Who Was Fred Schultz? Remembering Great Players from the Past

[AGD]

AO History Buffs,

The name Fred Schultz came up in another thread. A guy bought a HPA tank that was a Fred Shultz signature series regulator. No one knows who Fred is any more and since he was a great friend of mine I think that is sad.

Fred Schultz was a HUGE personality in paintball. He was MC for the Amateur Open many years in a row. His on stage presence was legendary, either you loved him or hated him but EVERYONE knew who he was. He was captain of Constant Pursuit a winning pro team in its day. He was on the cover of APG more times than anyone else. He was paid by Brass Eagle to do their paintball video. Women he didn’t know propositioned him at tourneys.

He had enough pull to get a paintball game into Disney World. I don't mean out behind the fence, I mean in MAIN STREET USA where they filmed us shooting each other. The ends of the streets were netted off and the Disney public watched it go down. If you go there today you might still see where we blew the corners off the foam buildings. This whole thing was setup for a paintball video, one of the first professionally done. Freds motto was "play fair and play clean" not something you would ever hear from a pro player today.

Fields begged Fred to come and general at their big games. He had LOTS of sponsors including us, Vents, Zap, Brass Eagle and Adidas Fred had two dreams, be an actor in Hollywood and make money in paintball. Sadly neither came true and in the late 90’s he faded from view. No one has heard from him in years and sadly now his name is forgotten by all except the few of us still around.

Fred wanted nothing more than to be able to make a living in the sport he loved so much. For those of you thinking about spending the rest of your lives in the paintball industry take heed.

And now a few pictures in fond memory of a good friend.

AGD


In the picture below Fred is with a kid that had was dying from an incurable disease. He loved paintball so Fred got all his sponsors to supply him with equipment.

[AGD]

Fred at our AGD party

[AGD]

Fred and his lovely wife on the right (thats someone elses wife on the left)

[AGD]

MCing the Am Open

[AGD]

Fred and I live on the air in a radio station in St Louis.

[AGD]

New York Street IN Disney World

[AGD]

Our team in Disney World, can you spot Bill Gardner and what gun he is using?

[Peach]

Aww... Where did Fred go... Looks like a great guy.

Hey, I got the first post behind Tom.

This means one of two things....
1) My AO social statis its rising to an alltime high
OR
2) I'm a looser with no life who checked the forum a few to many times today.

Another edit: Now it's a classic, I'm a cool kid now.

[PsychoBaller]

heheh...... looks like ur making an album.... do'op song or something... heh.

~da baller

[Blennidae]

I'm old enough to remember he was a big name back in the day. I'm pretty sure I had been at an event or 2 where he was present.

Tom, you never really said what happened to him. The statement "And now a few pictures in fond memory of a good friend" makes it sound like he has passed away. Did he?

[AGD]

He did not pass away he just completely dropped out of sight. No one has a phone number for him any more and he doesn't contact anyone.

AGD

[Load SM5]

Actually, my first N2 tank was a Fred Shultz tank. I contacted AA to get a little history behind it. Had I known then I never would've gotten rid of it.

[FooTemps]

I think that AO should do some research... maybe get him on the forums? I don't think he'd mind if he talked to an old buddy and a few of his lackies...

(if we find him... maybe he might mc another later and even more mega, megameet)

[Python14]

DUDE! I recognize him. I remember him from when I first started reading APG so many years ago. I knew I recognized the name somehow. That's sad that someone can just be almost erased from a crown. I guess it's the nature of the beast. So no one knows where he is now?

BTW, Mr. Kaye, Is that a tigerstripe sport coat? I love it.

[joeyjoe367]

Eeeww... spandex. Cool paintball history tho

[WARPED1]

I remember Fred..............back in the day.

[ES13Raven]

Originally posted by AGD
Fred and his lovely wife on the right (thats someone elses wife on the left)

And just where is her hand???

Someone elses wife? hmmm.....

I remember Fred very well. He was the voice of paintball for a long time. I hope he is doing well.

[Richter]

i put up what i remember of Fred Shultz in the Fred Shultz air system thread

I never met the guy but do remember some stuff about him

[Josh2Xtremes]

Don't worry Tom I remember Fred very well too. All those years at the AM Open AND at Main Street. I had a Fred Schultz system too! I wish we DID know where Fred is now. Ha...remember him from that Brass Eagle video?

And Tom, if I'm not mistaken, isn't the guy gesturing to you and Billy Gardner my very good friend and one-time boss Rene Boucher of Paintball News?

Josh

[Curly]

From the first picture it looks like he is at Mare Island paintball which used to be one of the big fields here in the bay area. Is it possible that he used to live in the bay area or was that just a picture from an event?

[Shane-O-Mac]

cool pic! i never met fred personally, but i have heard many stories. i have seen the beagle video and others he was in, he was a bit of a ham, but like tom said, you gotta love him or you just dont like him. also, several other people in the picture. far left, dan colby-Air America, the red hat,bushy mustached guy on the right kinda in the back, tim schloss-pursuit products, he made the original tiger stripe and he made the tiger stripe tuxs that fred and others had. and it does look like rene' talking to tom. hey tom, what ever happened to the footage that was shot that day? was it in some video or what? and dig that weird air system back back set-up!
Shane-O

[skirts]

HAHA
i remember playing with fred at a paintball sams big game about 4-5 years ago. he was playing with a blue rainmaker when they were the newest thing.

that guy was sponsered by everyone... i call him the "paintball figurehead"

usually ended up playing in the back.

thanks for the history tommy... you have dated yourself again.

skirts

[Curly]

I just looked at www.whitepages.com and found a couple of Fred and Alred Schultzs in the bay area. I am sure that none of them are likely to be the same guy but this sounds like a very interesting man and it would be nice to see him found.

[datapimp69]

tom,

i was on webdogradio and they had a clip of fred playing old school with a mag ( and a very long barrel).

check it out

[Tyger]

Dang it, Datapimp! You beat me to it!

Thing is that I heard he had some kind of an injjury, something about a neck joint or something? Actually, Freddy was a great guy for paintball. Sure, he was sponsored by everyone and their uncle joe, but he also had the passion. He also took time to talk to EVERYONE.

And I can reassure you that he led from the front. A lot. At one big game, I got a good crawl down and got behind a flag station only to find Fred and a flag runner attacking it from the front. We got it, it was cool. He led from the front, trust me.

Many meomries of Fred, miss that guy. Actually, we could use a few more of 'em in the sport.

-Tyger

[DiRTyBuNNy]

This is so weird, I was at a party on Saturday night for hte Paintball Expo, and I was talking to Chris Iaquintas, a freelance writer for FaceFull and Splat Magazine about doing a where are they now with Fred Schultz..

[Creative Mayhem]

Fred was awsome in his day. I had a ton of APG mags from that era, maybe i'll have to didg them up and take a look again. Fred came up here to Canada for an event called beach blitz, un fortuanely i couldnt make it that day, but I was there the next day and Youngblood was there. I would have rather met Fred than Dave.

Im off to dig up the old APG Mags... if I find any good pics.. I'll scan them in and post them.

C Mayhem

[bunkerhugger]

You forgot how uncoordinated the guy looked on the field. Maybe all the ribbing from other players finally drove him off.

[lopxtc]

Tom --

Were those the suits designed by Tim Schloss (Spelling?) from "The Pro Shop" out of Saint Louis? I remember seeing a picture of Tim in one of those tuxs shortly after that event.

This would have been around 92-93 I think ... I remember the radio show. I also remember playing against Pursuit at "The Paintball Zone" and getting walked over completely. Though I have to admit that Fred was cool about it. He walked over to us after the game and was saying that we had put up some stiff competion during that game. Mind you this was speedball and it was us with pumps (I think one semi maybe) and them with all semis LOL ... can we say kill zone ...

Aaron

[Hexis]

Fred used to show up at Paintball Sams's big games. I remember playing with him a few times. Great guy. It was very nice to have a leader that the random 200 people would listen to. I miss his involvement.

And that purple mag was great.