BYU players rescue teammate Jesse Wade from stalled elevator.
“BYU had some excitement even before its first game.”
THE FOLLOWING WRITTEN CONTENT BY DAN GARTLAND
The BYU men’s basketball team got to break up the monotony of life in the NCAA tournament bubble this week when players staged a rescue mission to free one of their own from a stalled elevator.
On Wednesday, junior guard Jesse Wade got stuck in a hotel elevator while trying to meet his teammates for dinner. His coach and teammates initially responded by entertaining him via FaceTime; then they decided to take matters into their own hands and extricate him.
Wade posted footage of the rescue to Twitter on Thursday night, showing how his teammates pried the doors of the elevator open with their hands to create a gap wide enough for him to squeeze through. (He’s lucky he’s 6′ 1″, 175 pounds. Can you imagine if 7′ 3″ Matt Haarms was the one in there?)
They even took a team photo after freeing Wade to commemorate the occasion.
I’m glad it worked out for Wade and the rescue party, but isn’t this something that you should leave to trained professionals like a firefighter or maintenance worker? My friend Christian must have gotten stuck in the elevator on the way up to my college apartment five or six times and not once did my buddies and I decide to pry the door open ourselves. What if one of the players had the door slam on his hand and missed the game against UCLA with some broken fingers?
Wade’s elevator mishap also worked its way into the Cougars’ fun pre-coronavirus test routine. The players walk into the room to get their noses swabbed like it’s pregame introductions, with a medical staffer introducing guys as if she were a P.A. announcer: “6′ 7″, out of Kansas City, Missouri …”
Wade was introduced as “just recently freed” and proceeded to pantomime taking a ride in an elevator and bursting out. Read- watch more from Sports Illustrated
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