Aircraft carrier unique mission as basketball arena

http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-1111-aircraft-carrier-basketball-20111111,0,6672064.story

The flight deck of the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson is 1,094 feet long and its official use is for fighter jets to load up and take off, leaving the ship at 150 mph as they travel from one end to the other.

On Friday, though, it will have a much different use, serving as a staging prop for a college basketball game. This wild idea has been 10 years in the making, the concept of Michigan State Athletic Director Mark Hollis, whose team will play top-rated North Carolina.

“Some people call me a mad scientist,” Hollis said Thursday from the top deck of the carrier. Tom Izzo, his basketball coach, rolled his eyes and nodded in agreement.

The transformation of the aircraft carrier started Wednesday when the same basketball court that was used for the 2011 NCAA national championship game was lifted by crane more than 14 stories and laid piece by piece, as if it was a jigsaw puzzle, until all 258 squares snapped together.

About 7,000 seats brought in to form an arena and the two basketball stanchions were put in place.

Secret Service agents will arrive early Friday morning to sweep the ship because President Obama is expected to attend the 4 p.m. game and Magic Johnson and James Worthy will be the honorary captains for their alma maters, Michigan State and North Carolina.

Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus said Friday’s game is meant to honor service members and veterans, to show the nation on Veterans Day “how important sports is to the sailors and Marines out there as a way to connect to family and friends.”

…..

Morale Entertainment, a company that arranges for groups around the world to meet troops, and ESPN are splitting the costs of staging the game, believed to be in the mid-seven figures.

No tickets were sold. Each school received about 400 tickets, Quicken Loans, the title sponsor and State Farm, the secondary sponsor, received some and the rest went to men and women in the military.

Each team will wear specially designed uniforms resembling camouflage gear for the game, and an 86-pound trophy, a replica of the Carl Vinson, has been made.

There’s never been a college basketball game on an aircraft carrier flight deck, and the thought of it gave both Williams and Izzo goose bumps.

“It’s far superseded whatever I thought it could be,” Izzo said Thursday. “If you could have seen our players’ eyes as we walked [onto the ship Wednesday], it was kind of a dream come true. In a small, small way, we feel we are giving a little bit back.”

The subject of weather has been a concern from the moment the game was conceived.

There were plans to place a second basketball court inside the ship in the hangar deck. If there was rain, the game would move inside.

On Wednesday a command decision was made by officials from Morale, ESPN and the Navy that the weather forecast was cooperating. No second court was laid down.