 years of experience, we're still "rookies" in the NPPL/PSP sense of the word.

- Chris

 

[raehl]

On the college teams note...

Actually, University of Illinois has been the National Champions every year, three years running. Purdue has gotten 2nd two years in a row. That's not the whole story though - some of the players on UofI's top squad now were on the squad that got last place 2 years earlier. Turnover doesn't necessitate doing poorly. Although talking about "moving up" divisions in college paintball is somewhat silly since there is only one division.

What marks the programs that consistently field teams in american college paintball are strong recreational programs coupled with open teams that practice a lot. Half of UofI's team didn't play paintball until they joined the recreational club. They let anyone join the team, and fielded 20 players on 4 squads at Nationals this year. 3 of those made the semis. Purdue put 3 of 3 teams in the semis. They're able to do it because they drag people in and make them practice a LOT and do a LOT of coaching. Most people who play paintball play maybe once or twice a month, and don't get much coaching in the process either. UofI practices up to twice a week, and new players get drilled on how to play. That means in a year you can easily get a player to the skill level of a lot of other players who have been playing for three or more years. Hell, I went from playing my first tournament to being on the National Championship team in under a year. Not because I was especially talented, but because I practice a lot and got a lot of good coaching.

There's also something to be said for attitutude - it's a hell of a lot easier to teach a player and integrate them to a team when they come to you knowing nothing than if they come to you convinced that they're "the ****" and no one better be telling them how to play. On top of that, when you do get a new player, if they're a freshman, you have them for at LEAST four years. Assuming they don't drop out of school, they're not going anywhere. Having people play for 4 years with the same people makes for much better teams as well.


We'll see how things go for the team at the Chicago Open. Half the players are going to be the UofI squad, so hopefully we can stick them on one side of the field so they can use their familiarity and everyone else will mesh fairly well and some damage will be done. Maybe we'll all get hosed, who knows. (We didn't do so hot at Challenge Cup, but we were playing with 9 all day, in Amateur, and I was on the field... all not good things for winning. ) We did get sportsmanship though. We may not win, but we are going to be THE cleanest team out there. We definitely play the white area.


- Chris

 

[Liz]

Chris

I think you've shown where one of the main differences are between US & UK paintball.
"UofI practices up to twice a week.....", well I don't know many people who could afford to practice once a week let alone twice, or have the time. An unassisted team, and believe me most UK teams don't have assistance, will pay around £40 for a case of paint plus a £10 walk on fee every time they train, so you're talking about £60 a week before you travel anywhere or play a tournament, or upgrade your kit etc etc etc. Many students have less than this to live on, and some of that is loans that have to be paid back once they start working. I know people who have to save up for half the year so they can afford to go to one overseas Millennium event. Jeez, and you want the international tourneys to cost even more!

 

[raehl]

Well...

That's not a difference between US and UK paintball. That's a difference between college paintball and most other teams.

College paintball clubs generally play pretty close to at cost... $5 to cover air and anywhere from $35-$50 cases depending on what they're shooting and who is backing them.

The important thing to note there though is why: College clubs do more work than most other teams. While I'm betting most European teams conist of the team, and most US teams do as well, college clubs consist of the team plus 10-300 recreational players whose business goes where they tell it to, plus outings from other campus groups (frats, other student organizations, church groups, etc) who do the same, plus help they themselves offer fields from reffing to setup to whatever. We have college clubs who have wholesale accounts because they have the membership to go through that much product and we have clubs who run scenario and big games and tournaments as fundraisers. (West Point, for example, has been running one per semester going on 8 years now.)

If someone else is paying too much to practice, in my opinion, it's a sob story. While the college environment certainly lends itself to the whole club thing more, there's nothing that says a group of people in a town or city can't form a club and do exactly the same thing that a college club does - basically create and steer new players (i.e. money) and see a reduction in their own costs in return. I know a few non-college groups who have done so.

If you're going to be just 5-10 guys who want to show up and practice, you're going to pay a lot more than 5-10 guys who organize a club with some buying power. College clubs can practice once or twice a week because they put in the work to make that opportunity available.

So anyway, it's not a difference between US and Europe. It's a difference between being more than a team with their hand out and being a team with your hand out. Sometimes you have to make your own opportunity.


- Chris

 

[Mark]

Chris

The gist of your arguement was as I read it that if you ain't good enough don't go..and if you can't take the lack of prizes..um...don't go and you were complaining about the lack of movement from teams upwards or in some cases downwards and then you had a conversation with Lane to confirm that "you" (your team) could play at the lowest level, despite the knowledge that "your" team had outside tournament exp. now this just strikes me of double standards on the one hand you want higher fees on the other you want simplified prize packages and then on the other (?) you actually want to play in a league that you have or at the very least seem to have serious issues with, and to this end you wanted to enter at the lowest level. My own team played the 5 man at Am level after taking our standing (at the time) in the UK...oh boy what a difference in the level of play but we went into as it turned out a higher division than we were capable of, to that end we couldn't drop down a division when we played 10 man the following year (for the first time within the NPPL) due to the fact that we had players who had played at the higher level in previous years at 5 man....we still remain at that level...win the odd game but enjoy the event, of course we would love to be on the podium thanking all the sponsors but "hey" it ain't gonna happen, (well not yet) and at least we don't get rolled in seconds and if we were able to play at the lower level, where would the enjoyment be in kicking the hell out of other teams just to get on the podium...we want to get on that stage on merit not going into an (on paper) easier division. Take the lumps and you will learn, shoot "fools" and your head swells


Note the use of "fools" isn't a reflection upon anyone who plays in the lower divisions just that for the purpose's of this post it helps to explain the idea of playing within a division that you can progress through.

 

[raehl]

I think you'er missing the point...

First, I was NOT complaining about the lack of movement of teams. I think most teams are playing right where they belong - if they were better, they'd move up to get the better prizes/sponsorships out of their own greed. There's only so much room for pro teams and only so much room for am teams and everyone else plays novice. Do a lot of novice players wish some teams in their division would move up? Sure. Are they goig to say, hell, believe, that those teams that are better than they are are really "Amateur" teams? You bet. Are they full of it? Absolutely. On what basis are they making the decision that team X is Amatuer and not Novice? It seems every team wants the line between am and novice drawn right above them so they can win the novice prizes. It's like driving - anyone who drives slower than you is a pain in the ass and anyone who drives faster is a right moron. Anyone who plays worse than you belongs in your division and anyone who plays better than you should move up. (I don't mean you in particular, but many people complaingin about teams "playing down".) There is *ONE* thing that determines which teams are in which division:

Teams will play in the division where they are likely to see the best return on their money. The Amatuer teams are the teams where it makes sense for THEM to play amatuer. If you want to get teams to move up from novice, reduce the novice prize package and increase the Am prize package.


As for us and rookie...

There's virtually nobody in NPPL/PSP that doesn't have outside tournament experience. You just don't go from rookie player to NPPL/PSP 10-man. I think there's a lot of confusion as to what "rookie" means in NPPL/PSP lingo - it does *NOT* mean "players with less than a year of tournament experience". That's not what the rule is, that's not what the INTENT was. Rookie got created to let new teams play NPPL/PSP events without playing against teams who had already done so who were playing in a division where teams are expected to play all 5 tournaments.

The rules for rookie are "No more than either 3 NPPL Novice players or One NPPL Novice and One NPPL Am and your team may not play more than 2 tournaments and World Cup." That's us. Most of our players have not played more than one 10-man period, only half have played together before, and all but one have never played NPPL/PSP. According to everyone I've talked to, rookie is EXACTLY the division we belong in. I highly doubt there are going to be any other teams in the Rookie division with much less experience than us - I'd be VERY surprised to see a 10-man team of players with less than a year of experience show up. Those kind of teams just don't play NPPL events.

We're playing rookie because it was a division created to let new teams play 2 events and then world cup one year before playing Novice the next year. That's us.


- Chris