Oregon players describe their time stranded on an elevator

Posted on October 15, 2015

Originally Posted on Emerald Media via UWIRE

Just hours prior to their 7:00 p.m. game against Colorado on Oct. 3, the Oregon football players headed back to their hotel rooms following the team’s morning stretch.

“We all started lining up for the elevator,” offensive lineman Tyrell Crosby said. “It opened up and a storm of us all just ran through.”

As the Ducks crammed into the elevator, a steady beeping noise followed; the doors wouldn’t close. They kicked off about five players, leaving around 15 inside, before the relentless sound ceased and the doors shut.

The elevator started going up.

Five seconds later, the players felt a small drop. They didn’t think much of it, because the elevators at the Hatfield-Dowlin Complex, where they practice, do the same thing.

“Oh, it’s no big deal,” Crosby thought.

A second later they felt another drop. Then the elevator stopped completely.

At first they thought it was a joke, that the elevator wasn’t actually stuck. Before long, punter Ian Wheeler pushed the emergency button and got on the line with hotel maintenance through the built-in phone.

“For the first 10 seconds we were all freaking out,” Crosby said. “After that, we were making a joke out of it and just had fun.”

The players thought, for sure, they had exceeded the elevator’s maximum weight capacity. That was until wide receiver Jalen Brown pulled out his phone to calculate their combined weight: more than a dozen college football players managed to stay under the limit by almost 200 pounds.

305-pound defensive lineman Austin Maloata tried to pry the doors open, but to no avail.

Being in there, Crosby said, was “just miserable.”

“It got really hot in there,” Crosby said. “We all just came from stretching, so we were all just sweaty and gross.”