Editorial by Courtny Cotten | Field Owner
When I was a kid, weekends meant strapping on a mask and heading out into the woods with my dad and brothers. The games were simple, capture the flag or protect the base, but the feeling was anything but. Out there, I learned the thrill of moving as a team, the sting of defeat, and the joy of shared victory. It wasn’t just about paintball or airsoft, it was about belonging.
That sort of belonging feels rarer now. The world has shifted toward isolation, toward screens and curated feeds, toward the quiet hum of being alone together. Sociologists sometimes talk about “Third Places,” those spaces outside of work and home where people gather, unplanned, to form community. Coffee shops, barbershops, parks, church basements. But in modern America, those places are disappearing. The anomaly isn’t loneliness, it’s community.
When you start to notice that loss, it changes the way you look at a field like ours. To outsiders, it might just be a paintball or airsoft facility, a place to play games with toy guns on the weekend. But that view misses the point. What we’re building here is more than a playing field. It is a third place for the forgotten third place. It is where strangers walk onto the field together and walk off as teammates, where kids learn resilience in a safe, supervised environment, and where adults rediscover what it is like to be present, outside, and in motion with others.
My goal as an owner is not just to run games. It is to preserve something I was lucky enough to grow up with: a safe space for people to be themselves, to compete and laugh and find new friends in the process. In an age when genuine connection is harder to come by, physical games, whether paintball, airsoft, or even gellyball for kids, become something larger than play. They become community.
That is the work we are trying to do here. Build a field, yes. But more importantly, build a space where people can feel a part of something, the way I did with my dad and brothers all those years ago. Because if we can do that, we are not just playing games. We are keeping alive the rare and essential art of belonging.
So if you have been looking for a place to connect, to play, and to find your people, come join us. Bring a friend, or come by yourself and leave with a few more. Out here, you are not just another player on the field. You are part of the community we are building together.
