Bob Long

Bob Long, also known as Bobby Long, is an American former professional paintball player, team captain, coach and paintball equipment businessman. He is best known for captaining the original Ironmen, leading several later professional teams and establishing the equipment business commonly known as Bob Long Technologies or BLAST.[1][2]

Long competed professionally from the late 1980s into the 2000s. His career spanned woodland tournament paintball, ten-player competition, Hyperball, inflatable-bunker competition and X-Ball. He was also associated with the development and promotion of markers including the Defiant and Intimidator.[2][3]

Early involvement in paintball

Before becoming involved in paintball, Long owned an archery shop and competed as a professional bowhunter. In a 1994 interview, he said he had hunted professionally for five years with sponsorship from the Coleman Corporation.[1]

Long recalled beginning paintball during the late 1980s at Paintball Sam's near Sacramento, California. His first game was played with Rick Cendejas and Dennis Wolf using rented Nel-Spot 007 pistols, twelve-gram carbon-dioxide cartridges and ten-round tubes.[1]

A group of players associated with Long's archery shop subsequently formed a recreational team. They arranged a game against the existing Ironmen at Adventure Games in Clayton, California, and were decisively defeated. Ironmen captain Rick Baird later invited Long, Cendejas and Wolf to join the team.[1]

Long's account therefore identifies him as an early recruit to the Ironmen rather than one of the players who originally formed the team.

Ironmen captaincy

Long recalled that one of his first tournament trips with the Ironmen was to a New York Open, where the team placed fifth and Navarone won. At that stage, tournament attendance depended largely on which members were able to travel, and Long considered the Ironmen more of a social team than a fully organised competitive programme.[1]

During the following season, Long became captain and began recruiting players able to commit to regular training and national competition. After a poor performance at the 1989 Line SI Masters, the team began preparing for the following season immediately. The Ironmen won Jim Lively's Lone Star Open in 1990, which Long identified as the team's first major tournament victory during his captaincy.[1]

Long organised players according to tactical roles which he called hold, push and support positions. Training included running, shooting courses, flag drills, rehearsed movement and uneven-player scenarios such as three-against-one and five-against-three exercises. He used these drills both to evaluate players and to develop coordinated movement between members of the team.[1]

The Ironmen's earliest documented sponsors during Long's captaincy included JT USA, which began supporting the team in 1989, followed by Worr Game Products, Bullseye, Tiger Stripe and National Paintball Supply.[1]

The team's association with Bud Orr and Worr Game Products placed it among the early professional users of the Autococker. Historical research documents the Ironmen using Autocockers at the 1991 Lone Star Open. The team's tournament success subsequently helped establish the marker as an important professional platform during the 1990s.[3]

The Ironmen won the 1993 National Professional Paintball League professional championship. By May 1994, Long was both captain of the Ironmen and president of the NPPL.[1]

Detailed results and roster histories from this period are covered in the Ironmen (paintball team) article.

Ironmen division and later teams

Long left the original Ironmen organisation in late 1996 and assembled a separate team which became known as Bob Long's Ironmen. The original organisation continued independently and was subsequently identified as the Southern California Ironmen.[4]

Bob Long's Ironmen entered professional competition during the 1997 NPPL season and finished third at the 1997 NPPL Las Vegas Desert Open. Contemporary coverage explicitly distinguished the new team from the original Ironmen, whose members refereed the tournament.[4]

At the 1998 NPPL Chicago Open, Bob Long's Ironmen and Dave Youngblood's Ironmen played their first documented tournament game against one another following the division.[5] Bob Long's team subsequently won the 1998 NPPL professional season championship.[6]

Long remained active as a player and captain during the early 2000s. Bob Long's Ironmen won the professional five-player division at the 2001 Mardi Gras Open, and contemporary reports continued to document Long playing for the team during the 2002 season.[7][8]

With the establishment of the original National Xball League in 2003, Long became associated with the Oakland Assassins. The Assassins competed as a professional NXL franchise and won the league's Western Division championship in both 2004 and 2005.[9]

Long was also associated with teams competing as Bob Long's Blast, Bob Long's Assassins and the Philadelphia Assassins. Results and roster relationships for these organisations are covered in their respective team articles.

Coaching and playing philosophy

Long became known for detailed preparation, field analysis and the assignment of clearly defined tactical roles. His 1994 interview described a system in which hold players controlled areas of the field, push players initiated movement and support players created opportunities for the point player.[1]

He continued coaching after his principal playing career. The Hall of Icons credits Long with influencing players including Rich Telford, Tyler Harmon and John Marques, as well as numerous other Northern California professionals.[2]

Long's teams competed through several different eras of tournament paintball. His tactical approach developed on large natural-terrain fields but was later applied to Hyperball, airball and X-Ball competition.

Equipment career

Long became involved in equipment development while captaining the Ironmen. His early commercial work included custom Autococker markers and aftermarket components intended for tournament use.[2][3]

By the 1998 NPPL Chicago Open, Long was testing the final prototype of the electronic Delta Defiant. WARPIG subsequently documented the Defiant at Skyball 1999, describing it as a higher-end relative of the Indian Creek Designs Bushmaster 2000.[5][10]

Long's equipment business became known as Bob Long Technologies and BLAST. Its most prominent early electronic platform was the Intimidator. A smaller and lighter version developed for Ground Zero was documented in professional competition by early 2002.[11]

The company subsequently marketed several further marker families, including the Marq, Victory, G6R, Insight, Onslaught and MVP. Detailed technical histories and individual variants belong in Bob Long Technologies and the relevant marker articles rather than this biography.

In late 2016, members of San Diego Dynasty and team manager Eric Crandall established Field One Paintball. The new company acquired assets and designs from Long's equipment business and continued supporting parts of the former Bob Long product range.[12]

Recognition and legacy

The Iconic Paintball Hall of Icons identifies Long as a 2022 inductee and lists the Ironmen, Assassins and Blast as his notable teams. Its profile recognises his combined contributions as a player, captain, coach and equipment businessman.[2]

Long's paintball career connected several periods of professional competition. He captained the Ironmen during the development of national professional tournaments, continued competing after the organisation divided, led teams during the introduction of X-Ball and developed equipment during the transition from mechanical to electronic tournament markers.

References

External links