Staff from Mizzou Arena, MSHSAA and volunteers immediately begin changing over from basketball to wrestling.
Its a side of sports we don’t normally see, but as fans and media we often take it for granted. At the conclusion of Wednesday night’s Mizzou-Vandy basketball game, I came back out from the media room where coach Frank Haith and the players had just wrapped up their postgame press conference and I immediately noticed more than usual activity around the basketball court for 10 p.m. on a weeknight.
Work crews from Mizzou Arena, MSHSAA and wrestling volunteers were left with the daunting task of converting the basketball venue into the mecca of high school wrestling on the eve of the Misssouri High School Wrestling Championships.
Scores of volunteers walked up and down each aisle will large garbage bags picking up loose trash. Brooms were being swept along the floor, and the sound of power tools echoed through the arena as the expandable seating was retracted and benches cleared and folded away as Mike Kelly and Gary Link wrapped up their broadcast.
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The total tear down and set up took four hours and the group was finished at 2 a.m. Thursday morning.
I’m always impressed with how the staff can turn those buildings over from one function to the next in such a short amount of time. Check out this time lapse video from MSHSAA.