Paintball 101
Cy-Fair College professor helps team win paintball title
By Joel Weckerly
Editor
Cy-Fair College professor Jason Moulenbelt is accustomed to seeing perplexed looks on the faces of some of his students, and often it has little to do with his deep, philosophical questions.
More often than not, they’re scratching their heads at the number of analogies the hardcore paintballer makes with his sport.
“My students get sick of hearing paintball examples,” admitted Moulenbelt, a professor of philosophy and religion. “I relate everything to paintball. If I’m in my business ethics class and I’m talking about product safety, I’m going to talk about how compressed air tanks have a certain safety rating. I do that to encourage real-life examples in their lives.”
From now on they might hear more examples about how to succeed, following his team’s championship in the National Stockplayers Association Five-Man Open Class Pump Nationals Nov. 18-19 in Anaheim, Calif.
Team Pumpenstein, consisting of Moulenbelt and Houston natives James “Beaux” Cobb (the captain), Will Powell, Keith Kaminski, Matt “Fuzzy” Jackson and Jason Watson, came away with the trophy in a tournament historically dominated by West Coast teams. The team that Moulenbelt joined after moving from Michigan in 2003, dug itself out of an early hole to knock off the tournament favorite L.A. Hitmen in a best-of-three championship series.
The Hitmen had blanked Pumpenstein in the first round-robin game and grabbed a 1-0 series lead in the finals when Kaminski’s would-be winning shot caromed off the facemask of an opponent allowing him to be eliminated.
“If you give the (Hitmen) a half-inch of your body they’re going to put you in the dead box,” Moulenbelt said, “but after we found out it was a ball bounce that allowed them to win, we knew they were beatable.”
Amid the background noise of the other California teams cheering on the Hitmen, Pumpenstein won with all five alive in Game 2, then prevailed with four men standing in the clincher.
Following the win, Moulenbelt and his teammates jumped up and down, hooped and hollered – and were met with silence from the Golden State.
“You could hear crickets,” Moulenbelt said. “We stood in the middle of the field saying, ‘Where’s the high fives?’ Even the refs were leaving. But the Hitmen came up to us later and told us it was exactly what their league needed, to have the outside competition to shake things up. They said they wanted us to come back next year so they could beat us. It was fun; we got our big trophy and everything.”
On Sunday the trophy was added to the case at Tank’s Katy Paintball, the main sponsor for Pumpenstein. John Tankersley, the owner of Tank’s, originally started the team with Cobb, and said he was proud of how far it’s come.
“I’m actually very surprised they won because those guys are so old,” Tankersley joked. “Really, I’m very proud of them. They worked all year to get ready for it and they did Houston proud. That’s a huge thing to win that event.”
Like Tankersley, Moulenbelt got involved with pump paintball competition because of its homage to the sport’s roots in the 1980s – before souped-up markers could fire 20-25 rounds per second.
While Open Class competition allows any type of gun and any amount of paint to be used, Pumpenstein’s Modified Stock Class limits participants to pump-action markers with a limit of 10-round reloads. Moulenbelt frequently participated in Open Class tournaments when he was living in Michigan, but a family and time-consuming job forced him to cut back on the constant practice and travel. Modified Stock was the answer.
“I couldn’t dedicate the amount of time I used to, but I could play with these guys because it was less of a commitment while still competing,” he explained. “They allowed me to feel that competition level and also not drive myself to a divorce. In 2002 it was close because it took up too much of my time.”
Moulenbelt’s love for paintball was sparked during his days as an undersized adolescent in 1988. Now 18 years older and a half-foot taller, the 6-foot-5, 33-year-old maintains the same love for the sport – although now he’s a dinosaur by paintball standards.
During weekend shootouts at Tank’s, it’s not uncommon for the professor to line up across the field from a team of 13-year-old sharpshooters. And more often than not those kids have plenty to say to their “old” counterparts.
“They’ll yell stuff across the field like ‘Did you take your geritol today? I’ll shoot you on your walker. Do wheelchair hits count?’” Moulenbelt said. “It’s never-ending. And at 33, you’re an old man.”
But compared to one Pumpenstein teammate, he’s still in his paintball prime. Moulenbelt said the 43-year-old Watson has given him inspiration to continue gunning for national titles.
“Hey, Jason looks good for 43,” he said. “He can get in his bunker and live and shoot people. He gives me hope. I can play for at least another 10 years.”
We packed up our gear and headed out. I had a wonderful time playing at Stafort and enjoyed meeting Henk, Colin, Martin and the rest of the Dutch group.
