Chute, we missed the mark
N.C.-bound jumpers land at Duke instead
Duke officials were a bit surprised when, at 6 p.m. EDT on Saturday, about an hour before the scheduled kickoff of their game against James Madison, two men parachuted into their stadium and landed at the 35-yard line with a game ball.
Problem was, the Blue Devils weren’t expecting it.
“All we know is, they must have missed their jump site,” a team official said.
They did – the jump site was meant to be about 8 miles away. North Carolina was scheduled to receive the game ball for its contest against McNeese State via an aerial team at about that time in Chapel Hill.
According to UNC assistant athletic director for promotions Michael Beale, the plane was in the air, but the jumpers from Virginia-based Aerial Adventures opted to cancel the leap into Kenan Stadium because of a severe weather front – which would later delay both games.
Evidently, when the clouds opened, the pilot thought they were over the correct stadium, and the skydivers jumped – realizing when they landed in Wallace Wade that they were in the wrong place.