101st Airborne Delivers Game Ball From Above

Brandon is headed home from Afghanistan and just posted on Facebook that he is at Leipzig/Halle Airport  in Germany.  Kristen is if Kentucky and will meet him when he arrives tomorrow.  As you know he is part of the 101st Airborne stationed at Fort Campbell.  I just received an email with a video you might find interesting.  

Delivering game balls to the official before a football game isn’t normally a big deal. Oh, maybe some famous former player will get to come and wave to the crowd before he hands the ball to the head ref, but it doesn’t often get creative.

Except, that is, during last weekend’s intrastate showdown between Michigan and Michigan State in Ann Arbor. For that, UM officials decided to look to the skies.

That’s how, after a year in the planning stages, Sgt. Adam Sniffen of the 101st Airborne Division from Fort Campbell, Kentucky, jumped from a Cessna several thousand feet above Michigan Stadium and parachuted into the largest football stadium in the country. Aside from the football and an American flag, Sniffen was also sporting a head-mounted videocam that contained a tongue switch in his mouth that would take still photos. More importantly, it recorded every nuance and maneuver that went into making such an insane leap.

Most fascinating perhaps is the tipping point where you can actually start to hear 109,933 crazed fansscreaming as this expert paratrooper — who hasn’t missed a target in more than 800 career jumps — comes in and sticks the landing at the 3-yard-line.