Ask any player who has spent real time on a paintball field to name the most iconic mask in the sport, and you'll hear the same answer over and over: the JT Proflex. But the story behind those famous soft ears starts long before paintball existed — with a pharmacist, a pickup truck, and a stack of motorcycle socks.
If you're getting serious about paintball and wondering why so many veterans are loyal to JT, this is the history that explains it.
Before paintball: the JT Racing years
In the late 1960s, John Gregory was a pharmacist in National City, a suburb of San Diego, and an avid off-road motorcyclist. He and his wife Rita began selling colorful cotton riding socks — sourced from Tijuana, Mexico — to racers at local dirt tracks. Rita named the venture by flipping the initials of the socks' origin: "TJ" became "JT."
By 1970 the pharmacy was closed and JT Racing was a full-time business. Over the next fifteen years, JT didn't just participate in motocross apparel — it dominated the era. JT introduced the industry's first nylon motocross pants (back when riders still wore actual leather "leathers") and sponsored a who's-who of champions: Bob "Hurricane" Hannah, Broc Glover, Rick Johnson, David Bailey, Jean-Michel Bayle and many more. John and Rita Gregory were eventually inducted into the AMA Motorcycle Hall of Fame for their impact on the sport.
That heritage matters for one reason: JT learned to build protective gear for athletes moving fast and getting hit hard, years before paintball needed exactly that.
The pivot that changed paintball
In the mid-1980s, with more competitors crowding the motocross market, John Gregory turned his attention to a strange new game being played in the woods of California: paintball. In 1985, JT released its first paintball mask, the Whippersnapper — a simple design by today's standards, but a landmark product in a sport where many early players wore nothing more than shop glasses.
JT's goggle systems became some of the first mandatory safety equipment in paintball. It's hard to overstate this: a motocross company from San Diego helped establish the very idea that paintball players should wear purpose-built face and eye protection. The paintball division grew so quickly that it eventually eclipsed the motocross business entirely.
The Flex era and the birth of an icon
Through the 1990s, JT iterated relentlessly on mask design. The Spectra goggle system introduced a rigid frame with a dual-pane thermal lens — the anti-fog technology that remains the standard today. The Flex 7 added flexible rubber bottoms that let paintballs bounce off without breaking, a genuine competitive advantage that top tournament teams adopted almost universally.
Then, in 2003, JT combined everything it had learned into one mask: the Proflex. Rigid Spectra goggle frame up top for protection and lens performance, soft flexible bottoms and JT's famous soft ears below for comfort and bounces. More than twenty years later, the Proflex is still in production, still on pro players' faces, and still one of the most customized masks in the sport — a lifespan almost no other piece of paintball equipment can claim. (We break down the full Proflex vs. Spectra ecosystem in our mask deep dive.)
Changing hands, keeping the flame
The Gregorys sold JT in 2000, and the brand passed through several owners over the following years — Brass Eagle, K2, and then KEE Action Sports, which carried the JT line through the 2000s and early 2010s. In 2015, GI Sportz acquired KEE Action Sports, bringing JT into the family that would become Kore Outdoor, the brand's home today.
Through every ownership change, two things stayed constant: the Proflex kept its place as a benchmark mask, and the Spectra lens ecosystem kept its cross-compatibility, meaning lenses players bought years ago still fit current frames. In an industry where products come and go every season, that continuity is a big part of why the JT community is so loyal — and so nostalgic. Vintage JT gear, from old Proflex colorways to 1990s apparel, is actively collected and traded to this day.
Why the heritage still matters when you buy
It would be easy to read all this as marketing nostalgia. But the JT story has practical consequences for what you put in your gear bag:
Proven, evolved designs
The Proflex you buy today is the product of four decades of continuous refinement — foam, venting, lens seal, strap, ear protection — rather than a first-generation experiment.
An ecosystem, not a one-off
Because the Spectra lens platform spans the Proflex, Proflex X, Flex 8 and Proshield families, your investment in lenses and spare parts carries forward instead of becoming obsolete.
Safety-first DNA
JT helped write the rulebook on paintball eye protection. When a brand's founding contribution to the sport is making it safer, that focus shows up in every product generation since.
Carry the legacy onto the field
Every sport has a handful of brands that shaped it. Paintball has JT — the motocross company that gave the game its most famous mask and helped make protective gear non-negotiable.
Ready to wear a piece of that history?
- Shop the icon: browse the full JT masks and goggles collection and find your Proflex colorway.
- Build your lens quiver: explore JT goggle lenses for thermal lens options in every tint.
- Just getting serious? See our guide on going from rental gear to your own setup and start with the mask — the most important upgrade you'll ever make.