Michigan State University Athletics
Carrier Classic Delivers Hopeful Message
11/14/2011 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Nov. 14, 2011
By Steve Grinczel, Online Columnist
It's a defining moment that never happens if Michigan State doesn't host No. 1 North Carolina in a game of basketball on the flight deck of a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier docked on an arm of the Pacific Ocean.
All the years of planning, weeks and months of preparation and manhours of setup and construction came down not to some spectacular shot or instance of coaching genius, but this:
After Friday night's game ended in a 67-55 Tar Heels victory, the players from both teams removed their camouflaged jerseys, adorned with "USA" on the backs, and presented them to members of the military wounded in combat.
Decades after the inaugural Carrier Classic is relegated to a result displayed in small print in a media guide, that singular gesture of the heart will be recounted more than any other by old men and women who were there.
"When they gave the jerseys to the wounded warriors, that's the image I'll live with - just watching how those people reacted and responded, and watching how the players enjoyed the moment and thought they were doing a little part," said MSU coach Tom Izzo.
Paul Schager, Michigan State's associate athletic director for external operations and behind-the-scenes miracle worker, came up with the idea. Athletics director Mark Hollis, who dreamed up the concept of playing a game on ship on Veterans Day seven years earlier, ran it by Spartans captain Draymond Green.
The irrepressible Green carried out the operation without a hitch while getting the players from the team to which he just lost, and his disappointed teammates, to selflessly rally around the troops.
To Izzo's way of thinking, Hollis didn't get the credit nationally he deserves for his role in staging the Carrier Classic, but the only reward that mattered came though to him on the faces of the rank and file in attendance.
"You're sitting around that court getting a feel of those men and women who will soon be going overseas, and then you look straight across the court and there are a number of people who already had been there and were severely injured in one way or another," Hollis said. "I think what Draymond Green did was one of the cool things, pulling both teams together at center court right after the game was over and literally taking the shirts off their backs and giving them to the people whose lives were forever altered.
"Nobody else knew about it but Green, and it was one of the great moments. I don't think it got on television or highly publicized, but it brought the wounded warriors a little bit more into the game."
The 11/11/11 event on the USS Carl Vinson was a demonstration of everything that's right with college athletics. The collaboration of MSU, North Carolina and the Navy also was intended to be catalyst to increase the significance of the Veterans Day holiday as WWI and WWII settle ever-deeper into the past, and more recent veterans and those currently serving are increasingly taken for granted, according to Hollis.
"From the standpoint of what took place on the deck and what was broadcast via television, I thought it hit it almost 100 percent," Hollis said. "The true test is what comes afterwards, and I think that's why it's important not to play a basketball game and forget about it.
"It's, can we turn Veterans Day into a celebration? Can we bring those who serve overseas into our thoughts everyday and can we make it more of an appreciation and attempt to understand what those individual who are deployed and their families are going through? I think the game brought a lot of attention to those people, and that's what it was all about."
In a day and age when it seems every significant news event regarding college athletics comes under a controversial headline, the Carrier Classic had a hopeful message.
"It was great for both universities, but it was bigger for college sports as a whole because it was a situation in which the NCAA showed the positives that can result from competition," Hollis said. "It was almost a throwback in time to when sports was associated with a social issue on a positive note versus a negative note.
"Hopefully we can use college sports in that way much more in the future."
Izzo was struck by how President Obama and his wife Michelle were compelled to participate in the Carrier Classic and thankful for it becoming a reality, how Michigan State President Lou Anna K. Simon became emotional at times throughout the game, how NCAA President Mark Emmert and Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany were on hand, how former Spartans great Earvin "Magic" Johnson and other MSU and North Carolina stars from the past showed up and how high-ranking military officials and admirals wanted to rub elbows with him.
But he was still having trouble wrapping his head around the idea of having people who volunteer to put themselves in harm's way to protect America's freedom gushing over the fact MSU and North Carolina would play a simple game of basketball for them.
"One other area we all should learn from is how humbling an experience it is to have people, who are putting their lives on the line, to thank you for sharing a moment with them," Izzo said. "That's probably what's hardest for me to handle. It just kind of tells you a little bit about the men and women who serve in the military, how passionate they are about what they do, how dedicated they are and how respectful.
"If we learn something from that, it would be enough. This will, as Magic said about the Final Four, mean something to you tomorrow. It will mean a lot more five years, 10 years, 15 years from now. We had a chance to play the No. 1 team in the country and hosted by the No. 1 team in the world."
