INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — The city is sending 32 Indiana eighth-graders across the country to hand deliver its bid to host the 2012 Super Bowl to NFL team owners.

The students will travel with their chaperones — and large briefcases containing the city's bid documents — to cities with National Football League franchises. The students, who will wear the respective jerseys of the teams they are visiting, will be seniors in high school in 2012.

NFL team owners plan to vote on the Super Bowl site at their annual meeting near Atlanta later this month. Indianapolis is competing against Phoenix and Houston. Indianapolis lost out to Dallas last year in a bid to host the 2011 game.

Mark Miles, who is leading the city's bid effort this year, said sending students to deliver the bid documents is a way to show team owners that the whole community wants the game.

"I hope that it conveys this message to the owners: If they turn us down, they're turning down all of Indiana," Miles said. "This is something that absolutely has, not just the support but the involvement of a big part of our population, and they all stand ready to make this a success if the NFL chooses us."

Superintendents in 26 central Indiana school districts chose students who are in good academic standing and will be "exemplary representatives of their communities."

Noblesville Middle School student Dillon Joyce, 14, will deliver the bid to the Philadelphia Eagles.

"It's a great opportunity, and I'm psyched about it," he said. "I think it's a great idea because it shows Indianapolis wants to use its community to do something unique instead of just having some dude from the Colts doing it."

The New York Jets will receive their Indianapolis bid package from Alaina Finkelmeier, a 13-year-old student at Creekside Middle School in Carmel. She hopes the approach helps sell team owners on an Indianapolis Super Bowl.

"It would be easier to turn down some adults trying to sell their city, but it would be harder to say no to a kid walking in with their football team's jersey on," she said.