THE BLOG IS BACK!

     First and foremost, on behalf of team PR1ME, we would like to apologize for our lackluster attention to this blog. 2012 posed a number of new obstacles and difficulties for the team that kept us from committing to this particular obligation as much as we would have liked. That being said, there will be (and has been) a new fervor for these types of endeavors. Be sure to like our page on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/PrimePaintball and check out the websites of our sponsors GI SPORTZ, EXALT, NINJA, Animal Customs, Michael Day Photography, 1904 Photography, plus a mystery sponsor soon to be announced! With that covered…Let’s resume this blog! 

 A Difficult but New Chapter 
By Michael Bianca 

     I am a reader. I am a reader because I have only graced this earth for a very short time and there are many more learned men who have come before me. When I see a chance to learn, whether it is from my own mistakes, the mistakes of others or reading works from knowledgeable men/women, I take it. Then try my best to apply it. So let’s start this off with a quote from someone who many consider quite the learned man...Confucius. Confucius said, “The superior man makes the difficulty to be overcome his first interest, success comes later.” 

     To recap, 2012 saw PR1ME face some rather difficult times mostly surrounding consistency. The first two events (Galveston and Phoenix), we made Sunday only to be knocked out in our first match of the day. Knowing you are a good team who puts in the time and work only to be met with lackluster performance when the time comes was, for lack of a better term, frustrating. Follow that up with not making it out of the prelims in Chicago, missing an event in New Jersey (oh wait... I mean Maryland) because they changed venues on you 31 days out and you can’t get refunds on travel expenses and then, top it all off with a dismal performance at the end all be all World Cup... well, it makes you pause and ask what went wrong. What were our difficulties and how will we make them our priority to fix? 

     The off season saw PR1ME take some personnel hits and face even more difficulties. The long-standing core of the team was no longer a staple. That core was always a “strength”. We had been playing together for so long... 

     One of our dorito-side players, Daniel Jones, decided to concentrate on his new wife and career. Cameron McDonald, our snake side player, while still with the team, obtained an employment opportunity that would keep him away for the first half of the 2013 season. Jake James retired to concentrate on school. And yours truly decided to step away from playing to spend more time with my wife and children. However, I have stayed on in a new capacity: Coach. Thankfully Mike McGowan offered me the opportunity and thankfully the wife was fine with it. This new endeavor has proven to be quite an experience so far...but I will discuss that in another blog... I digress... 

      What now? Try outs? Obviously if we wanted the Prime legacy to continue and there was no way we’re letting go of this “thing” we had created and which had taken on a life of its own. But how would we find a group of young men that not only could play but had the same attitude, the same approach, the same drive, the same ideals, the same commitment we had required and promoted since day one? I was concerned... but then I remembered what Winston Churchill said, “A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” I would be an optimist. And I would not be disappointed. 

 Try-outs came and went, interviews were held, phone calls made and the remaining PR1ME members discussed at great length the new roster.  This new roster would incorporate some significant new blood but that new blood was anything but new to paintball...some good ole fashioned experience came with it.  Props to Evan Manners for stepping up and bringing in a number of these gents.  

So, without further ado, here is PR1ME’s 2014 D2 lineup/roster: 

Michael McGowan 
Evan Manners 
Chris Roark 
Josh Bonee (pron. "Bo-Nay") 
Alex Hicks 
Derek Williams 
Reid Allen 
Bryan Arakawa 
Spender Lloyd 
Nolan Osvath 
-Cameron McDonald
-Coach Mike Bianca

 Next step... the team would need to gel. They would, as Confucius had so eloquently put, “Learn how to win first...then winning would happen”. The new team only had a few weeks to prepare for the acid test: the first event of the season, the PSP’s Dallas Open. Would the new team have what it takes to win? Would it come together in a manner that needed to happen? We knew we had the talent... could we get them to fire on all cylinders consistently? Or was this going to be another frustration/difficulty added to our surmounting list we would have to overcome? 

     Tune in next time, same bat time, same bat channel for our breakdown of what really happened in Dallas. Over the next few months, we will try and do something we had planned on some time ago; we will provide a little background on each individual player of the team. And inside look at what makes Prime Pr1me and much more. In the meantime, enjoy some more knowledge from a pretty cool guy:

  “The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew.” - Abraham Lincoln 

 Word, Abe... word.