Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
PROVO -- Students have been camped outside the Marriott Center for days for tonight's BYU men's basketball game, and workers inside have spent days getting ready for the final two sold out home games.
Since noon on Tuesday, directly following the BYU devotional, the events staff has been getting the Marriott Center prepped for tonight's game. Just getting the court, the hoops, and surrounding tables and courtside seats in place takes around three hours.
It's like having a small city really, and just having them jammed into one building.
–Justin Durfey
Then there's the pregame projection show that requires hanging sheets from the rafters. All the aisles are cleaned and Marriott center Assistant Director Justin Durfey says they'll spend the entire day getting ready to throw open the doors before tipoff.
"It's like having a small city really, and just having them jammed into one building," said Durfey.
Then there's the food. From the Cougar Tail (a giant maple bar with a bratworst stuffed inside) to the healthier soups and salads, concessions manager Aaron Black says they prepare all the food on game day, and there's a lot of it.
"You know easily you're probably looking at 20 to 30 thousand pounds (of food) for an event like this, when you consider the soda that's consumed in that poundage," said Black.
BYU has been continually adding new types of food and contracted vendors for the basketball and football games, but Black says the best seller remains the old-fashioned hot dog. And they'll sell several thousand tonight.
Close to 300 student employees also get a paycheck thanks to game day, from those taking tickets and acting as ushers to the people selling the hot dogs.
The Marriott Center is 40 years old, but Durfey says the school puts a lot of resources to keeping the building current.
"The Marriott Center is old but she can take a beating still," said Durfey.
E-mail: rjeppesen@ksl.com
