Khaivien's Story - Paintball in Logan

Solid balls of paint the size of a marble being shot at your head at 200 mph may not sound like much fun, unless you’re like paintballer Cole Schaeffer. In fact, he says that it’s one of the greatest feelings in the world.

“I get the biggest adrenaline rush playing paintball,” said Schaeffer.

Schaeffer, 22, is part of dozens of Logan residents that play the sport of paintball, a war-like game played in various forms with the same basic rule: don’t get shot. The problem for this group, said Schaeffer, is the lack of places to play in the city.

The games can change depending on who, where, and how long you’re playing, said Schaeffer. X-ball games usually involve 5-player teams and are played on a small, designed course, he said, while scenario games can take hours and be played almost anywhere.

Scenario games, said Schaeffer, are games where the two teams are playing some type of role. For example, he said, one team could be assigned to protect one person role-playing as “the President” while the other team acts as terrorists and tries to assassinate that player.

“It’s like ‘Cops and Robbers’ that you played as a kid,” said Schaeffer. “Only now you don’t have a toy gun.”

According to Smithfield City Police Department Patrol Sgt. Jake Walker, paintball markers are definitely not toys. Walker, who has served as a Smithfield City police officer since 2002, said he has seen paintball markers powerful enough to break glass windows and cause serious injury to players.

Getting shot definitely hurts, said Schaeffer, and that is why players are required to wear goggles while playing to protect their eyes from taking a damaging hit. He also said that getting shot leaves its mark, while showing a few bruises on his body from only one day of playing paintball.

The biggest concern for police officers, said Walker, is not that the players get hurt while playing, but that unprotected people get shot when they mistakenly get near a paintball field. Schaeffer said that because there is no organized paintball field in Logan, paintballers usually play in open wilderness areas. But they don’t put up signs or markers to let people know that a game is going on, he said.

“A lot of times a jogger or hiker will go right through a game without knowing it,” said Walker. “They end up getting hit in the crossfire and we have to go and punish the kids that hit them.”

Walker said that Smithfield City police officers have confiscated dozens of paintball markers from players that were in an area they shouldn’t be playing in.

The closest organized paintball park is Velocity Paintball in Ogden. Players pay a $20 entrance fee and can play on any of the four fields all day long. But the price and the distance from Logan make it hard to frequently play at the field, said Schaeffer.

For now, Schaeffer and his friends play at a lot of different areas around Logan, he said, but they all want a park in Logan where they can play without worrying about injuring anyone or getting into trouble.

Schaeffer has talked to the owners of Earl’s Hobby Hangar in Logan, and said that they are hoping to have a field created within a year for players in Logan. Because money is the biggest issue in building the field, Schaeffer said that he wants to organize a paintball tournament to raise money for the field. He doesn’t have the details for the tournament worked out, but Schaeffer feels confident that a lot of paintballers in Logan would be excited to put money towards a field in the city.

“If everyone that plays in Logan loves this game half as much as I do, we’ll have a field,” said Schaeffer.