I learned I will never become a world-renowned paintball expert for one reason – I don’t sleep on a pile of money.

This week, I became a member of one of the most extreme sports known to man: the NIU paintball club.

The first thing I tried to understand was why anyone would want to play a sport that emulated shooting a gun, but I just decided these guys must have played Hogan’s Alley on Nintendo when they were younger and they still have itchy trigger fingers.

“Being intrigued by running around using a gun sparked my interest,” said John Binek, a sophomore business major. “It’s like enacting a video game.”

Paintball enthusiasts started the club in 1998. They don’t have a standard meeting time, but those interested should check out the fliers around campus for the next meeting.

“I’ve always played team sports and I was looking for something new to do,” said Mike Szajda, a senior industrial engineer major.

In paintball, the player can be faced with one of the toughest decisions ever: What type of expensive paintballs they want to shoot at someone else.

At their last meeting, club members discussed the pros and cons of using either a premium brand or the “evil” brand of paintballs. Premium paintballs cost approximately $60 and are made with cheaper brand of gelatin that may easily break once shot out of the gun. The evil brand is more expensive and is made with a higher quality gelatin. For that kind of money, they better have Bill Cosby endorsing that stuff.

It was a fierce battle, with many of the members drawing their Tippmann98 or their Dark Angel IR-3 paintball guns to get their point across. The members with the Dark Angel won and the group will be using the “evil” paintballs to blast their opponents at the next tournament.

“I still get nervous before every game because it’s never the same game twice,” said Jeremy Frew, NIU paintball club president.

To afford their kicks, many of them have turned to working a few jobs and donating plasma in their spare time. You have to be a high roller, or you will be nothing. When you are this dedicated, paintball is an expensive drug. It’s a fix worth doing anything to play.

I had to donate plasma once to get something I wanted, but that’s a long, long story with a sad, sad ending.

The group explained that a person does not necessarily need to wear a lot of protection. The only protection needed is a mask to cover the face and sometimes something for “down there.” However, it is said the adrenaline rush players get while playing the game causes them to barely feel the pain from a little ball shot at about 200 mph.

Types of games include Capture the Flag, Protect and Defend, and El Presidente. The last has one person who does not have a gun. He or she has four to five people surrounding for protection. Maybe this is how some of our finest Secret Service agents started out – protecting a person who claimed to be president. Think hard and you might get that joke.

“It’s one of the funnest sports I’ve ever played,” said Vicky Bayona, a junior marketing major.

Since I haven’t mastered the paintball experience quite yet, all I know is that I want to be president so I can have four other people do my bidding.

Columns reflect the opinion of the author and not necessarily that of the Northern Star staff.