Dale Price

Players who value courage and determination will be inspired by Dale Price. Back in 1986, Dale was 21 and living in San Diego, CA, when a friend introduced him to paintball. A typical Hawaiian, Dale enjoyed anything that combined athletics, competition and the opportunity to party with friends, so naturally he fell in love with paintball the first time he played. A fanatic, every weekend he would be at one of the Southern Cal fields with his buddies. When they formed a team, they wanted a fun, lighthearted name. They came up with the Paraplegic Turtles.

By the time Dale moved to the Salt Lake City area in '89, he owned at least one of every paintgun and piece of accessory gear. Enough gear to outfit six or eight of his Utah buddies and get them to play in their backyards on weekends.

Paradise

Slowly the group grew from six or eight to 30 or 40, and by '90 Dale had collected enough gear to open a field. He opened his first field on ten acres in the American Fork/Pleasant Grove area, near Utah Lake. Then in early '91 he secured a lease for the old Utah Technical College in downtown SLC. This was a huge abandoned building, scheduled for demolition then next year. By the time the building was torn down, Dale had made enough paintball converts to support a large outdoor field. He opened Showdown, and Utah had its first official field.

Life was pretty good for Dale in the Spring of '92. He and his wife Rochelle were happily settled in the Salt Lake City area, and Dale was on the verge of turning his paintball hobby into a profitable business. Driving his motorcycle home on Mother's Day, Dale was living a paintballer's paradise.

And then...

A car pulls out, blocking his lane! Dale must swerve to the left or crash head on! There's a gap between an oncoming car and truck. If he times it right, he can squeeze between them and make it to the opposite shoulder of the road.

He makes it! And brakes to stop. But something is wrong with his left leg. He probably hit the tail bumper of the car as he shot through the gap. It feels like its broken. Dale looks down. Blood is gushing. His foot is dangling by a strand of flesh and muscle. Everything is gone below the knee!

Never Play Again?

Later, in the hospital, after the surgery, the doctor regretfully explains the situation. "I couldn't put back what wasn't there... wasn't enough left of the shin... had to amputate above the knee..."

Fast forward in time to January, 1996. ESPN is filming a special made-for-TV tourney in Florida. In a preliminary round game, the best pro team in the world, the Ironmen, is up against the Turtles, a low ranked amateur team.

In the biggest upset of the year - maybe in the history of tournament paintball - the Turtles win. And guess who's in the middle of the celebration? Guess who's the guy captaining the Turtles to a stunning victory?

Dale Price, the player with one leg.

It would be crazy - for anyone else but Dale.

No Negatives

Shortly after the operation Dale cried when he realized how the accident would affect his life forever. But then he made the conscious decision not to experience the negatives. The limitations might slow him down, but they wouldn't stop him.

"I'm going to dictate my life," he said to himself, "not my missing leg." There's no room in Dale's life for self-pity.

In the hospital, Dale was trying to get other patients to race wheelchairs. He was sent home after just five days, being told he was "too happy".

After the accident Dale's family and friends helped run the field for him. What Dale couldn't do from his wheelchair or the back of a quad was handled by someone. None had to ask, his teammates just took it upon themselves. That's the kind of guys they are, and that's how much Dale means to them.

About four months after the operation Showdown held a benefit big game to raise funds to help pay off the medical bills. The local TV news stations covered it, and the owner of Pro Arms saw it. Pro Arms is a big firearms wholesale-retail store, and the owner had been considering an expansion into paintball. He contacted Dale. A few weeks later Utah had its first full service paintball store.

The Museum

Next to his family and friends, paintball is the most important aspect of Dale's life. his world is the store, the field, and attending every tournament he can. In his spare time, Dale's hobby is adding to his collection of paintball guns, gear and memorabilia, of which he has enough to open a museum. Paintball is what he is, what he does.

No Breaks

Among tournament paintballers, those of us who have had the opportunity to play with and against him, no one thinks of Dale as a handicapped player. We quickly learn not to underestimate his play and not to give him the slightest advantage. He doesn't want it and sure as heck doesn't need it, and he'll make you pay for it if you do.

Dale is not a one-legged guy playing paintball. He is a paintball player with one leg. That's an important distinction. Watching Dale play, its easy to see how much pleasure he gets from paintball. What you don't see, and what you'll never hear from him, is how much he has to sacrifice to play: both physically and financially.

If the accident had left just a couple of more inches of shin, just enough of his lower leg so they could have saved his knee, it would have made a huge difference. Dale would be much more mobile, and paintball wouldn't be nearly as painful.

As it is, the prosthetic he has to wear over his thigh causes swelling, deep bruising, and sometimes bleeding sores and infections. After three days of tournament paintball Dale has to return to crutches or his wheelchair for two or three weeks until the swelling goes down and the sores heal enough for him to wear his leg again.

But the pain of wearing the prosthetic is nothing compared to the cost of buying and maintaining it. A standard basic leg prosthetic costs about $10,000. The special model Dale has to wear for paintball costs two or three times more. Just the base of his unit, the little rubber foot pad part he walks on, costs $1,500 to replace after a couple of tournaments.

Luckily, Dale gets some sponsorship from the prosthetic manufacturer. The model Dale has is a hand-built, one of a kind prototype. It is the strongest and most durable unit the company can make. Yet Dale seldom makes it through a tournament without some part of it breaking down.

Dale puts it in perspective this way, "Is the artificial leg worth $30,000? No! Would I pay $30,000? Yes! The alternative is no more paintball."

Update

Dale is still captaining the Turtles, only this time, the sport of paintball in Utah has grown so much that he has started over and is using strictly local players.

Paintball has taken root in Utah and Pegleg is here to stay. With stores from Orem to Ogden and an Indoor Field in Kearns, Pegleg is by far your best source for paintball in Utah!