Sports
Military Bowl flyover will feature Navy pilots from the competing schools
Stars and Stripes
December 26, 2023
F/A-18 Super Hornets taxi the flight deck on the USS Gerald R. Ford in the Mediterranean Sea on Nov. 6. (Jennifer Newsome/U.S. Navy)
Two F/A-18 Hornets will help kick off the Military Bowl featuring Tulane vs. Virginia Tech on Wednesday in Annapolis, Md., and the pilots of each will have a keen interest in the outcome of the game.
One plane will be piloted by 2006 Tulane graduate Adam Stephens, and at the controls of the other will be 2002 Virginia Tech graduate Elliott Shoup.
“When I heard Tulane was going to play in the game, I immediately started thinking we should do a flyover,” said Stephens, who is the commanding officer of the VFC-12 Ambush U.S. Navy reserves F/A-18 squadron based out of Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia Beach, Va.
Shoup is Stevens’ second in command, and that only added to the excitement.
“It was a no-brainer to try to do it,” Shoup said. “Adam has been a loud proponent of Tulane for as long as I’ve known him, but normally he’s in his own [American Athletic Conference] circle. We don’t have the opportunity to play each other very often.”
After completing the flyover, Stephens and Shoup will continue to Joint Base Andrews then hustle back to Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium to watch their alma maters.
And of course, the pilots placed a friendly wager: The loser buys the bottle of rye.
The game begins at 2 p.m. ET and will be televised on ESPN.