Making Of a Team. FAQs/???s

[sferencz]

Well i have been playing paintball for almost a year, thats not very long, i play with my locals paintball budies and people from school. I would have to say i am one of the top 3 players i have played with and i want to start a team... Only problem is, i dont know how to all that well. I know that a team must consist of a few things...
1)Communication
2)Formations
3)Practice
The only problems is, i dont know the best method of teaching my team to communicate, i dont know what to do with formations, and i dont know what all to practice. And i am sure alot of people feel the same way... So this thread is to help out with the team makers and players. post your questions and experiences on teams. Thanks

[TheZephyr]

Communication isn't the hard thing to learn, its learning to always be communicating that's the hard part. Your back players should be doing the majority of the talking, make sure they keep you well informed about the other team's positions and movements. Frontplayers should basically ask for cover when they need it, and ask your backplayers for information. Practice snap shooting a lot, hang a set of goggles from the top of a bunker, and practice snap shooting it, then make a dummy and practice shooting it from the sides. Where practice is concerned, the more your team plays together and works together, the more comfortable you will be with each other during big games, teamplay should be second nature after awhile.

[Peter A.]

boy, zeypher covered it all......umm for the communicating keep ur front players alert and constanly talking it up.back guys should cover the front guys and lay moocha paint down on the other team and bunker so ur front players can move.i suggest having back players move farther up as the front player does. make sure ur front guys work well with back and trust that guy.for practicin have diferent secnerios such as 2 on 1 or 2 on 3 and etc. practice snap shooting and break outs.i suggest having 2 tape runners 1 front or middle guy and 2 back if the field calls for it which most could have.also maybe make slang terms such as using baseball for positions like instead of saying go up the right tape say go to 1st base or my favorite move your arse

[sferencz]

Last night i went up to NorthEast in cleveland. They are a semi local paintball shop. This guys are great, they gave my 3 man team and i some great pointers and really helped us out. These guys have been playing paintball for 12 years and have tons of trouphies and crap they are awesome. They offered us some advice that i am going to take as soon as it comes. WAIT TO PLAY A TOURNY. INSTEAD, GO WATCH SOME TOUNRIES AND SEE HOW THEY WORK AND PLAY. My team has planned to goto the Columbus open or what ever its called in Jan. Also as team captain i decided we need to practce ALOT. We are practicing onc a week during the winter and twice a week during spring/summer. These proshop guys also offered to coach us and train us for free, all we have to do is show up at the field. not only that, since we need paint constantly for practice, they are giving us some good price breaks on proball. I reccomend taking a trip to your proshop and just hang out witht he guys in there and talk. i thnk were going to be off to a better start thanks to these guys.

[coolguy23]

paintball is fun.

[coolguy23]

the guys at northeast paintball is very helpfull. the first time i went in there, the guys were kinda scary. especially gary. but once you get them talking, they are very friendly and they have some cool stories. they are a great help

[coolguy23]

dont threaten the old guy, he keeps a gun in case of shoplifeters

[sferencz]

well our first team gathering is tommorrow... Tonight i am taking some notes on what to talk about and discuss with the team mates. I am going to start off with a speech discussing what to expect on the team... i.e.

1) Rules - No cussing (tounr standards)
2) Must show up to practices
3) NO WIPING
4) Money cannot be an issue, if you enter a tounament with money as an issue, your not going to win, paint alone is 100 a case.
5) Maintaining a job, income to go towards upgrades/paint/ect
6) Disobey the coach and you WILL RUN LAPS (will work to the benifit of the team anyways)
7) Follow the instructions of team captain, captain will get ideas and imput from team but to keep order follow captains word first hand.

Goals;
1) Establish system for when practices are.
2) Find who will do what to help maintain the team, ie: Who can take care of jerseys, who can find cheapest prices on what we may need, who knows a good place to practice...
3) Find positions of team members, maybe a long period of time to see this, ie., who is back player, front, etc.
4) Discuss rules and penalties on the field, ie., bull rushing, wiping, having foot of base on start...
5) Develope a systomatic grid for all fields inwhich we will play. THIS IS A MUST! We absolutely MUST be able to determine if a person is on lets say D7 or not. I am bringing a Dry_erase board to our meeting.
6) Develope an understanding that all the team-mates are going to be yelled and and corrected on every mistake, including myself, the captain.

These are going to be the main focuses of our 1st meeting. I am hoping that it will be a positve meeting. We arent following it with a practice because our main players broke his foot or sprained it or what not. I think the way we are going about this should work out pretty well... We are meeting at my workplace which has a V.I.P. room for meetings of the sort(to bad we cant bring our markers...) then after each meeting we will have a 2 hour practice to hone our skills and get better as a team. i will keep the people who actually view this updated on how it goes. see ya

Outline;

[TheZephyr]

Sounds good, don't make em run laps though, if you really must have discipline, then shoot them in the thigh.

[chrishaolin]

yeah dont make them run laps that blows.. if i was on a team and my friend was the captain, and he told me to run laps id tell him to go f himself. :) but you seem pretty motivated as shown by your outline.. good luck

[TheZephyr]

Exactly Chris, if someone on my team told me to run laps I'd say "**** you" and walk.

[sferencz]

Why would i shoot him, i will disipline the people who disobey rules. Running laps is a great disiplinary action, it makes them work out harder, running will make them able to run even more. It is hard to run also, its a punishment that will help the team...

[sferencz]

and were all friends, but not on the field. we are there to practice and get better, not crack tons of jokes and **** around. Its not that we are uppity winners, and dont like to have fun. Anyways, whats more fun? winning and hanging out after practices and being best friends off the field, or being friends on the field and sucking... I mean who has fun losing. And if you said f u and walked off the team wouldnt be losing anything, your not worth having. When you goto a tournament and each player spends 500 dollars, having fun and joking around doesnt mean crap. We play to win and to have fun doing it. anwyas were all going out so see ya. BTW, practice was good, it was more of a meeting, we went over whats going to happen with the team and all that. we practiced for a bit but ran out of air/balls. update next time

[dav713]

I think i broke every rule you have

[dav713]

except for wiping, i don't do that

[chrishaolin]

lol, i dont know.. maybe im wrong, but you sound like you might be taking this team a bit too seriously.. sorry to possibly burst your bubble, but you aren't going to make a career out of paintball... you sound like you are shaping up to become the bobby knight of paintball.
if you' re "disciplining" members of your team, its not going to be fun for them.. they will probably grow to resent you.. im sure disciplining your team is not going to help you win.. if someone f's up, talk to them about, explain why they are wrong, and if they dont listen.. well then kick them off the team..

[sferencz]

I dont know, i may be taking it a bit serious, but everyone on the team said they want to be disiplined if they do **** wrong on the team. If a player makes a mistake he isnt going to run laps, but if he is told to cover D4 or else we could lose the game, and he just doesnt want to be shot, well thats a mistake and a selfish decision thats going to put the teams players back 600 dollars at a tourny. For that they are going to run laps. But on the other hand if a player is told to shoot at the person on E6 and he doesnt remember the coordinate and accidentally shoots out team mate on C8 or something he will just be told he needs to work on remembering the coordinates... each player has different drills he or she needs to practice they will practice them... Back players MUST KNOW HOW TO CALL CORDS, thats just a neccessary ability of a back player, so i will go thru with the player on ways he or she can remember it, and the team will help drill the player to remember it. I mean i had to tell Chris he needs to aim his gun a bit different cause he missed the target a ton of times during a drill of our, after that he was right on target. he wasnt mad that i corrected him or anything, thats just working the team out a bit better. if i told him to run laps because he pulled his mask off before getting off the field it would be no different, next time he would remember not to and also get a little excersize while having it forced into his head. Its not like were all that worried about running, were playing paintball. I am the captain but i am going to be yelled at too, i will run laps when i screw up and i will learn and get better from it. Remember, this isnt a fun team, this is a tourny team. Everyone has already said they would have more fun getting so much better than not being drilled tough. If someone wants to get better and not be disiplined they can play on our other team, which is just a bunch of paintball buddies who come to play some speedball against us and take shots at guys who are running from bunker to bunker to hone some skills on that. Ohhwell me and Chris are going to watch some PB videos right now aso see you later.

[TheZephyr]

If your players are really serious about the team, your discipline is not necessary. They aren't robots, they know when they screw up, and know what they need to practice, therefore, your discipline is simply demoralizing. What is really needed is constructive critisism and experienced tutaledge, so they know how to fix their mistakes. My team works on faith, you keep the faith with your teammates, you have faith that your backplayers will cover you, you have faith in all the practice and playing that you do. You also have faith in your gear. Running laps isn't necessary because we know when we need to work a little harder to keep the faith. Go ahead, ask the pros if they run laps when they screw up, i bet they discipline themselves.

[sferencz]

pros have been on a team for more than 5 days... lets end this

[TheZephyr]

Well Sfer, it looks like you haven't got my point at all. You zeroed in on the word pro like a moth to a lightbulb. The whole point of my rant was that players should know when they screw up, and what they should practice intuitively. And if they don't know it intuitively, it's your job to help them understand, not sit by and count the amount of laps they run.

[Mr. E]

I have the exact opposite problem, my teammates are lazy and don't want to work. The two of my friends that got me into to paintball are both rich, chunky, spoiled and are not willing to work hard. The other two are like me and are getting better. What should I do about the two richer kids? They will not improve really, but they are my friends, and they did get me into the sport.

What's even worse is one of them wants to be captain. :eyes:

[sferencz]

Well what kind of team are you going for? 3-man or 5-man? If your some what new you should definately start out as a 3 man team, with 2 alternate players. Sounds like you have the 3 main players, if you want the rich kids as back up that would work out well also. Try communicating witht he team a bit more, see who everyone thinks should be captain. Obviously the kids who arent so good shouldnt be captain, do you want to be? I am probably the best on the team but that didnt really determine my being captain, its more of dedication and overall knowledge. How often do you practice? You should be practicing about once a week, atleast during winter, during spring i would recommend practicing 2 times a week. But it seems like your a pretty new team, you should start out as a 3-man team, read over what we did our first practices (though, i am not sure what exactly i wrote) but determine who should be back, front left, and front right. If one of the rich kids is pretty good, tell him the advantages of being a back player, they are almost like a captain over everything. I play back right now and i am captain. Back players have to know how to communicate and not be afraid of getting hit 1st off. plus they have to spend the most cash (rich kids fit in well). a back player shold be going thru alot, and let me emphasize, ALOT, of paint. write back and tell me a bit more about this situation and i can see if i can help you out.

[Mr. E]

Well, yes, I do want to be captain. I'm the only person on the team who does research (and believe me, I've done TONS of it. I've probably read at least 100 paintball articles), I'm probably the best and, really, I would do the best job.

Actually there are two people who want to be captain, one of the rich kids and one of the, um, others. The rich kid who wants it will not be no matter what he says or does (I'd quit and start anew). The other one, ryan, is about as good as I am, but hasn't done really any research and just isn't really a leader (wouldn't be a very good captain, doesn't take charge. He's the kind of person who waits to be told what to do).


Anyway, the two rich kids both shoot a lot of paint, problem is, they never hit anybody, NEVER move, and they do-not-communicate, at all. I seriously doubt that they can learn how to too. They just don't seem to care too much about the goal of the team. They just want to shoot paintballs like mad and hope to get somebody. There isn't a lick of skill underneath their skin at all.
They would be back players, but they wouldn't help in the sense of communication. The only reason I doubt that they could learn is because they've played more then we have and they haven't improved, at all.

That was really poorly written, I hope I got my point across.
Thanks for the help.

[sferencz]

Well with all that i can only say that i think the best bet would be this. Do this in chronological order...

1 - Have a team meeting, discuss the issue of leadership, goals, positions, and the need of the team (positions, dedication, cost, responsibility)

a)positions - who will do best at *IE* back, explain what they will have to do and skills it will need.
b)dedication - EVERY friday, will practice snapshooting atleast 2-3 times a week for about a half hour to an hour each time.
c)costs - for good practice paint its going to be about 45 dollars a case offline, and 50 from the local store, if entering a tounry you will need 2 markers, one good, other great. From the words of some guy named gary at our local shop "if you enter a tounry with money as an issue, you not going to make it to the finals." Your going to have to spend about 200-400 each, per tourny(tounry paint is from 65-85 per case at a real tourny). My team spends atleast 25 per practice, which happens 2 times a week in the spring.
d)responsibility - go online, read some forums, sit at school and doodle some push formation/executions while the teacher lectures or gives free time to do work. again, practice snapshooting 3 times a week(dont even have to have paint or air, just move around and pop up).

2 - Have a practice after that meeting, have each player play a different position for 3 games, see how he does with it, explain what he needs to do to get better at that positon on the 1st game, go over other skills lacked in the 2nd game, and play the third, then shift again. Remember back in like middle school, playing volleyball, sometimes after playing server or what ever its called you found out your really good at it? its the same way with paintball. You might try this at a few practices. Playing in someone elses shoes kind of lets you know how they feel up front without the back man laying down some paint and will learn that they need to lay it down so that front guy can move up and get an elimination. After realizing these things you team-mates will talk it over (hopefully) and discuss what they found out about it. I did this step with my team, i played front, ohh god, my front man was playing back and i wasnt getting any cover fire, after a few games he knew when to lay it down and i learned when he needed it up front.

3 - Practice some formations and team moves. If your unfamiliar with pushes and things of the sort, just practice them a bit. Its important to have a good start, make sure each player is taking the fasted and shortest safe path to his bunker. Decide if your going to all shoot or just have the back player lay down paint and have the front men run to the farthest possible bunkers. Work on some pushes, have a code word so that all the players know when to execute the certain push. start out with simple ones where as the back player pops up and shoots toward the back player, 2 front men try and angle the opposing front men. Soften the enemy so its 3 on 2 and then have your 2/3 lay down the paint and have the other go for the 1st flag grab. Eliminations are good, but the 1st pull earns more than 10 eliminations.

4 - Work on some better and more thorough communication. by this time you should be practicing Pushes, Bunker Rotation, Sweet Spotting, Flag Pulls, Covering The Field(angles), Getting a GOOD Start, and Bunker Eliminations. A simple game for our team would be this. Start off by my playing back and laying down a sweetspot and hopefully eliminating a player right at the beginning. My 2 front men taking atleast 50 percent more field than what the other team has (the more confined the other team is the less angles they have), then finally yelling out the opposing coords. My shooting at the back man, his ducking and my front men giving me cover fire to move up 1 bunker. Execute a push after making sure the other team members know the coordinates of the opposing players. Having the flag and attempting to take another player out, then just having it 2 on 1, and the back man(or further behind front man, if the back man has been eliminated) laying down some paint on that bunker making the opposing player duck, back man comes out of the bunker and keeps paint on the opposing mans bunker while moving forward and away from his front man, at that point the front man will also be out moving towards the opposing players bunker...to bunker him.

5 - After all this all there is to do is to practice, practice, and practice a ton more. Upgrading guns and planning on some tournies is a nice step at this point, i read that you wanted a piranha something or another. Dont do it, i am not sure how much that marker costs, i think your talking about the electro one? anywyas, i am sure thats somewhere around 300, if i were you i woul djust go directly to a cocker. Piranhas are just a problem waiting to happen, the sear is known from problems. If you save an extra 50 to 100 on a marker your just going to end up getting the 100 dollar more expensive one. I think i actually said it best once "There are 4 stages of paintball, 1 - 20-50 dollar marker(pump, or even a stingray), 2 - 150-+ dollar marker(tippmann, piranha, spyder compact...), 3a - 250-350 dollar marker(high end semi, cocker, automag, etc). 3b - 250-350 dollar marker(low end electro, piranha electro, spyder flash, rainmaker). 4 - 500+ dollar marker (STO cocker, Shocker, Impulse, Intimidator(mine), or the Angel)...............................
In the end you will spend more to keep that edge. i Skipped the third faze and went fron a tippmann custom(tricked), to an Intimidator. It wasnt all that common to do i dont think. Anyways, i kind of wish i hadnt skipped it, infact, my timmy is in the mail, but i am almost wishing i had bought an autococker, then kept that as back up and later bought a timmy. I cant take my electro out in the rain and play, with a cocker i can. If i were you i woul definately get a VERTICAL feed 2001 autococker.

OHH GOD THIS IS LONG!!!i didnt realize how much complete BS i was writing, anywaysi have to pee, if you read this all maybe it will have helped you, i know these steps helped my team out a bunch. Good luck and keep practicing.

[TheZephyr]

Keep the fat kids on the team, they'll go a long way toward helping you pay the basic costs of having a team, and maybe they'll be useful someday. Try to recruit some more players. I find the best way to recruit players is to go to the field, and show everyone up. Then talk to some of the better guys you're playing with and ask them about the team.

[Mr. E]

First of all, I decided on the Piranha because of some VERY positive reviews I've read. On this site the average rating is 9.9 out of ten and paintballgunreview.com's review declared that it plays like an autococker and is the "shining star of semi's". I don't think a cocker would work well for me because it would brake down on me and I wouldn't know how to fix it. I mean, I still sometimes need help with my Spyder! The Piranha gets about 9 BPS, is very easy to maintain, comes tricked out (regulator, drop forward, vertical feed, beavertail, GOOD STOCK BARREL. Last but not least, I don't have much money. I'm REALLY springing for this Piranha. I can get it for 120$ if I trade in my current gun.

!Read this review and then tell me what you think of the Pro TS (http://www.paintballgunreview.com/piranhaprots.html)

Zephyr, both of the richer kids act like they don't have much money, and would NEVER pay any more then they absolutely have to.

The main problem is that neither of them really care...example: If I held a team meeting and started going on about planning events and strategies they would probably just act like I was a know-it-all and would argue with anything I said. another example: They both want to get tippmanns even tho they can afford to buy most any electro. Why? Because my friend has one and he tells them its the best. "So what if it can't shoot really fast? Just saves paint..." And they listen to him. Regardless whether I know or don't know. That's the main problem, I don't think they'll listen to me. If I can get them to listen to me and do what I tell them then we will be set, problem is, they won't listen to me. I'm gonna, as you said, hold a team meeting. If they cooperate and promise to do as told then I'll keep them, otherwise, they're off. I know several other people who would love to be on this team - people more willing to listen. The only reason I still consider them is because we all had the original idea for the team, and they are my good buds. Just spoiled.

I really believe I'm just wasting your time here, sorry.

BTW, I think your strategies are great sferencz!


I am also thinking (because there are so many players wanting in) that I should make an A and B team. We'd probably be laughed at tho, our A team would finish near the bottom of the pack...you can guess where the B team would finish. Most teams don't divide teams until they have played a year or so.

[sferencz]

Dont let experience from split teams scare you off. Making 2 teams might be absolute best idea. I am thinking of making 2 teams actually. It allows for you to have some one to practice against all the time, and it allows you to be in a situation where you are playing with your peers of the same level of skill. Dont worry abot being the worst, i am sure if my team went to a local tounry at this point we wouldn't get close to making it to the finals, guaranteed. If you decide not to make 2 teams, the other idea, which may be better, is find a team that is BAD *** to have practices with. You may be imbarrassed losing EVERY game against them, but after a while you will start taking some more of their guys out, and maybe even winning a few. The advantage of playing with a higher skilled team is that you will actually get SO MUCH BETTER. Its like if your playing one on one basketball against some one, if you always play your little brother, he will be the one getting better, not you. Be the little brother and make a fool of yourself losing for a while, and in the end it will pay off. Find a field that has a day that their sponcored team practices on. Call and ask if their team has open practices, if so, its just a strong team allowing any group to come in and play against them. You will get creamed for sure, but give it a try.

And about your gun situation, good luck with the Piranha Pro, it seems like its a pretty good gun for the price your getting it at, it may be an awesome gun for all i know, i am just going by my 2 friends' Piranha's, the brand of gun is known for problems with the sear and frame. My team mate Chris is getting rid of his, he cant even practice with us because of its condition. Same goes for our back up player Matt, his piranha failed him so he uses another gun he has. If you change your mind i would seriously concider a cocker, they arent going to cost you very much. I am sure if you sell you marker you have now, i dont remember what it was, but if you sell that, you may get 100, you have 120 for the other gun, all you need is a tiny bit more. I had a tricker cocker coming to me, with sto upgrades on it, for 240 plus shipping. I turned it away because i decided to get an Intimidator, but you could easily get one by spring. Try going out and shoveling some snow of something, trust me, you wont regret it. How many players have you seen in the NPPL and events liek that, with Piranhas? Now try and count the Cockers... Either choice you make, good luck with it, see ya.

[Mr. E]

I decided on the Piranha simply for the reason that I do not think I can handle a cocker. I'm pretty sure I would spend more time trying to fix it then playing with it. I've actually only been playing for a couple months now, I've played about 10 times but, as I said, I picked it up really quickly and I can play with most of the typical spyder-toting rec-ballers that come out to my field. I'm thinking for the future here. There's a foot of snow on the ground, and I'm mostly thinking about next year. I'll be a lot better.

I'm thinking that I probably will split in to two teams.

Thanks a lot for your help sferencz. I aprreciate it.

[Rabid Fishstick]

Try hamburgers! Fat kids love hamburgers!

[Rabid Fishstick]

There is a good reason for this. They are not beginners, they're pro. Let me use an example to better your understanding. In the daytona 500, you don't see any race car drivers using Honda Civics or Geo metro's, you see formula cars. What the pro's use are basically the "formula cars" of their league. A beginner entering into the sport of paintballing should get a paintball gun equal to their experience level basically. However, as their experience grows, so should the paintball gun they use (not literally, in a sense that they should upgrade to a better one) :)

And sferencz, you seem like you know what your talking about and I could use any advice you would have to offer in my quest to keep a team that is dedicated and willing to make the sacrifices needed to benifit the team. :) Drop me a line.