NC State's Basketball Coach Will Jump Out Of A Plane And Land At The 50-Yard Line For, Um, "Military Appreciation Week"

Does someone get this? Because we're not sure we get this. Southeastern college basketball was only recently liberated from the tyranny of Bruce Pearl, its chief coach-mascot, and now it's got another one on its hands.

Mark Gottfried, who was canned by Alabama in 2009 under murky circumstances, took the NC State gig in April. He has evidently decided, long before the first jump ball of the ACC season, months ahead of forthcoming dismantlings at the hands of John Henson and Seth Curry, to make himself into a flying clown.

Andy Katz explains:

The plan is for Gottfried to latch onto a trusted tandem jumper and land at the 50-yard line before kickoff of Wolfpack's home football game against South Alabama. The person who will be guiding Gottfried to land is the same man who helped former President George H.W. Bush jump on his 80th birthday.

"I figured if he could survive it, I could survive it,'' Gottfried said. "The No. 1 reason is to bring attention to our military since it's military appreciation week. I want to say thank you to them. But we're also trying to get attention for NC State basketball.''

Would Duke's Mike Krzyzewski or North Carolina's Roy Williams do something like this?

"They don't have to,'' Gottfried said. "We're at a different point with our program. We have a long, long, long ways to go, about as long as that fall out of the plane.''

Yes, but, when you jump out of a plane, you're going down, you see.

Mark Gottfried will make the leap for Pack [ESPN NCAAB]