Apparently utah has a semi pro team...

[TurtlesClint]

Sounds like the usual paintball thing to me... A bunch of new players that put together a team and now think they have mad skills and pretend they are Pro. Nothing new. Seen it time and time again.

Although there have been a handful of Pro Players in the state as far as actual Pro teams in Utah there has only been one. That team would be Turtles. Derek and I would know as we were on that team. However, I do seem to recall Run playing Pro in a couple events.. Kind of relative though as the Run guys were also on Turtles.

..and Dan as for team classifications the best reference would be their team and individual player rankings in NPPL or PSP events. If they haven't played NPPL or PSP events then they obviously aren't close to being Pro or semi-pro. Now I'm sure you're thinking "but how does that apply to SPPL and woodsball?" Well, honestly I think the SPPL ratings are kind of a joke. (as are some of the rules but that's a whole other topic of discussion.) So to get a true perspective or ranking of Pro or Semi-Pro woodsball players you would have to look at the old NPPL 10-man team and player rankings. If a person never played on one of these teams or had the opportunity to test your skills in old school NPPL tournaments against some of the best teams and players in the world then I wouldn't consider a woodsball team close to Pro or Semi-Pro either. That is still some of the most difficult paintball I have ever played and is the measuring stick so to speak against which I rate woodsball players. No disrespect but all of the upper division woodsball teams from that time are more than a match for an SPPL team.. and have been. Smartcorps and Run would be two examples. Hence why I say you would still have the check NPPL rankings.

[Danger Dan]

Thats not what I meant. Let me clarify.

What makes you a:

Pro
Semi-Pro

Team?

At what point are you Semi-pro? Then when semi-pro at what point do you become Pro?

I am interested to see how it is determined for both speedball and woodsball.

My understanding is that you are pro when you get played to compete.

No Idea where semi-pro is.

[Danger Dan]

Just found this.

Pro


In professional sports, as opposed to amateur sports, athletes receive payment for their performance. While men have competed as professional athletes throughout much of modern history, only recently has it become common for women to have the opportunity to become professional athletes. Professional athleticism has come to the fore through a combination of developments. Mass media and increased leisure have brought larger audiences, so that sports organizations or teams can command large incomes. As a result, more sportspeople can afford to make athleticism their primary career, devoting the training time necessary to increase skill, physical condition and experience to modern levels of achievement. This proficiency has also helped boost the popularity of sports. [1]

Most sports played professionally also have amateur players far outnumbering the professionals. Professional athleticism is seen by some as a contradiction of the central ethos of sport, competition performed for its own sake and pure enjoyment, rather than as a means of earning a living. Consequently, many organizations and commentators have resisted the growth of professional athleticism, saying that it has impeded the development of sport. For example, rugby union was for many years a part-time sport engaged in by amateurs, and English cricket has allegedly suffered in quality because of a "non-professional" approach.


Semi-Pro

A semi-professional athlete is one who is paid to play and thus is not an amateur, but for whom sport is not a full-time occupation, generally because the level of pay is too low to make a reasonable living based solely upon that source, thus making the athlete not a full professional athlete.

Likewise the term semi-professional can be applied to an artist such a photographer or musician who derives some income from their artistic endeavors but who must nevertheless take a day job in order to survive. When applied to vocational tools and equipment, it refers to products that lie between the amateur and professional levels in both quality and cost, though nowadays the term prosumer is often used instead.


Amateur

Columbia Encyclopedia: amateur,
in sports, one who engages in athletic competition without material recompense. Upper-class Englishmen in the 19th cent. used the concept to help define their social status, first applying the term to sportsmen who did not need to work with their hands as livelihood, later using it to describe anyone who competed without pay. By the beginning of the 20th cent., leaders of two major sports movements, the American intercollegiate athletic system and the Olympic Games (revived in 1896), had adopted amateurism, claiming it developed competitors who were morally superior to professionals. In a famous incident, Olympic officials stripped decathlete Jim Thorpe of two gold medals won at the 1912 Games because he had once accepted money to play baseball. Although almost all athletic structures not organized as professional ventures came to embrace amateurism as policy, athletes often subverted the code, forcing officials to constantly revise standards. From the outset, colleges allowed payment of educational expenses to athletes. In 1974, after Communist bloc nations had been subsidizing their athletes for two decades, the Olympics ceded to athletes the right to compensation for loss of salary during training, and shortly thereafter permitted professionals in sports whose governing bodies did not object. By the 1960s top-ranked golf and tennis amateurs had forced major tournaments to allow professional entrants. As evidenced by the return of Thorpe's medals in 1982, amateurism by the 1990s was a concept of diminished importance and one more of technical than moral distinction. The major organizations involved in the supervision of amateur athletics in the United States are the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), responsible for college and university sports, and the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU), responsible for most other areas of amateur competition.

I guess by those definitions even some "PRO" paintballers would be considered "semi" just because the fact that they still sometimes have to have another job to support themselves.

[krispy]

Originally Posted by Braden

there is one level of semi pro its not like this
semi pro 1
semi pro 2
semi pro 3

hell i guess i have a semi pro team.

I know i was being sarcastic.....

[Braden]

Originally Posted by krispy

I know i was being sarcastic.....

as was i.......

[Derek]

The bottom line is these dorks need to play against some real teams and establish themselves before they make these kind of claims.

I only hope that when they do play one of our real teams here in Utah and you kick the living hell out of them so they can appreciate what they are claiming.

Death to posers!

Derek

[fuzzy]

Thats what i told the guy to come play against ballistic or tension or tombstone and they would get their Shit shoved in pardon the language haha

[Derek]

Any local team, Woodsball, recball, tournament, it wouldn't matter. they have no idea what they are claiming.

[Z]

This is directly from the NPPL 08 rule book,
4.07 Player Status
(1) A “Pro Player” is a player that has been on the roster of a 2008 Pro Team
(2) A “Semi Pro Player” is a player that is currently on or has played on a Semi
Pro team in the 2007 season. Any players who have played pro prior to the
2008 season will be considered Semi Pro. (2008 NXL players are
recognized as Semi Pro)
(3) A “D1 Player” is a player that has played on a D1 Team in a D1 Tournament.
(4) A “D2 Player” is a player that has played on a D2 Team in a D2 Tournament.
(5) A “D3 Player” is a player who has never played in an NPPL Super 7 World
Series event or played in two or less D3 events the previous season. D3
players that have played in three or more events, during one season, must
move up to D2 for the following season.