James Madison football coach Mickey Matthews wasn't sure what was happening shortly before 6 p.m. Saturday at Wallace Wade Stadium in Durham, N.C.

Both JMU and Duke were warming up for their game when two skydivers parachuted onto the field.

"One guy nearly landed on top of me," Matthews said yesterday. "I thought I was watching the 'Red Dawn' [1984 movie about fictional invasion of the United States by Russia and other Communist countries]. It was crazy.

"They had all this smoke coming out of their boots, and one guy had a football in his hands. They nearly hit one of our players in the head."

The game was scheduled for a 7 p.m. kickoff but was eventually delayed 90 minutes because of lightning.

It turns out the parachutists were supposed to jump into Kenan Stadium in Chapel Hill --about 8 miles away -- where the University of North Carolina was playing McNeese State that evening.

Kickoff at UNC was 6 p.m., so the parachutists were going to deliver the game ball. Bad weather nearly forced the skydivers from Virginia-based Aerial Adventures to cancel the leap, but the clouds opened enough for them to see a stadium, and they jumped.

"I wasn't intelligent enough to think about what it was at the time," Matthews said. "After I thought about it for a while and somebody brought it to my attention, it made sense. They thought they were landing at North Carolina.

"We've got it all on film. It's really kind of comical."

Rick Steinbacher, UNC's associate athletic director, didn't think it was funny.

"In about five years, maybe this will be funny," he told the Raleigh News and Observer. "Right now, I'm just glad no one was hurt."
Contact John Packett at (804)-649-6313 or jpackett@timesdispatch.com.