READY. AIM. SPLASH! VALLEY PAINTBALL PLAYERS LEAVE THEIR MARK.

Byline: Rick Coca Valley News Writer

What started out as way for forestry rangers to mark trees for removal and cowboys to mark cattle, has turned into paintball, one of the premier extreme sports played by nearly 10 million Americans annually.

Each weekend, highly skilled players mix with novice players from business and church groups, college frat boys and children celebrating birthdays.

Here in the San Fernando Valley, ``old school'' ballers like Dave Bassman have seen the game evolve from a niche sport played by a few diehards to a multimillion dollar industry with tournaments airing on ESPN2.

Bassman knows paintball. He's the owner of Conquest Paintball Park in Lake View Terrace and is well known as one of paintball's earliest and most skilled practitioners and coaches.

He started playing in 1986, just five years after the first game was played back east.

Bassman, 52, tells the story of ``Gotcha,'' one of the early names for the sport.

``In New England, a forestry guy shot another forestry guy and said, `Gotcha.''' Bassman said.

Players of the National Survival Game, the sports official name in the early 1980s, played on acres of land and often took all day to play a single game. The paint in the guns, or markers as they're commonly called today, shot balls filled with real paint, Bassman said. Between games, players had to paint over with black paint the bright (and permanent) paint splashes that stained their clothes from earlier games. Today's ``paint'' is primarily a non-toxic, biodegradable oil mixed with dye that washes out with water. The mixture is encapsulated in the same type of soft gel used for some vitamins and soap.

``The paint is no longer paint,'' Bassman said. ``But soap ball would be a pretty stupid name.''

The paint isn't the only thing that's changed about the game.

``Back in 1988, I was living in North Hollywood,'' Bassman said. ``And within an hour-and-a-half drive there were 50 paintball locations.''

As developers purchased land, paintball parks in the area disappeared. Today, they are primarily found on the outskirts of town. Bassman's park is the only paintball-only facility in the Valley to go along along with the half dozen or so others in Acton and the Simi and Santa Clarita Valleys.

Bassman's a purist. He prefers the natural terrain game, or woodsball, to the ever-popular speedball, sometimes called airball.

``The natural terrain game is much more of a thinking game,'' Bassman said. The game is played at a slower pace than speedball, and can include ``scenario'' fields, such as Conquest's ``Vietnam'' field, with sandbag bunkers and bamboo thickets.

Speedball is usually played on a mini-football-like field with bunkers of varying shapes and sizes. Inflatable bunkers give airball its name. In some leagues, such as the National Professional Paintball League, two seven-man teams battle it out to eliminate each other and capture the other teams flag located on opposing sides, all within seven minutes. The game is played at fairly close quarters.

Bassman admits he's biased. He thinks speedball's growing popularity has something to do with younger players enjoyment of video games -- with a twist.

``It's sort of like entering the video game,'' Bassman said.

Despite the wartime names and themes given some scenario fields, Bassman and others said there isn't much warlike behavior on a paintball field. Those who enter the sport with a ``Rambo'' attitude are quickly humbled by a few well-placed paintballs, which let them know they're not as good as they thought they'd be.

And regardless of the type of paintball game played, for the most part, the goal is the same, to get your opponents flag. And a person is eliminated whether they get hit on their little toe or their chest. And unlike war, everybody goes home at the end of the day playing paintball, they said.

Jon-Paul Fortunati is the owner of Critical Paintball, a paintball store in Northridge that sells gear and Fortunati's own designed parts, such as his ball-bearing designed trigger. He also sponsors and plays for Critical Paintball's amateur team, which is one of the premiere amateur teams in the nation. His team practiced recently at California Paintball Park in Castaic, preparing for their next tournament.

On the NPPL circuit there are rookie, novice, amateur, semi-pro and pro divisions. At the end of the year, the top teams in each division below professional get bumped up to the next division. Subsequently the bottom teams of each division get bumped down.

For now Fortunati, 33, of Chatsworth, is happy competing in the amateur division, and although losing players to professional teams with offers of sponsorship or equipment is common in the sport, his team has remained relatively intact.

``We like playing together,'' Fortunati said. ``Almost all of us could go (to other teams). It's more like a loyalty thing that keeps us from doing it.''

Fortunati said the team spends a lot of time off the field putting together game strategies.

``We kind of compare it to chess with paintball guns,'' Fortunati said.

Salvador Nunez, 20, of Lake View Terrace, has played paintball for nine years. The ITT business student plays for Southern California Paintball Factory's semi-pro team. The company owns a paintball accessory and apparel store based out of Pacoima. Like many other young players, when he first started playing, Nunez's mother was against his participation in the sport.

``Now she sees it as a group effort for me,'' Nunez. ``It's going out, doing guy things.''

Despite the fact that at about 200 m.p.h., a paintball can leave a nice welt if it hits its mark, Nunez and many other regular players spoke about the sport's calming affect.

``It relieves aggression'' said Nunez. ``I don't want to go somewhere and shoot paintballs at people. I do it in a safe environment. It isn't war and shooting in the streets and all that. It's a stress reliever.''

Nunez said since his teammates come from varying cultures and backgrounds, they've been able to learn things about each other not related to paintball.

``Paintball has opened a door for this culture clash mix of people,'' Nunez said. ``You end up hanging out with people that you wouldn't otherwise. (It's) pretty cool.''

Nunez and his teammates have volunteered to give a paintball workshop to young kids in Orange County and plan to join forces with the ``Vatos Locos,'' another Valley team, to compete in a NPPL Tampa Bay event this weekend.

Somebody who knows a little about competition is Erik Felix of Sherman Oaks. Felix is the owner of Paintball Fury in Acton, which features a multitude of fields.

Felix played along Dave Bassman during paintball's early days in the 1980s and was a member of the Ironmen, the sport's premier team. He was voted as paintball's outstanding player by an industry magazine in the late 1990s.

``It helped that I was on the top team in the world,'' Felix said.

Felix spoke about the games early days.

``Back in those days we were on natural terrain,'' Felix said. ``There was much more crawling, coordinating. Nowadays, it's so much more faster.''

Unlike in years past, where some players could afford to carry ``a little extra weight,'' today's game requires atheleticism throughout the lineup of a team. The ``back players'' have to be as athletic as the ``front players,'' Felix said.

Felix said the sport's increasing popularity is welcome news to operators like himself who need the patronage of groups and the casual weekend players as much as they need the business of the more skilled players. Not so long ago, many people didn't know what paintball was, Felix said.

``For many years, you'd say, `I play paintball,' and (people) would say, `ping pong?'

CAPTION(S):

3 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) Edwin Dolgopyat, left and Jon-Paul Fortunati are members of the Valley-based Critical Paintball team, one of the best amateur teams in the nation.

(2 -- color) Steven Cohen of Valley Glen helps gear up girlfriend, Julie Tsui, for her first time playing paintball, but Tsui's not worried. As a teenager in her native China, she was required to train with real guns along with her peers.

Rick Coca/Valley News

(3 -- color) The Valley's Critical Paintball team in breakout mode.

Jon Castillo/Special to the Valley News