By TERRY LYONS, Editor-in-Chief of Digital Sports Desk
CHESTNUT HILL – Why do 25 years matter more than 11 years, or 23 years or 18? To most of us who were alive and kicking at the turn of the century, September 11th, 2001 was the single worst day of our lives. To most of us, there is no way the second worst day of our lives was anywhere near as bad as that horrible first day of school, blue sky September morning.
But, for those of us who called New York City home in 2001, the second worst day of our lives was September 12th, then 13th, then 14th – although starting on 9/12, there was a very different vibe developing. despite that supporting effort, it remained a horrible, a dull curve of terribleness, especially when the funerals came three times a day at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, 50 yards from my office door. It was a devastating, seemingly endless way of mourning.
The bagpipes. The widows. The families. The black hearses and limos – all lined up on Fifth Avenue from 50th to 51st Streets. Then, the 100s and 1000s of firefighters and police – many from out of state. – standing at attention in front of the church and all along the sidewalks. The same scene played out each and every day for the rest of September and into October and November and December. The last funeral was as horrible as the first. The bagpipes sounded out loudly and meaningfully, but the stoic, blank stares of shock, depression and desperation all remained intact – day after day, month after month.
Of course, the funerals were not all at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Rockefeller Center. They were held in Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx. They were staged at 8am, 11am, 1pm, or 3pm to allow the firefighters, police and brass to be able to attend every one of the services, or as many as physically possible. Funerals were staged on Staten Island and in Nassau and Suffolk counties, in Westchester and Rockland counties and Connecticut and in Jersey.
Three thousand funerals in churches up and down the east coast from Massachusetts to Virginia where the terrorist attacked took the lives of innocent workers at The Pentagon. There were memorials in Shanksville, Pennsylvania – population 199. It was Shanksville where United Flight 93 disintegrated into the ground as passengers who boarded the Boeing 757 at Newark International Airport in New Jersey, died in a valiant attempt to overtake the terrorists on board who were steering the airplane towards Washington D.C. rather than its scheduled destination of San Francisco International Airport in California.
Hockey great Garnet “Ace” Bailey, a former NHL player with the Bruins and then the Los Angeles Kings’ director of pro scouting, was aboard United Airlines Flight 175 with a colleague from his department.
Thus, there were funerals in the Bay area, and in LA and its Southern California suburbs for the victims who boarded American 11 and United 175 at Logan International in Boston, destined for Los Angeles but hijacked to their instantaneous deaths hitting the North and South Towers of the trade Center, respectively.
In the WTC buildings, there were workers from all over the world. All of different ages, of different occupations – some others just having breakfast at Windows on the World, a restaurant and conference center on the 106th/107th floors of the North Tower. That was a place I remember enjoying a special brunch treat upon my high school graduation in 1977. It had been open a year.
In all, people from 90 different countries perished and a rough estimate proved there were victims who practiced the Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, and Buddhist faiths.
Individual stories of exactly where people witnessed the horrific news are as widely diverse as the victims and survivors themselves. Stories of those who took a day off and walked or drove their child to the first day of the 2001-02 school year are heartwarming but equally frightening from the ‘what ifs’ people still cope with on a daily basis. At least that’s how I felt, as I had just returned from the Goodwill Games (Brisbane, Australia) the night before and sat out on the various taxiways of JFK as thunderstorms had grounded all flights that Monday night. I believe it was only lack of fuel remaining on a Quantas Air Brisbane-Auckland-LAX-JFK flight allowed us an earlier landing as planes circled Kennedy and nearby LaGuardia airports on the night of September 10th. There was a NY Giants vs Denver Broncos Monday Night football game, televised from a then brand new Invesco Field at Mile High. Denver won, 31-20.
Jet lag from three weeks or more on the Pacific Rim had this columnist’s body clock wound backwards and awake that early morning, TVs blaring from an apartment at 91st Street, between 1st Ave and York, 5.8 miles away from Ground Hero as the crow flies. The helpless feeling of watching on TV unable to assist in any manner and being told to not go anywhere south of 14th Street in Manhattan was devastating, but there was a steady stream of southern Manhattan workers and residents walking 2-2 1/2 hours north to escape the chaos. It was quite clear there was a total lockdown ongoing downtown.
The only recourse, with a three year old and one year old in tow, was to walk to our local parish – St. Joseph’s in Yorkville – where we sat with a handful of parishioners in silence.
Afterward, we walked to the little park in front of Asphalt Green on York Avenue. Our daughters played on the swings and we sat together on park benches, lumps in our throats and still a feeling of helplessness. Jets circled Manhattan – F-15C Eagles from the 102nd Fighter Wing of the Massachusetts Air National Guard, based at Otis Air National Guard Base on Cape Cod – and it was a sight I never thought I would see in my lifetime.
Fast forward a year, and I was sitting with some good friends as we conducted a Basketball w/o Borders camp in Europe and the day was done, a bite to be had with some great red wine and greater people. Some of the friends at the table rarely hung out with Americans and it was their first chance to ask a few questions, directed to a New Yorker who had lived on Manhattan island on the day of the attacks.
We told the story of the final day of the Goodwill Games, the flight to JFK, and the jet lag. Then watching everything occur in real time on September 11th, but on TV like everyone else in the world. Then, my true reaction and honest statement of “I never thought I’d see F-15s circling Manhattan Island and defending our Eastern Seaboard.”
Said one of our dear friends, the wife of Serbia’s hard-working coach Marin Sedlacek, to put it all in perspective; “Yeah, you should see those F-15 jets when they’re dropping bombs.”
To Put that remark in Context: The US and NATO conducted a bombing campaign in the former Yugoslavia that lasted 78 days, from March 24 to June 10, 1999. The US and its NATO allies intervened during the Kosovo War to force Yugoslav President Slobodan Milošević to halt ethnic cleansing against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.
“War. What is it good for? Absolutely nothing.” – by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong
HERE NOW, THE NOTES: Each September 11 (or closest possible date), the Boston College Eagles honor the memory of a former student-athlete, Welles Crowther, by playing a game in tribute to the deceased BC lacrosse player, who graduated and turned commodities broker at Sandler O’Neill and Partners in NYC. After graduation, he worked on the 104th floor of the South Tower of the World Trade Center.
It took time, but the New York Times and Crowther’s mother put together the unimaginable moments of what the young man encountered in the final hour of his life on September 11, 2001.
UA 175 hit the South Tower at 9:03 that morning. Crowther called his mother from his office at 9:12, leaving the message, “Mom, this is Welles. I wanted you to know that I’m okay.” Afterward Crowther, a volunteer firefighter in training, made his way to the 78th-floor sky lobby, where he encountered a group of survivors, including a badly burned Ling Young, who worked on the 86th floor in New York’s Department of Taxation and Finance. Young had been among a group of people waiting at a bank of elevators to evacuate when the plane hit the tower.
Crowther, carrying a young woman on his back, directed them to the one working stairway. The survivors followed him 17 floors down, where he dropped off the woman he was carrying before heading back upstairs to assist others. By the time he returned to the 78th floor, he had a bandana around his nose and mouth to protect him from smoke and haze. A red bandana.
He found another group of survivors, which included AON Corp. employee Judy Wein (who worked on the 103rd floor) in pain from a broken arm, cracked ribs, and a punctured lung, all injuries coming from being tossed around after the initial impact of a Boeing 757 aircraft- flying 500 mph – hitting a standing structure. According to Wein, Crowther assisted in putting out fires and administering first aid. He then announced to that group, “Everyone who can stand, stand now. If you can help others, do so.”
As occupants of the Tower headed for the street, Crowther returned up the stairs to help others. He was last seen doing so with members of the FDNY before the South Tower collapsed at 9:59.
Amazingly, a mostly completed New York City firefighter application was discovered in his home after his death.
According to survivor accounts, Crowther saved as many as 18 people during the attacks.
Crowther’s family was unaware of his actions between his last phone call to his mother and his death, until Allison Crowther read Judy Wein’s firsthand account of being saved by a man in a red bandana in The New York Times in May 2002, eight months after the Towers fell.
Allison then met with the people Welles had saved, including Wein and Young, and they confirmed his identity through photographs.
In 2006, Crowther was posthumously named an honorary New York City firefighter by Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta. That same year, Crowther’s Boston College lacrosse teammate, Tyler Jewell, wore a red bandana in honor of Crowther when he competed as a member of the United States snowboarding team in the 2006 Winter Olympics.
On September 13, 2014, Boston College played the University of Southern California and the team wore uniforms symbolizing Crowther’s red bandana, including a helmet stripe, cleats and gloves with a red bandana pattern. Somehow, someway, BC defeated then No. 9 USC Trojans, 37-31, before a sellout crowd in Chestnut Hill. It was a miracle – a Miracle!
This Friday, BC defeated Rutgers, 28-21. The Red Bandana game lives on. – Forever.
BOSTON COLLEGE: What is the Red Bandana Game. Watch THIS to find out.
THE POINT: A flight home from Australia draped with USA Basketball gear, t-shirts and sweatshirts was met with devastation of the USA on the very next day, as noted above. After the shock of 9/11, and the realization there were pictures of the missing victims seemingly everywhere you looked, along with empty wheelchairs at the hospitals and news of very few survivors, it was only a feeling of emptiness that prevailed.
Lost.
The shock, confusion and mourning stretched some ten more days and the timeline shifted to returning to daily routines. Late Night TV comedians had been preempted and the studios were all dark. Professional and college sports came to an immediate halt, and that meant the weekend of NFL football was scrapped on September 15-16.
On September 21, 10 days after the attacks, Major League Baseball returned to New York City as the New York Mets hosted the Atlanta Braves at Shea Stadium. The game served as a signal to get back. As the game progressed, Shea Stadium came to life, but the Mets trailed the Atlanta Braves, 2-1, in the bottom of the eighth. Edgardo Alfonzo drew a walk and there was one out as catcher Mike Piazza stepped up to the plate.
Piazza hit a baseball about as hard as a baseball can be hit. He took a second to watch it fly. It was a two-run home run to give the Mets a 3-2 lead that would stand up for the win. Shea Stadium’s loyal fans erupted with joy. It was okay to smile again.
Sports did that.
A month later, the New York Yankees had advanced to the World Series and were facing the Arizona Diamondbacks. At Game 3, played on October 30, 2001, President George W. Bush was asked to throw out the first pitch. There was considerable angst for the stadium security and NYPD. That angst was replaced with joy when President Bush zipped a rope-like fastball right across the plate.
Sports did that.
Ten days before the Series, the Concert for New York was staged at a sold-out Madison Square Garden, packed with the FDNY and NYPD survivors and the families of the deceased. Pictures of loved ones were held high. There were hugs and tears, and then The Who played four of their best songs.
- “Who Are You”
- “Baba O’Riley”
- “Behind Blue Eyes”
- “Won’t Get Fooled Again”
The Garden can rock, but it had never rocked like it did during that four-song set.
Music did that.
In between sets at the show, actors and comedians were asked to introduce some of the families who lost a loved one or just a group of fire fighters releasing some pent up emotion.
One of those skits was comedian (and actor) Adam Sandler doing his “Operaman” routine from Saturday Night Live.
It was hysterical and he stole the entire show.
Comedy did that.
Sports. Music. Comedy. That’s what brought us back, along with a ton of hugs and tears shared with our loved ones. It was a time to hug the kids a little bit tighter and a little bit longer before the bedtime routine.