Members of U.S. Naval Academy running Army-Navy game ball from Annapolis to Gillette Stadium
ANNAPOLIS, Md. - A group from the U.S. Naval Academy is making a special delivery to Gillette Stadium for Saturday's Army-Navy game, running the game up to Foxboro from Annapolis, Maryland.
One-hundred and ninety-four members of the 13th Company started the 456-mile journey Tuesday and they haven't stopped. Groups are running legs of 8 to 12 miles, day and night, with a police escort along the way. In every state, people have come out to cheer them on.
This is part of a decades-old tradition to run the game ball to the Army-Navy game, wherever it's being held. This year, the group said they're running in honor of servicemembers who have been killed in action.
"It's something that we're trying to do this year, running with a purpose," said ball run commander Andrew Bacilek. "We don't know what's going to happen, we can't take any second for granted and being able to do this humbles us a little bit. We're here, we're doing this, we hope to be able to keep doing this for a long time."
The runners arrived at Gillette early Saturday morning. The seniors in the group will run the ball out onto the field before the start of the game.