Ten years ago, I, along with many others, had the worst day of my life. I don’t often talk about it, but I will now.
I woke up on the morning of Tuesday, September 11th, 2001 as a freshman at Boston College. And, in what would become a theme of over the next four years, I’d overslept. I skipped my shower, frantically threw on my jeans, and grabbed my book bag, only briefly acknowledging the DJ on my alarm clock radio when he reported that a plane had hit one of the Twin Towers.
I walked into class 20 minutes late, receiving a disapproving glance from my Jesuit professor and a mix of amusement and sympathy from my 11 classmates. As I sat, wondering just how much I had damaged my GPA in my second week of college, my mind returned to what the radio said. You can call it naivety or optimism, but I assumed that the story was an unfortunate accident involving a biplane and an inexperienced pilot. It would become just another topic to chat with my mother in Queens about, and so I drifted back to the more pressing topic of dues ex machina and other themes in The Iliad.
Half an hour later, we returned from our usual five-minute break. Cell phones and text messages were not yet fully entrenched in our lives, so it was up to our professor to break the news that three planes had crashed into the World Trade Center and Pentagon in what seemed to be a coordinated attack. And yet, most of us still failed to understand the gravity of the situation. We continued with class as we normally would, and in those final 40 minutes all I could wonder is why one of my classmates had tears in her eyes.
When class ended, I left the building and ran into my friend Matt.
“Did you hear?” he asked.
“Yeah, a couple of planes hit the Twin Towers, right? Is everyone ok?”
“No, Pete, they’re gone. The Towers collapsed.”
That was when it finally hit me, and I could do nothing but cry.
I cried as we walked to the bus stop. I cried as we rode the 20 minutes back to my dorm. I cried as I tried to reach my parents and relatives back home.
I wasn’t worried about myself. I knew my family was ok, since none of them worked downtown. (I only learned later that my father had a meeting scheduled in one of the towers the morning of September 12th.) I cried because, shortly after the World Trade Center bombing of 1993, my fourth grade teacher asked our class to speak about what the event meant to us. A handful of kids talked about how happy they were that their mother, or father, or aunt, or bigger brother, was working in one of the towers and made it out safely. Now, I knew that many of those family members were likely gone.
I love New York, but, having lived in Boston for over a decade now, I realize that the city can be a hardened place. The laws of supply and demand apply to human beings just as much as they do commodities. As the amount of people in an area increase, the value of each one of those individuals decreases. It’s hard not to get annoyed on the way to work when you’re crammed into a subway car or bumping into someone on every sidewalk. And it’s easy to be rude to a person when you know that they’re just one of the dozens of people you’ll interact with that day.
But September 11th reminded us of how much we need each other. After years of meticulous planning, 19 men committed a horrendous evil. And with only minutes to act, hundreds of firefighters and police officers ran into a burning skyscraper, thousands of civilians rushed to donate blood, and millions of Americans came together to support their country in one of its greatest times of need. If September 11th showed us the wickedness of men, then the aftermath showed us the goodness of mankind.
In their first game after the tragedy, the Giants traveled to Kansas City. What I remember about that game, and the reason I’ll always have respect for Chiefs fans, is that Arrowhead Stadium treated the visitors as if they were a second home team. The fans cheered when the Giants took the field and held up signs supporting New York. The Jets received a similar welcome from Patriots fans in Foxboro. Despite the competition on the field, everyone was on the same side.
10 years later, much has changed. A new World Trade Center is finally being constructed. The Red Cross, oversupplied with blood in the weeks after the attacks, again needs to solicit donations. On Sunday, after some solemn opening ceremonies, the games and rivalries of the NFL continued as they always have. The winning touchdown of the Giants-Redskins game was scored by a player who was still in grade school on the day of the attacks. When the Jets travel to New England in a few weeks, the memory of Pats fans high-fiving Vinny Testaverde and Curtis Martin as they took the field will be long forgotten. In the coming weeks, they’ll take down the commemorative 9/11 banners in towns all throughout the country, and we’ll continue to move on, as we should.
The unity in the days and weeks after September 11th couldn’t last forever. But that doesn’t diminish its importance. The pain I felt that horrible day is something I’ll never forget. But the goodwill and human caring that I witnessed in the weeks after is something that I’ll always remember.
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Here are my thoughts on Week 1 of the 2011 season:
- As we were excitedly flipping between the Eagles-Rams and Steelers-Ravens games early Sunday afternoon, my friend Tania yelled out “What have we been doing for the past seven months?” Um, reading union decertification laws and collective bargaining agreements, of course.
- Wasn’t the lockout supposed to handicap rookies early in the season? Instead, newcomers pulled off some of the most exciting and important plays of Week 1. Randall Cobb had a 108-yard kickoff return for Green Bay Thursday night. Ryan Kerrigan had the aforementioned pick-six for the Redskins. Cam Newton threw for a whopping 422 yards. And Patrick Peterson returned punt for a touchdown, while learning that you don’t high-step on the 25 yard line unless you’re Deion Sanders.
- Chicago had as impressive a victory this weekend as any team not from Baltimore. But Bears fans should be wary of the four sacks that their offensive line allowed. They can’t go the distance this year unless their pass-blocking improves.
- Weird Stat of the Day: Tom Brady’s 517 yards passing last night will be yet another bullet point for his Hall of Fame resume. But did you know that he still has fewer 400+ yard games for the Patriots than Matt Cassel? Brady has just two in his career, while Cassel threw for three in the 2008 season.
- Bill Polian is one of the best GMs in the league, but his reputation could take a serious hit this year if the Colts are as bad as they looked on Sunday. I continue to wonder why they had no backup plan for Peyton Manning.
- I, along with many other analysts, assumed that the lockout would hinder the passing game for the first couple of weeks as quarterbacks and receivers tried to get on the same page. But given what we saw in the first week, it might be the secondaries that need time to mesh. Take a look at Week 1 passing stats from 2010 and 2011:
2010: 207 yds/game, 39 TDs, 27 INTs
2011: 241 yds/game, 54 TDs, 23 INTs
Is there any doubt that the NFL has become a passing league?
- Clearly, the problems of the Giants' offseason have carried over into September. A revamped offensive line and injury-depleted secondary struggled with miscommunication. Their slot receiver was nonexistent. And Eli Manning has yet to throw a touchdown pass since last season.
- Sunday night's game couldn’t have been more representative of the kinds of quarterbacks that Tony Romo and Mark Sanchez are. Romo continually makes gorgeous passes and puts up big stats, yet shrinks in big moments. Sanchez’s throws often make me recoil in disgust, but the kid has a knack for clutch plays. I’d still rather have Romo on my team, but I don’t say that as confidently as I did a week ago.
- I wish there was a way to verify this, but I feel like there are an abnormal amount of injuries this early in the season. Marques Colston, Steven Jackson, Willie Colon, Eric Berry, Jon Beason, and Dan Koppen were just some of the big names to go down in the first week. Obviously some of those injuries were freak accidents, but I wonder if the time away from team trainers and physicians during the lockout kept the players from properly conditioning themselves for the hits of a live game.
- The vultures are circling. Fantasy football owners often lament the running back that gets a goal line touchdown from the one yard line after his more talented teammates took the team down the field. Well, get used to seeing more of that this year. In the past, coaches wouldn’t challenge some borderline touchdowns because they didn’t want to risk losing a timeout just to have their opponent get 1st and goal on the six-inch line. With the new referee reviews, you’ll see more touchdowns brought back to the one yard line, which means more opportunities for the vultures.
- The biggest mistake fans make after Week 1 is overreacting to one game. This time last year, the Texans had soundly thumped Peyton Manning’s Colts. Tennessee and Seattle both had 25-point victories under their belts. The Eagles lost their starting QB to an injury. And Donovan McNabb led his new Washington teammates to a primetime victory over the Super-Bowl-contending Cowboys.
- Sebastian Janikowski tied the NFL record for longest field goal in history last night, but I still have to give the advantage to Tom Dempsey, the original record-holder. Janikowski and Jason Elam both hit their 63-yarders in the thin Denver air on the final play of the first half. Dempsey hit his in New Orleans, with a straight kick, to win the game on the final play.
Image found here.
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