The University of South Florida’s football team has a chance to compete in the International Bowl in Toronto on January 2nd. There’s just one catch-to fly into Canada, everyone needs to have a passport.<\/p>\n
According to\u00a0TBO.com, the team didn’t hear that they would be going until December 6th, so everyone is having to scramble to get expedited passports. In fact, the passport acceptance facility at the Hillsborough County courthouse ended up processing 178 passport applications for the team in a single week.<\/p>\n
The team is having their passports expedited through the Department of State, and officials from the courthouse told TBO.com that they could take up to 4 weeks to process and there was no guarantee that all the players would get their passports back in time. Chris Freet, USF assistant director of athletics, says the team is dealing with the surprise international trip as best they can and keeping their fingers crossed: “It’s not a normal situation and it’s the first time that we’re going,” he told TBO.com. “We tried our best to be as thorough as possible and we hope that nothing gets turned around in Miami.”<\/p>\n
Circuit Court Clerk Pat Frank, who helped the team apply for the expedited passports, wished them well, saying “I just hope they get their passports and win that game. We were so happy to do it. They’re excited and nervous. When you take off the padding, they really looked liked fragile kids.”<\/p>\n
Getting expedited passports through the Department of State can take 3-4 weeks, but there is another alternative if you need your passport sooner:\u00a0 a private passport expediting company.\u00a0 An expediter personally delivers your application to the Department of State, putting your application on the top of the stack for the fastest possible processing.\u00a0 In fact, if you have your passports expedited through RushMyPassport.com, your application could be processed in as little as 24 hours!<\/p>\n