Paintball is a game in which players on one team seek to eliminate those on an opposing team by marking them with a water-soluble dye capsules from air guns.
It can be a fun and exciting sport, and Florida A&M University is planning to bring it to the campus.
Paintball is a growing sport that reaches many people. There are magazines, such as Face Full and Splat, completely dedicated to the sport.
There are also Web sites such as paintball.com featuring subjects such as Greg Hastings’ PlayStation 2 game, “Tournament Paintball Max’d.” The site also has the latest in guns and gear that people interested in the sport can research, read reviews on or buy.
FAMU’s Outdoor Adventures Program is bringing paintball to the students.
“A Rattler in My Sight” is a paintball event presented by the OAP. The event will be held in January when students come back from the winter break.
Officials said this is the first year in some time that paintball is being offered to students at FAMU.
“We’ve done some research, and this is the first time someone has brought paintball to our students in a very long time,” said Harvey Hagins, program director of the Outdoor Adventures Program.
The paintball event will be held on either the second or third Saturday after the break.
Hagins said the event had to be rescheduled.
“The event was originally planned for Dec. 2, but because I was out sick, the paintball event has been pushed back to January after the break,” Hagins said.
There are already students that have or are planning to sign up for this event.
“Right now, we have about 35 people signed up to go,” Hagins said.
Students that plan to attend the event said they have different reasons for going.
“I know about the paintballing because I work at the (recreational) center,” said Gregory Bradford, a senior health science student from Orlando. “I think it would be fun.”
Kierre Black, a third-year pharmacy student from Youngstown, Ohio, said: “I’m going. I used to always paintball back home.” Some students are not as experienced as Black is about paintballing.
“I plan on going. I’ve never been paintballing before,” Bradford said.
Participants will carpool to the Tallahassee Paintball Park and, for $35, receive admission to the event, carbon dioxide for the rental gun, a mask and 500 paintballs.
Although paintballing is the current feature offered by OAC, it is not the only activity that is offered by the program.
“The program here offers many events among paintball, such as our graduation cruise that happens every year in May,” Hagins said. “We have a ski trip that is held every year in February. We go horse back riding, and there is our annual rattlesnake round-up that we always make it a necessity to attend because we are the Rattlers.”
Anyone interested in the paintballing event can sign up at the Campus Recreation Center.
For other questions about volunteering to drive in the carpool or anything else about the event, students can contact Harvey Hagins at (850) 561-2655.