I own my own paintball business, and I work with a local paintball playing field. Being a paintball referee is a pretty dirty job.

Tournament paintball is played in an open field with inflatable bunkers. The teams generally five players on each team play approximately 5 minute games. During this time each player can easily shoot 1000 paintballs at their opponents. The paintball markers fire at 15 balls per second, and shoot the balls at 300 feetpersecond.

Paintball referees have to keep a level head during a truly high stress situation. They are expected to right in the line of fire and make the right split-second calls on the field. Referees have to work for several hours straight in any and all types of weather. They get very few breaks and on top of all of this...They get shot a whole whole bunch. Whether they just get in the way, or are being mistaken for a player.

At the end of a day a paintball referee is a whole lot of different colors, covered in bruieses, tired, thirsty, and ready for another day in the dirty job of tournament paintball refereeing!