Ronn Stern's First Paintball Camp a Great Success
Text and Photographs by Joshua D. Silverman
Assistant Editor of Paintball 2Xtremes Magazine & Proud WARPIG Media Partner

Ronn Stern and his team of paintball celebrities successfully hosted the first in their series of paintball summer camps June 23 through June 26, 2003.  Nearly forty student/campers of all ages, experience levels and walks of life converged on 
Hopewell, Virginia's Splat Brothers Paintball park to spend four days learning, playing and experiencing paintball  from some of the sport's most famous industry members.  With warm, sunny weather, paintball celebrities, good food and good friends, Ronn Stern's first Celebrity Paintball Camp was a great success for all involved.

Nearly forty campers from as far away as California, Michigan and Maine and as nearby as Northern Virginia flocked to Don 
Hager's Splat Brothers Splat Zone field facility where the on-field portion of Ronn Stern's Celebrity

 

First thing Monday morning, Redz Factory Team superstar and WDP Angel technician-extraordinaire, Rocky Cagnoni, led the campers in calisthenics and stretching in preparation for a long day of paintball learning.  Rocky even led the campers in a jog around the Splat Zone facility.  Shortly thereafter the campers grabbed their gear and two cases of Diablo paintballs
provided by National Paintball Supply and Ronn Stern, and took to the lavish and fully netted Ultimate Air Ball fields, graciously provided by Milt Call.  While Rocky instructed a few campers on front-player skills such as bunkering, paintball couple Bea Youngs of Femme Fatales and Paintball 2Xtremes Magazine fame and Mike Paxson of the Bushwackers taught players how to play from the back-field, cross up when down players, and communicate to their teammates.

On an adjacent field, recent winner of the ten-man pro/am division of the Paintball Sports Promotions Chicago Open, 
Brimstone Smoke's John Call, taught snap shooting, how to shoot a Matrix like a hose and how to win games from a four-on-one situation.  Shanon Mahone of Jax Worriors and Shoguns fame taught players about how to walk fields and identify key bunkers nearby, while camp promoter and namesake, paintball's favorite artist, Ronn Stern and Josh Silverman of Paintball 2Xtremes Magazine roved from field to field instructing and making sure the campers stayed as cool as possible in the hot Virginia sun.

Midday campers took a well-deserved, fully catered lunch break at the field and cooled off before returning to the fields for five-on-five scrimmages to put their new-found knowledge to practical use.  After an afternoon of drilling and heated 
Ultimate Air Ball games, the campers were bussed back to the Amerisuites for showers, air conditioning and dinner at the 
local Mexican restaurant.  As three hot meals per day were included with the price of the camp, the campers had plenty of 
money to spend on necessary paintball gear or extra food and drinks. 

During the evenings the campers enjoyed the Amerisuites' pool, XBoxes for HALO competition and, as an added incentive, an Autococker tech class taught by Worr Game Products-sponsored Bushwacker team player Mike Paxson, an Automag tech class sponsored by longtime Airgun Designs-sponsored player Shanon Mahone (with Josh Silverman's XMag), a Matrix class by Brimstone Smoke's Johnathon Call, and a seminar on the history of paintball featuring a museum of classic paintball gear taught by Paintball 2Xtremes' Magazine's Joshua D. Silverman.

By Thursday, the last day of the camps, the players had improved dramatically.  What began as a group of individuals 
struggling to comprehend the complicated game of tournament paintball had become a tight-knit group of tournament paintball players able to communicate well, shoot their paintball guns much more accurately and effectively, and move up the field to finish fast-paced games in short order.  After a mock tournament between the campers split into five-man teams, the winning team challenged the camp instructors, Mike Paxson, Rocky Cagnoni, Bea Youngs, Ronn Stern, Johnathon Call, Shanon Mahone and Joshua D. Silverman, to a best two out of three head-to-head Ultimate Air Ball competition, which the instructors graciously accepted.

In the first game against their students, the instructors were given a hard-fought game but were victorious in the end.  After taking photographs in flip flops, shorts and a tshirt, Josh Silverman jumped in the game with Mike Paxson's Orracle 
Autococker and pack.  When questioned by campers and their families as to whether or not he would play the game in his 
flip flops, Silverman responded by kicking his flip flops aside and breaking to the left corner barefoot, surviving the run and 
eliminating two opponents before a dash to the fifty yard-line was ended with a paintball to the facemask.  Thanks to the 
VForce face mask and lush grass of Splat Zone's fields, neither Silverman's face nor his feet were injured in his humorous but effective escapade.  When the dust settled, the instructors won the day, but it was the campers who were the true winners.  Each one expressed their gratitude to Ronn, Don and the faculty of instructors, who also had a wonderful time and made life-long friends with both each other and the campers.

After friendly hugs and goodbyes, the campers were bussed to the airport by Amerisuites and Ronn Stern's first celebrity 
paintball camp drew to a close.  While the weather was hot, this was the only complaint anyone had about the event, as 
both the instructors and the campers enjoyed a truly special time in their paintball lives.  The campers possess life-long 
memories with their paintball idols, and the instructors cannot wait to repeat the experience, made possible by National 
Paintball Supply, Pepsi, Amerisuites, Airgun Designs, Paintball 2Xtremes, Ultimate Air Ball, Smokin' Products, Powerlyte, Redz and Warpig.com.  Two more of Ronn Stern's camps will be hosted this summer, and information on each can be had from www.paintballcamps.com. 
 

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