College wrestling’s surreal night at the airplane museum: I mean, why not?

I spent time earlier this month inside a marvel of American sporting construction. Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta is an enormous cathedral of glass, steel and geometry, highlighted by its eight-panel, pinwheeled retractable roof.

It seats 75,000 people.

It gets ear-poppingly loud.

It’s a sight to behold.

But Friday night, as I listened to Linfield University athletic director Scott Brosius speak on a wrestling mat while surrounded by airplanes inside a museum in McMinnville, I had to agree with the 1998 World Series MVP.

“In my playing career, I had the opportunity to play in some pretty cool places — Yankee Stadium, Fenway Park,” said Brosius, the former New York Yankees third baseman. “Never, ever have I had the opportunity to play underneath the tail of the largest wooden aircraft ever built.

“So, pretty cool stuff over here.”

Mercedes-Benz Stadium may have a soft-serve ice cream machine in the press box. But the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum has the Spruce Goose, the Howard Hughes-built amphibious aircraft that flew once in 1947 and has called the McMinnville museum — a 90-minute drive from Eugene — home since 1993.

As the son of a pilot, I’ll always point to the place with the plane. And even more credit to Linfield for turning a space built to celebrate history in the air into a showcase for duels on the ground.

Friday marked Linfield’s annual Night at the Museum, this year featuring the Linfield men’s and women’s wrestling teams taking on Ontario’s Treasure Valley Community College.

Wrestlers took the mat beneath the Goose’s 113-foot horizontal stabilizer, then battled it out on a purple Linfield surface below a suspended Soviet-era Yak-50 and a Beechcraft Bonanza.

It’s the third year of the event — the first two were held in a neighboring hangar featuring fighter jets — an idea concocted by Linfield wrestling coach Frank Johnson.

Johnson loves wrestling, wants to promote his fourth-year program and figured the unorthodox idea of hosting an annual meet amid aviation history might introduce people who come for the planes but stick around for the grappling.

It’s sound logic: The event has been on my Oregon sports bucket list since seeing photos of the first edition two years ago.

“I feel like wrestling is the best sport to watch,” Johnson said. “A lot of people don’t understand this. But this brings out a lot of people who aren’t wrestling fans.”

While I’ll admit I didn’t follow what I was watching much of the time, Johnson’s passion was impossible to miss during the night’s dozen-plus duals. And while the athletes admitted it was pretty cool wrestling among the planes, the energy of the matches quickly became the focus, peaking in the final bout when Wildcats heavyweight Camden Roofener pinned his opponent to secure a 27-18 win for the Linfield men.

“Words can’t explain. It’s a one-in-a-million feeling,” Linfield senior Alex Tapia said. “It’s not every day you get to wrestle in a place like this with people from all over the state of Oregon.”

The Linfield women fell 26-14, but senior Klaira Flatt didn’t seem too upset about the result. A four-time girls regional placer at Toledo High School in Siletz, Flatt said she treasures her time in a sport that tells her exactly what she needs.

“There’s an aspect of a team sport, and I think it’s good and builds character,” she said. “But there’s so much grit and discipline that comes with wrestling. At the end of the day, it’s a team, but as much work and time I put in, that’s going to reflect on that match — and me — for the team.”

She’s also eager to see what Johnson dreams up next.

Johnson said that as Linfield continues to find its footing in the early stages of its program, he hopes to bring a big-name opponent to the museum someday. He’s also floated the idea of a summer camp where the final bouts would be held at a downtown McMinnville intersection.

The Goose, however, might be hard to top.

“I’ve never ever wrestled under massive planes before,” Flatt said. “It’s a super cool way to bring in fans and spotlight our wrestling teams.”