Pumpenstein is a progressive paintball team dedicated to spreading the acceptance of pump play as a viable competitive style of paintball. The members are older than the average player. Most started playing in the 1980’s and have been through the entire life cycle from walk-on play to NPPL and PSP play. Having gone the tournament route, they have returned back to their roots…pump paintball. The team was formed through the Pump League as a way for the players to play with like-minded individuals and to promote pump play. The team is dedicated to growing the pump paintball community and regularly plays pump against established “semi” teams to prove that it’s the skills that make the player, not the marker. The team is made up of very personable and engaging people who act as ambassadors for pump paintball.
The Players:
Beaux (Team Captain)
Beaux started playing in 1988 and quickly jumped into tournament play. Beaux played several years with the Texas Bushwackers (not to be confused with the Ron Kilborne’s Bushwackers) and won several state titles with them. He was one of the original members of the Houston Heat and was with the team throughout its entire life, including winning the NPPL amateur title in 1995. When the Heat disbanded, Beaux was a founding member of the short lived pro team Adrenaline. After Adrenaline folded, Beaux stepped away from tournament play and focused on coaching and developing new players. During this time, Beaux teamed with John & Kellie Tankersley to create the Houston Rookie League (HRL), the longest running 3 man rookie series in the nation. Although, Beaux stepped away from the NPPL, he hasn’t stepped away from competitive play. Beaux played pump paintball as a way to have fun for years and regularly played with and against tournament teams with his pump. Beaux created Pump League as a way for players to be introduced to pump play in a non-threatening environment through “pump play days” and tournaments. Pump League is a major reason for the resurgence of pump play in Texas.
Jason “TF” Moulenbelt
Jason Moulenbelt stared playing paintball in 1988 when he was 15 years old. When he was sixteen he started playing for a fifteen-man paintball team called “The Michigan Warriors”. After winning many local and regional tournaments, against such teams as “Lords of Discipline”, “Chaos” and “Scream”, Jason took some time off to enter the Marine Corps and graduate college. Jason reentered the tournament scene with a team called “Aces Wild”, winning many local and regional tournaments, and getting on the podium in quite a few NPPL 5 man tournaments. In 2001 he was picked up by Brimestone Smoke where he won the 2002 IAO Spyder Challenge, winning 50,000 dollars (the most money ever won in a tournament), winning a few weeks later in Aruba, and then taking the 5-man NPPL title. Jason retired after 2002 because of starting a family, finishing his masters degree in philosophy, becoming a professor at Cy-Fair College in Houston, TX. Although he retired from tournament paintball Jason has been anything but absent from the paintball scene. Helping coach local teams such as team “Epic”, playing with Pumpenstein (since 2004), and helping out with the Houston Rookie Leauge has kept Jason involved in the paintball scene.
Jason Watson
Jason played paintball for the first time in 1985, but did not begin playing in earnest until after seeing the premier issue of Action and Pursuit Games magazine in 1986. That magazine with its many pages of modified and customized paintball guns jump started a love affair with not only the game of paintball, but the gear of the game as well. A tinkerer at heart, Jason developed several modifications for the pump guns of the day, as well providing most of the gun repair work for his early teammates on Houston’s Wild Geese. In 2002 Jason started Techna Trigger and introduced the very first ball bearing pivoted paintball gun trigger, a technology that has become almost an industry standard.
This love affair with paintball continues after twenty years, with Jason serving as one of three touring Bob Long gun techs, and as rostered technical support staff for NXL team San Diego Legacy, and NPPL pro division team Oakland Blast. When not on the road performing his technical duties for Bob and the teams, Jason is at the paintball field. He can be found every weekend either practicing with his teammates on Pumpenstein, mixing it up “pump style” with ne of the many Houston NPPL or Xball teams, or buried under a pile of guns in need of repairing or tuning.
More player bios to follow… if we can drag them off the field long enough to write them.