Brady Chin didn’t want Temple club paintball to go without a coach any longer than it already had.
The Owls have not had an official coach for the past two years. While it didn’t hinder the club in the regular season, Chin said the lack of “consistency and stability” limited Temple’s performances at the National Collegiate Paintball Association Tournament.
Chin, a sixth-year information science and technology major, is not eligible to play for a sixth season. He still wanted to be involved with the club, so he became the club’s coach.
“There are sentimental reasons I came back,” Chin said. “More of the reason is just like, yeah, not having a coach sucks. So I definitely know like how it feels to have a structured schedule and like regimen during practice.”
The past two seasons, the coaching responsibilities were on the players, Chin said, like making starting lineups, leading practices and dictating strategies.
Chin also creates a weekly report on what the club needs to improve on.
It is difficult to compete against teams that have coaches, like Liberty University and the University of Central Florida, said club Vice President Jason Spencer, a junior English major.
Temple, which competes in the Class A division of the National Collegiate Paintball Association, took home two third-place finishes in the past four years at the national tournament.
Chin was part of three Temple teams that finished third at the National Tournament. When the opportunity to coach his former teammates arose, he couldn’t turn down another chance to be part of the competition, he said.
Alumni coached the Owls during the national tournaments, but not having a formal coach during the regular season made it harder for the club to reach its potential, Chin said.
“You can’t just make small tweaks here and there during the tournament, you got to be prepared for it right,” Chin added.
Robbie Farnsworth, the club’s treasurer, feels Chin’s stability and support.
“No one’s teaching you anything,” said Farnsworth, a senior risk management and insurance major. “You just go out there and get shot. And now we finally have [Chin] breaking it down and showing us why we got shot from here and things like that.”
At the Owls’ scrimmage in Mantua Township, New Jersey on Nov. 2, Chin yelled instructions to his players as he paced along the sideline while Temple scrimmaged Drexel University.
“When you commit to this sport as you commit to every Sunday, it’s kind of like church,” Chin said. “This is our church pretty much every Sunday. We come out and pay $35-45 for a case of pain, and that’s every Sunday. That’s like $160 [per month]. So, if you want to play this sport you got to be passionate about it.”
The Owls next tournament has not been confirmed, but they expect to play in a regional tournament later this month. Temple will compete in a total of three regional tournaments before the national tournament in Kissimmee, Florida in April.
“We always see [the National Tournament] as a challenge,” Chin added. “It’s like a good challenge to play those teams but obviously you want to beat them, you want to show that you’re better.”
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