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There’s usually nothing particularly noteworthy about the forms of transportation college sports teams use to travel for games against other schools. However, we’ve been treated to a very notable exception courtesy of the plane Army’s baseball team used to make its way to Colorado for a showdown with Air Force.
College athletes spend plenty of time on the road over the course of the season, and there are plenty of logistical issues that need to be sorted out in order to facilitate those journeys.
NCAA rules dictate Division I schools must opt for ground transportation (usually in the form of a chartered bus) for any game that’s 400 miles away or less, which means teams can end up spending six or seven hours on the road each way during trips that can end up taking a toll as the season progresses.
The governing body also offers schools a dedicated service they can use to book chartered flights to facilitate longer treks, but many of them simply opt to put teams on commercial flights in situations where it’s feasible.
The three service academies that compete at the top level of college sports tend to harness all of those options when it comes to making their way around the country, but Army, Navy, and Air Force also have access to one resource other public and private learning institutions are unable to take advantage of: a massive fleet of military planes.
They may not be the default option, but it’s still one that can occasionally be deployed—and Army’s baseball team decided to do exactly that when hopped aboard the C-17 that transported them from Stewart Air National Guard Base in New York to Colorado Springs on Thursday night for the three-game series with Air Force that will kick off on Friday (the plane in question ironically belongs to by the branch of the team they’re playing).
Traveled in style to Air Force today! ✈️ pic.twitter.com/4tLa1cJXDw
— Army Baseball (@ArmyWP_Baseball) February 27, 2025
Both schools will be hoping to get some much-needed wins after a rough start to the year, as Army is 1-5 and riding a five-game losing streak while Air Force is sitting at 2-6 after winning its three-game series with Navy last week.