What A Rush to Win!!

This is a great story...for any to read, and it just goes to show that no matter how old you are there is room on a tournament field to teach old dogs really neat new tricks! AND, those young dogs may learn a few things in the process too.

Two of GunFighter's loveable father/son duos joined together for a tournament at Abbey's Paintball, located in McComb, Mississippi, and walked away with big smiles and a win they never thought of! The remnants of New Orleans Rush, Christian Spinks and Chance Kelso needed a third player for a rookie level tournament at Abbeys...so good "old Dad" Ken Kelso jumped up and eagerly volunteered to play with the boys. Ok, seems good right...Chance and Christian are both under 15, but Ken...well, lets just say he's right up there will Ol' Woody. So into the store they came to get dad equipped and ready to play. Now Ken has played some rec-ball here and there, and watched a few tournaments from the sidelines but that is about his extent of experience in high-speed tournament action. Chance and Christian have practiced tournament ball together and played in several scrimmages, so they had the upper edge over the old guy. Anyway, while dad was trying on a pair of Empire Contact Pants, I looked over the counter at Chance and, with a smile, made a joke about how embarrassing it was to have the old guy playing with some high speed youngsters....he smiled back, rolled his eyes and hung his head.

Oh My God!!! It was the same look that my son had when I volunteered to play in a tournament with him and Brad (one of our sort-of-adopted sons) many years ago...when I thought I could play tournament ball too. I quickly remembered how that little moment in my life turned out and winched in horror! We had lost that tournament and because of my mistakes ended up with basically no points. My son still says we finished in the negatives...but I was not really counting that day. So, back to Ken and Chance...I quickly changed the angle of the conversation and told him that it wouldn't be all that bad and that having dad play on his team was a good thing and so on...so on...so on...blah, blah, blah. Chance was not really buying it, but he did say it was cool to have his dad at his side for a tournament. Hey, that's a good thing...it's always great when your son wants to have you around.

Well, to help things along, Joe Spinks (Christian's dad) was helping coach the three tournament players along with Drew Bell of Rock-It Kids fame. Joe and Drew go back a long way and are both very good friends of GunFighter along with being excellent players. This coaching gave the threesome a little more edge over some of the other players because it's not often that you can get personal training from proven players like Drew Bell and Joe Spinks. So off to the tournament they went. The tournament was on Saturday, March 29th...so while some of us were at PBC playing in the Pirates scenario, these guys were hitting the tournament hard with some intense action.

Along comes Monday and I go in and open the store. Not long after we had the open light on and the sign out front, Ken Kelso comes walking in. Something looked a little different when Ken walked through the door that afternoon....was it that he was a little taller, maybe a little more broad shouldered... well, it was that and more. Ken had a smile on his faced that I recognized immediately! It was that of a proud winner and a dad who's son thinks he's cool!! "GUESS WHAT!" Ken said in a rather loud voice...and before I could answer he blurts out "we took "THIRD PLACE" and we had a blast!!" We both yelled & laughed as I rushed over to shake his hand. That was the most wonderful thing I had heard in a long time...a father and son player together and they had a blast...and won third place out of twelve teams to boot! Chance had a new found respect for his dad and Ken was beaming with pride from not only his actions on the field, but also from the actions of both his son and Christian, who both played their hearts out.

We talked and laughed about the tournament for what seemed liked hours and Ken's smile kept getting bigger and bigger. He loved being on the field with his son and their other team-mate/best friend Christian...and he loved the fact that they all won together- Christian, Chance, Ken, Joe and Drew all had put forth a lot of effort and it paid off in more ways than just a win at a tournament. Fathers and sons came together, and did something really cool...they played in a paintball tournament and had fun together!