FROM the EDITOR
• Like Bob Gurnsey , Gio Degidio has a well-earned spot in the Paintball Hall of Fame as a partner of SC Village and Hollywood Sports , two iconic historic paintball fields . Dennis Bukowski , the actual founder of SC Village and 40-year partner with Gio is not in the PHOF . Gio is the face of the business but these two pioneers should have gone in together . Also egregious .
• Having been elected to the PHOF myself this year I saw the list of the other 2023 inductees . That list included Jeff Perlmutter , one of the TWO founders of Pursuit Marketing Inc . ( PMI ). David Freeman , Jeff ’ s partner since the very first day PMI formed was not on the list . They were lockstep partners . When I saw this , I pointed it out to the PHOF and it was fixed before the names were announced . Disaster averted . The Simple Fix
No other major sports ’ Hall of Fame that I ’ m aware of has its latest class nominate the next class . I ’ ve already explained why that ’ s not working for paintball . The fix is exceedingly simple .
• Introduce a Nominating Committee of 5 to 7 people that know and love the game ’ s history . Nominate a committee of people that don ’ t care about paintball politics or nominating their friends . I ’ m going to just give you some names of people that would fit the profile : John Dresser , Daniel Bacci , Josh Silverman , Tom Cole and myself . I promise you with a Nominating Committee of these types of people there would be no mistakes and trust in the process would be restored .
• For those that do the actual final voting , they would only be allowed to use the names on the Committee ’ s vetted final list . No more friends , no more leaving out lockstep partners , no more people getting in that were only part of the game for five of its 40-plus year history .
More on all of this and Issue Number Two coming in next month ’ s magazine issue . In the meantime , join the discourse and voice your opinion by joining the conversation on our Facebook Page HERE !
Let ’ s not end up like
08 paintball . media magazine