Each year, the cross country team celebrates homecoming by running the ball from the away team’s high school back to the main gym just in time to run into the pep assembly.

The event begins the evening before at the football field, where members of the team sleep on the field.

“We make t-shirts, play frisbee and sometimes go to Speedway to get slushies,” senior Lydia Wandmacher said.

The tradition of running the ball began more than a decade ago.

“We’ve been doing the ball run for about 15 to 16 years,” Coach Todd Mills said. “We’ve never canceled it; when it stormed one year we shortened it and then drove when it was raining.”

The cross country team does not run the entire distance from the visitor’s high school to FHS, instead it is set up like a relay, with groups of three running for about two miles at a time. This year, they will be running from Kearsley, which is about 30 miles.

“The longest we’ve ran the ball was from Flushing, which, in total, was about 45 miles,” Mills said.