2009 in Retrospect

I sit and think how about a year ago I was on Aftershock and sitting around my house depressed and teary eyed fresh off of a DUI charge and considering quitting paintball. I was considering quitting because my life was legally and financially upside down, and I was getting sick and tired of the same old run around. I was pouring my heart, soul and bank account into being the best player that I could be, but I was consistently packing my shit early and watching Sunday from the bleachers. Several seasons of that same old monotonous trend will snuff out the flame to compete and the passionate pursuit of greatness real fast.

Then I started thinking about sitting all of my brothers down at an Applebee’s after a random off season reunion style grind session. At that point we all represented about 3 or 4 teams collectively. I remember telling them all that we had an opportunity to all play Pro together in this new 7 man league. I prefaced all of them with the fact that it was going to be the roughest season of their lives between lack of industry support, haters galore and the fact that we were building a brand new pro team with about 60 days to secure all sponsorship and practice. I asked who all was in and not one of them hesitated.

I think about those 60 days we had to get our shit together. I can recall a stress and pressure level like I’ve never felt in my life. Everyday that I woke up and looked in the mirror, I knew that some how some way we had to find the money for this team to exist. I couldn’t stand the thought of making a mockery of myself or any of my teammates when they all went crawling back to the teams they quit to play for Mutiny if we didn’t secure sponsorship ASAP.

I remember shaking in my boots from monster sized butterflies before our first game ever as a team in HB. I also remember the incredible level of embarrassment and anger I felt after my parents showed up to that event (first time ever) to surprise and support me. I remember putting my shades on and a hoody after the prelims, and walking out in the parking lot by myself to cry my eyes out because I poured my entire existence into the team. And what I got out of it: an event where my gun worked about 25% of the time I played, a sickening performance on our virgin run in front of the entire paintball world as well as my parents, and a mean ass wake up call. That wake up call was a reminder that I was climbing a mountain about 10x as tall as I thought it was.

I think about the rental mini van we pushed to SC Village and back, the practice in DC we caravanned to, the DC event we drove back to again, round trip drives to Vegas and the shitty team meetings plagued with frustration and bitching. Then there were the days and days of phone calls and emails and the struggle to keep a group of guys happy and satisfied with the toughest challenge they had all ever embarked on.

And what I realized from all of it was this: Nothing in my entire life could ever replace the satisfaction and the memories of 2009. Never in my life have I been so scared of failing, so overwhelmed with responsibility and stress, so behind the 8 ball, so rooted against, so responsible for so many other players well being – so god damned electrically alive.

Indianapolis Mutiny was the best thing that ever happened to me. My life will never be the same again because of this team. There is no greater feeling on Earth than taking a risk that everyone tells you won’t work and stubbornly following your dream until one day you stop and look in the mirror. I’m talking about that same mirror you were peering into soggy eyed one year earlier when the going got real tough and you considered quitting the game that was your life. Instead, you’re half in the bag and staring in the mirror of the mens’ bathroom at the VooDoo Lounge in Las Vegas. This is of course just before you stroll back out on the roof to get even more hyphy with the hardest group of motherfuckers you ever knew.

This is only the beginning.

Las Vegas NPPL

Ah yes, finally the last event of the season had arrived. Not only were we all shitting our pants to go to Vegas as a team and enjoy the city together, but we were also ready to take a top 4 in the Pro Division. At this point we had been grinding over the course of multiple practices after DC. You could feel the intensity in practice as we tuned up for Vegas.

The event was held in the parking lot behind the Rivierra Hotel. All of the teams were staying in the Rivierra, and this created quite the dynamic within the casino as the tournament played throughout the weekend.

The last event of the season for us marked a significant milestone for the team. First and foremost, we had made it through the season financially without collapsing due to lack of sponsorship money. Secondarily, we had made the cut and played on Sunday twice now leading up to this final event. Lastly, we all know the importance of performing here. Not only did we need to rank as high as possible for the series race, but we also needed to come out and kill it for sponsorship purposes in 2010. It’s kind of hard to ask companies to help you out coming off of an average season and a garbage performance at the last event of the year.

So we did exactly what we had to do – come out stunting.

I’m updating this site several months after the event (shame on me) so it is difficult for me to recall the exact details of which prelim games we won and which ones we lost. I do however know that we made the cut for the third event in a row. This was huge for us. It gave us all a solid taste of consistency and accomplishment. That then transformed into confidence.

One huge component of our success in Las Vegas was how well we laned the opposing teams we played. We were consistently laning 1 to 2 bodies a game. Getting those kills off of the break gives our style of play a lot of momentum. Boys start tasting blood early on and the feast begins right out of the gate.

Another piece of the puzzle that finally fell into place for us was our communication. We actually talked and played as a team, and it showed. We laned bodies off of the break, communicated the count and player placements to each other and then systematically broke teams down from there.

Saturday evening came around and we were all ecstatic knowing that another shot at the podium had finally arrived. We ended up eating that night at the buffet at the Rio. Between plate after plate of every style of ethnic cuisine you can imagine, we schemed on what it was going to take for us to leave Vegas victorious.

The conclusion: roll your guns, communicate and think team not me. This is nothing new to any of us, and in all reality it is the foundation of any great paintball team. However, it never ceases to amaze me how many teams out there forget about the basics. For as simple of a concept as it is, you’ll hear me repeat this in the huddle time and time again like a broken record.

You can’t ever forget the basics. Especially on the Sunday of the last event of the season in Las Vegas your virgin year as a home built pro team of best friends. Ya that’s probably a run on sentence, but it’s also reality. That situation right there is just the type of adrenaline pumping pressure cooker that makes players brains turn to shit and run out their ears as soon as the horn blows and the game starts. That’s why it’s so important to keep that basics remix playing in everybody’s ear huddle after huddle all tournament long.

Lucky for us, everybody stayed focused and kept their heads together as the oven steadily heated up on Sunday. Before we knew it, we were sitting in a position to go on to the top 4.

Unfortunately for us, we were tied for 4th with LA Infamous. The standard protocol for determining who moves on in a tie situation on Sunday goes back to the heads up game between the two teams during the round robin. Infamous beat us in the round robin, so they moved on and we ended up in 5th.

That was probably the most disappointing news I’ve ever received in my life. We were so close you could taste it. It literally came down to one point. That’s one body, one slip up, one rock head move, one stupid penalty, one kill, one bounce, one over slide and one too many possibilities that will make your brain fry if you dwell on it for too long. One point.

The Las Vegas event taught me an important lesson in life and in paintball. Attention to detail is paramount. One minor mental error can be the difference between a story book ending to a season and another gut wrenching drive home across the country.

I left the venue ill but satisfied. I was satisfied with the fact that our season opened as a mega cluster fuck, but then we were able to steady the ship and sail on through the storm. Three back to back Sunday appearances our first year as a team was more than I think anyone would have ever predicted including some of the guys on the team. The only goal I had for the team we didn’t hit was a top 4 finish. We tied for it, but never got it. I knew in my mind that we were capable of what we accomplished in 2009 , or I would have never started the team.

We didn’t start this team to call ourselves Pro’s. We started this team to win Pro Tournaments.

Ohau Open

So way back in February of 2009, shortly after I knew we were going to have a pro team in the NPPL, I came to the realization that I was going to need to pull a pallet full of cash out of my ass if we planned on being competitive in the Pro Division. I made the decision to pack a bag and make my way down to Hotlanta for the Paintball Extravaganza. This seemed like a great opportunity to rub elbows and gain face time with the who’s who of the paintball industry in hopes of gaining some industry support for Mutiny.

I hit up my man Heavy D, most of you would know him as the larger than life hustler extraordinaire at all of the events across the country buying, selling and trading guns for his company Heavy D Trading. He was headed to ATL too. So naturally we linked up and the road trip was on and popping.

We showed up in the evening and were told there was some suite party going on at another hotel promoting a tournament in Hawaii. A suite party about a tournament in Hawaii! There was no way I wasn’t getting in the mix.

Sure enough two guys by the name of Sonny Lopez and Phil Adler were there filling everyone in on this incredible event concept that they had schemed up and were promoting. I knew Mutiny would be attending the second I heard about a tournament in Hawaii. The rest was history.

Now fast forward 7 months to September, and you’ll find Tholey, Shane and myself all maxin and relaxin ocean side in Waikiki Beach. Wow what a beautiful place.

The Ohau Open was way more than just one single paintball tournament. It was actually a series of several different events. There was a Military Simulation Target Shoot, sponsored by Tiberius Arms, along with a 3 man tournament and 5 man tournament with both pump and semi-auto divisions.

We decided that since we had each flown thousands and thousands of miles to Hawaii to play the tournament that we were going to play every event but the pump stuff.

Talking over the best Mahi Mahi I’ve ever had and multiple beers a few nights before the event started, Tholey and I were scheming on how sweet it would be to come in and sweep all of the events. That then became the goal for the event – a clean sweep.

Sure enough the Mil Sim Challenge comes around and the competition is looking mean between super low times posted by Derrick Obatake of Steel Flame and Red Hastings. Some how some way the youngster of our clique, Shane Childers, comes out swinging and ends up winning the whole thing. We were off to a good start.

The next event was the 5 man. Since at the time we were probably the poorest team in paintball, there was only three of us that ended up making it out to the event. This meant for us to play and win the 5 man we were going to have to make some last minute pick-ups on the spot. We ended up picking up a super talented local Hawaii kid named Tyler Hanlin along with LJ from Dynasty. These were nice additions to the team for sure.

The 5 man event was on a military base. Unfortunately for us, we drove to the wrong military base on the other side of the island. This put us in a position where we were then squashing on the gas pedal through the jungle book scenery in order to make it to the 5 man before it started. Luckily we showed up with about 40 minutes to get on the field.

The competition was 100% composed of local Hawaii teams. This gave us a significant advantage due to the caliber of talent we had on our roster. Still though, the 5 man would prove to be anything but a cake walk. I believe we ended up going undefeated in the prelims, but when the Finals came around to play for 1st and 2nd the heat was turned up significantly. We came out and lost our first game of a best of three to a local team called Hawaii Exodus. This was a local team packed full of young and hungry stunners who were ready to take us down in their backyard. We answered back the second game winning 5 alive in about 2 minutes quietly reminding them that the event wasn’t quite over just yet. The third game went our way as well, and before we knew it we were 2 events deep in 1st place.

The event closed on Sunday with a 3 man tournament. We showed up with a squad of just Mutiny players for this one. The competition was once again all local teams, and once again they showed up to fight. We ended up losing several games in the prelims. This in turn lead to Tholey, Shane and myself bickering back and forth at one another in the pits like a bunch of sisters. However, our success prevailed and we ended up taking home 1st place in the 3 man event as well.

As it turns out, we clean swept all of the events and hit the goal we set over seafood and brew a few nights earlier. It all worked out great, and Shane and Tholey ended up leaving the island with some ridiculously gangster jewelry provided by Derrick’s company Steel Flame along with an incredible trophy.

I however made the executive decision that I was going to blow off my flight and hang around in paradise for a few extra days. I’m so glad that I did.

Monday night Sonny took us all to a surf shop in Waikiki called House of Flys. They were a sponsor of the event, and it’s a ridiculous surf shop with all kinds of unique and special gear including a whole wall full of Black Flys shades.

I spent an entire day roaming through Waikiki in search of the perfect pair of sunglasses to bring home with me. I looked and looked and looked and couldn’t find them. Sure enough, within 3 minutes of walking into the House of Flys I had found what I had scoured the island for – clean boi shades that stopped me in my tracks.

It turns out a cat by the name of Simon owns this secret stash of the freshest gear in Hawaii. Sonny and him are friends, and they had planned a special barbecue for everyone that stuck around for a few extra days. Simon and Sonny took everyone back to Simon’s house for the party that night. But, before they started cooking they took us all down to literally the most beautiful place I’ve ever been to in my life. It was a salt water pool built into the rocky coast that was filled and drained from the waves of the ocean crashing into it. It was absolutely unreal. We drank beer and took pictures oceanside in the pool until it got dark, and then it was onto the party back at the house. It was an insane time.

I have to give a major thanks out to Sonny and Phil for putting on a very well run series of events in one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen in my life. It was the first paintball tournament I’ve ever been to where it actually really felt like you were on vacation. Also, big thanks to Simon of House of Flys for such premier treatment.

If you didn’t make it out to the 2009 Ohau Open you missed out HUGE! I highly recommend that if you want to go have an unreal paintball/travel experience that you get involved in 2010. This thing is sure to continue gaining momentum in the years to come.

Dc Open – Sunday

We were all amped to come out on Sunday and make a statement. Especially after barely squeezing into the semi-finals in 8th place. We were the first team to the field that morning. We were getting dressed on top of the hill by the pits in the dark. Red bulls were crushed and BIG was banging so loud in my Jeep I blew a 6×9 in the front passenger door. You gotta get your mind right before you walk into an all day brawl with the best in the world.

We nabbed the premium pro table in the pit in the corner and went to work. We covered strategy and personnel, walked the field, warmed-up, tested the paint and the guns. We were ready for Round 2. So we thought.

For whatever reason we couldn’t get it together that day. It was like 7 guys all playing their own game. Players were second guessing teammates and even occasionally the game plans we all agreed on earlier. Corner guys were getting laned or shot out early. Occasionally the team would communicate like a team, but the majority of the time everybody was worried about themselves.  It was sickening. By the end of the Semi-Finals, we managed to be sitting at a hugely disappointing 2-5. A recored not even close to satisfying for the 12 hour drive home.

This was tough to swallow based on our SC Village appearance. We at least came out at SC Village on Sunday and beat multiple well respected programs when it counted. Not to mention that, at the time, it was our first Pro Semi-Finals Sunday appearance as a team. You wanna talk about goosebumps?

DC was our second chance at the crown on a Sunday, so naturally we were all tasting the podium. Then Sunday happened, and we all were reminded once again that there’s a whole lot of gangster programs out here in these streets that will check you back to reality real quick. If you wanna eat, then you’re army better show up for war on Sunday.

What can you do the really? Pack your shit, find a hidden corner to sit and rehash all of the would-a-should-a-could-as and generally just ride out all the way home sick to your stomach. That’s how we spent our Sunday evening. Sick and shitty in a caravan on 70 West.

Back to real life. Work. Gym. Sleep. Work. Gym. Sleep. Work. Gym. Sleep. Work. Gym. Sleep. Work. Gym. Sleep. Paintball. Sleep. Paintball. Sleep. Repeat for 8 weeks until your next chance at the champs and anything better than 8th place.

On a side note we did have one thing to be happy about after DC. Our pump team ended up taking 1st place in the pump division. This was the first national event they had all played together under the Mutiny banner, and they certainly kept their end of the agreement and made the Mutiny name look great! Big thanks to all of our pump team players. They are a great group of guys and I predict them making major waves in the pump scene in 2010.

DC Open – Day One

Hello Indianapolis Mutiny fans, we’re updating you live from the NPPL DC Open at Pev’s Paintball. It’s been a hot & humid end-of-summer weekend here in the Virginia swampland; players are dehydrated, paint is bouncing and everyone smells like they need a shower.

We won our first game against XSV thanks to some handy moves from team captains Aaron Tholey and Tommy O’Donnell with a 1-2 snake-dorito combo. Tommy went down the snake side highway to the 50 dorito and bunkered an XSV player on our side of the snake shortly after Aaron ran down 2 XSV players on the carwash side.

We lost our second game to Scottsdale Elevation in no time. They laned Adam Farej running to the snake; the refs then proceeded to pull a 1-for-1, even though no hits could be found anywhere on him. We started on the wrong foot and Elevation did a great job of capitalizing on our mistakes.

We lost our third game to Avalanche who scouted out our game plan and shot a few key players off the break. Once they were up on bodies, it was a battle of attrition. We expected a different game from Avalanche and got caught with our pants down.

We regrouped, changed our game plan and got back out to the field to play Oakland Blast. There isn’t much time between games, so action in the pit has been frantic.

Blast gave us a heavy gunners look, sending both Zack Long and Dave Bains out to the snake side with their guns up. Dave & Zack chopped up our runners and the pressure was on. They laned three of us off of the break. We fought back, but we were too many bodies down when they steam rolled down the field.

After the Blast loss we regrouped, got our heads together and prepared to play San Francisco Explicit. We opted for a more conventional game plan that kept our players alive off the break and both teams settled in for a gun fight.

Explicit were the first to take the car wash, but Tholey bunkered Explicit’s carwash to give us a much needed boost during the mid-game lull. We mopped up behind Tholey to keep ourselves in contention.

Our last game of the day was against X-Factor, who were already eliminated from Sunday. We expected an unexpected game against X-Factor, which is exactly what we got.

Both teams broke out aggressively and made it out of the gate with all 7 players alive. X-Factor pushed heavily up the carwash side, sending three players that way.

Dusty Odell in the carwash shot Adam Geis off the snake side before we realized he was into the 50. Smelling blood, X-Factor began pushing up the snake side almost simultaneously.

Suddenly, bodies started dropping everywhere on the field. X-Factor sent three runners up the middle who were all shot out but took one of us with them. We traded a few more bodies back and forth until it came down to a 3-on-2, with Shane in the center stand-up, Tommy in the back center and Andy in the snake-side corner on our side.

Tommy got shot trying to make a move to bunker out the X-Factor player at the stand up next to the 50, leaving Shane and Andy in a 2-on-2. The X-Factor player moved from the stand up into our brick where Shane picked him up and gunned him down. Andy and Shane worked out the last guy to take us into Sunday as the 8th seed.

We’ve got a big quarter-final day tomorrow, stay tuned for more updates.

Thanks for all the support!

Chicago Aftershock Practice.

This past weekend Indianapolis Mutiny travelled to the Badlandz Paintball field to practice Chicago Aftershock. We spent all day Saturday battling it out with Aftershock, and it was a super productive practice. Big thanks to Jeremy Salm and the Shock guys for the practice. We spent Sunday playing GSE at Fox River Paintball. This turned out to be another great day of practice in preparation for the upcoming Chicago PSP.

We just recently finalized our deal with DLX Technologies and all of the guys were stunting their brand new Golden Gun Luxes. All I can say is WOW! It’s a whole new game with one of those guns in your hands.

Thanks to Darryl Trent for working out a deal with us last minute for the remainder of the ’09 season. Peep the pre-practice stunt fest where we built a podium of paint, $17K worth of brand new Luxes, and of course bundles and bundles of icy white Rick Ross pods all to the tune of OJ Da Juice Man.

This coming weekend we’re headed out to Latrobe, PA to practice the Philly All Americans for two days at the Smart Parts Complex. We shipped 60 cases of paint out to Latrobe for the slug fest. This practice will hands down be our best preparation for Chicago to date.

We’re all amped up and looking forward to a great weekend of practice with Philly. We’ll post details when we get back into town.

GRIND FEST CLINIC

Sick of getting your goggles blown off?

Come and learn from Minnesota’s only Pro Players on a brand new XBALL field! Join us for a Phase one of three set clinic series.

From HB to DC.

I just wanted to hop on here post event and tell everybody thanks for their support. The HB event was extremely disappointing for all of us. We were plagued with equipment issues all day Friday, and we paid the price for it. 2 of the 7 preliminary games my gun never worked, and it’s safe to say that we had anywhere from 2-3 guns down every game. High pressure tanks on low pressure closers apparently agree to disagree. It’s unfortunate that it took an embarrassing performance on the grand stage for us to dial in our equipment.

Regardless of all of this, there are only 4 free weekends before the Washington D.C. event. This weekend we’re all going to take off. I’m going to do so myself in order to hopefully find my mind that I lost out in Huntington Beach. We will be practicing 7 man on the weekend of April 25th and April 26th at a location to be announced shortly. We will also be practicing 7 man at TC Paintball the weekend of May 9th and 10th. From there we plan on making the drive out to Washington DC a few days early for a practice and photo shoot with the reigning Huntington Beach champs DC Arsenal.

Make no mistake, this team is one of the best teams in the USPL. Unfortunately it’s going to take us an additional month to prove this to all of the ish talking nay sayers out there bumping gums and pumping rumors. Big thanks to all of our sponsors that have stepped up to the plate and made this team a reality in the middle of a recession. Check out our sponsor menu to the right to see all of the companies and individuals who have our back. Sign up for our mailing list if you want to get involved with us as we continue rebuilding Midwest paintball one player at a time.

Tommy

Mutiny Signing during USPL DC.

Team Mutiny will have an autograph session during the USPL Washington DC event.

You can find us at the Trade My Gun booth on Saturday at 11:00 AM. If you are around, come down and meet the new faces reppin’ the Midwest.

Holdin’ it down for the MW.

Mutiny was built from the bottom up and the inside out. We stand as a new breed of pro players holding it down for the Midwest.

This teams comes as the result of many years or hard work, determination, drive and a blinding desire to excel.

Reality Check

Indianapolis Mutiny was built by Tommy O’Donnell and Aaron Tholey with the intent of rebuilding the state of Midwest paintball.

There was a time in pro paintball when a Midwest team, Aftershock, ruled the world. There were other powerhouse teams hailing predominately from the Midwest as well. Teams like Avalanche, Evil Factory, and Farside to name a few. At this point in time, tournament paintball was absolutely thriving in the Midwest. Team after team of solid players battled it out week in and week out. We were all immersed in this time period as young soldiers on the come-up breaking necks to go pro. As time went on, West Coast teams steadily gained back their ground as the most elite in the world.

Suddenly the Midwest paintball scene began slowly wilting away. The pro teams stopped performing and many of the amateur teams dissolved. Pro teams that used to be funded by owners who truly cared about their players, brands, and championships slowly transformed into machines of mediocrity run on the fumes of their actual sponsorship contracts. Growing up in the Midwest and going pro in the middle of all of this was confusing at best. The frustration of the same old C- remix season after season finally came to a boiling point.

We, as players, decided that it was time to start something special. When the opportunity with the USPL arose, we decided to create a pro team of hand built soldiers that had been on the grind for a decade in pursuit of going pro. Our goal was to build a paintball team that would forever leave it’s fingerprint on the game, and more importantly, the Midwest. We started something that is steadily rebuilding Midwest paintball one player at a time.

We built Indianapolis Mutiny.