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paintballimpact.com / Famous Paintball Players / Hayes Noel
Hayes Noel | Famous Players
Hayes Noel was one of the founding fathers of paintball. If Yankee Stadium was the house that Ruth built, paintball was the sport that Hayes Noel built. Around the year 1976 Hayes Noel sat, pondering a lot of things to himself, among them, the state of sports, and the state of the world. Hayes Noel, as a successful New York City stockbroker, was a proud American and enthusiast of sports and the outdoors. He was proud of his people, but wondered what would happen if something happened in America that really put Americans in jeopardy. Did the average person have the necessary survival instincts to defend themselves. Without nice cars, heated pools, warm homes, did we come too far from our rustic origins to have the necessary skills it took to survive an invasion.
Hayes then conceived of a game where people would learn to defend themselves, but in a safe and non-destructive manner. While real life wars and weapons taught soldiers the skills they would need to survive even the most hostile conditions, these were lethal machines that would cause grave injury. Noel envisioned games or tag that could be played on American soil, with some type of gun that would be able to leave a clear mark but not cause any real injury to its human target. Noel, and some of his friends like George Butler and Charles Gaines looked long and far until they came across a paint marker in an agricultural catalog. The paint gun was a Nelspot Marker. The marker relied on oil based paintballs that were used to mark trees for cutting and cows for vaccinations. The marker relied on replaceable 12 gram CO2 cartridges in the handle for power, and the projectiles were designed to burst on their targets, but not in the gun or gun barrel. Once they had this essential tool in place, they then went about creating games for their new toy.
Hayes Noel, pic provided by pbordie.com
"As a whole, the players in this first game said they had a terrific time. Hayes Noel has often been quoted as saying "The Illusion of danger was so real, it was the most exciting thing I had ever done. Every cell in my body was turned on."
Paintball Digest, Krause Publications
The first game was a simple survival game, where everyone would shoot at everyone else, until only one player was left standing. Hayes Noel and Charles Gaines played the very first game every, against each other as a one-on-one duel. From there, they got another few people together to formulate a game where players would rely on teamwork, and natural survival instincts. When they finally came up with all the rules, they invited friends and colleagues up to play the first official game of paintball. The players from the first game came from a number of different backgrounds, including an accomplished turkey hunter from Alabama, a long-range reconnaissance patrol leader from Vietnam, a doctor from Chicago, and a movie producer from Los Angeles.
The first game was a version of capture the flag, but where everybody played as individuals rather than as a team. The game included 4 flag stations, 12 flags at each station, 1 for every player. The first player to get a flag from each flag station without getting eliminated won the Game. Hayes Noel created a paintball industry that includes tens of millions of players around the world.
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