Eight Years Later, 9/11 Still Resonates

NEW YORK -- When this city needed a true hero, it got thousands. They kept their composure when everything seemed lost, they worked together as a team and they got by on heart and guts. They never were rewarded million dollar contracts, never got serenaded in a ticker tape parade through Manhattan's downtown streets.

All they did was keep us safe and somewhat sane in the days and weeks following America's apocalyptic tragedy.

If you attended a sporting event here in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, you couldn't help but notice them. They'd be sitting in their soot-covered rigs outside various stadiums and ballparks, nodding weary assurances to fans wanting to know if they were OK. They'd be all buffed-up in their bulletproof vests, trying hard to smile instead of allowing their faces to reflect the horrors they witnessed only a short time ago.

They were grieving firefighters and police officers and rescue workers, and everywhere you turned, they were comforting the public, instead of the other way around.

"I can't even imagine what they've seen and what they've been going through. They've lost like, how many? Hundreds? And here they're trying to make us feel good," Derek Jeter, the Yankee shortstop, told me one October night eight years ago in the halls of Yankee Stadium, after meeting with a group of firefighters who had just returned from burying one of their brothers.

How many? Three hundred forty-three firefighters. Twenty-three NYC police officers. Thirty-seven Port Authority officers. In total, 2,993 people died when terrorists hijacked four planes and converted them into flying bombs, crashing the aircrafts into New York's World Trade Center, the Pentagon in Arlington, Va., and a field in rural Pennsylvania. The numbers still make you exhale sharply, if you bother to think about them at all.

Sometimes it seems the horrific events that occurred that crystal clear Tuesday morning have been secluded from our reality, tucked away like yellowed newspaper clippings. Sometimes it seems like eons have passed since the crawl at the bottom of our television screens went from providing viewers with updates on Barry Bonds' home run count and scores from the U.S. Open to this:

MAYOR GIULIANI REQUESTS 6,000 BODY BAGS.

Sports as we knew them vanished for about a week as the country mourned, raged and struggled to come to terms with the complexity of our emotions. Leagues, athletes and fans debated about whether games should be played: they were, after all, just that -- games -- and now the unthinkable had happened, we had been attacked, and our collective religion of sports hardly offered much solace.

In the gloom following 9/11, when nobody was sure how long the ballparks and stadiums should stay empty and silent, Michael Strahan, then a defensive end with the New York Giants, spoke for his teammates during a conference call with officials from the NFL. From their Jersey facilities just across the river, the Giants always had a breathtaking view of the Twin Towers, those gleaming beacons on the southern tip of Manhattan. Exhausted from a red-eye flight out of Denver -- the Giants hadn't played well in the first Monday Night Football game of the season -- the players were on their practice field, going through lazy stretches, when the first tower fell.

There was an enormous whoosh, like the sound of hundreds of rockets launching simultaneously. Soon all the Giants could see was a thick brown cloud filling space where, a few minutes earlier, thousands of people had been drinking coffee and shuffling papers and beginning another workday in what was basically a small city in the air. The cloud would linger for months, along with the stench of death. The parking lot adjacent to a commuter line near Giants Stadium was filled with abandoned cars, left there by drivers who went to work in the city and never came home.

"We don't want to play. We aren't going to play," Strahan told league officials in that phone call. "There's something a lot bigger than sports happening to our country and we need to honor that. I'm looking at it from my balcony ..." The lump in his throat made it difficult for Strahan to finish his sentence. There was no way to describe the mountain of flaming steel, collapsed concrete and vaporized body parts.

Days after terrorists struck at what they ostensibly considered America's strength and soul -- our financial and military nerve centers -- the NFL canceled the second week of its season, and NASCAR, MLB and college football responded by suspending events through the following Monday.

But Shea Stadium -- dirty, rotting, beautiful Shea -- came to life during that dark week. It still pains me to think of all that went on in the shadow of that now-demolished fortress, so forgive me if I simply reprint a few paragraphs from a column I wrote a few years ago in the New York Daily News:

The line of ambulances, engines idling, began at the press gate and extended to the Grand Central Parkway. There was nowhere to go, no survivors to help. At first the city wanted to turn Shea into a triage center, then considered using the stadium in Queens as a morgue. It was too soon to realize thousands of people had simply vaporized. A small sign was affixed near Gate C: Donations Here.

Next anyone remembers, cars began pulling into the Shea parking lot, the ribbon of lights stretching into the suburbs like the final scene in Field of Dreams. Within 24 hours of the first tower falling, boxes of clothing, food and other supplies extended from first base around to third. Someone donated a tractor trailer, hardware stores sent over chainsaws, the Red Cross set up tents and beds.

Soon the old Jets locker room at Shea was filled with mounds of toiletries and blankets, to provide a small haven for rescue workers who lacked the energy to make it home. They weren't calling the steaming hole downtown "The Pile" or "The Pit" just yet; they slept an hour, grabbed a box of cereal and headed back to the city to find their brothers.

Mets players and employees worked the Shea parking lot for days, packing crates and lending ears. Manager Bobby Valentine refused to leave. Nobody was sure when sports would resume, but nobody could imagine being anywhere else, not while vans kept depositing worn out and filthy firefighters and police officers.

"They were just head-to-toe in dirt, debris, toxins and I guess what we know now were body parts. It was just horrible," says Sue Lucchi, the stadium manager who helped facilitate the effort. When she needed a good cry during those 10 days, she'd climb to the upper deck of Shea and gaze at the parking lots that had sprouted into massive warehouses, the ramps filled with supplies, barely an inch of ground to spare. The strength of the human spirit left her breathless.

When sports' funereal break ended, Major League Baseball players returned with an American flag on the back of their uniforms and caps. We had landed in a different world, one where sporting fields offered welcome respites of inspiration and hope, yes, but they also had been exposed as viable targets. We had to go through metal detectors before gaining admittance, take sips from our water bottles to prove they didn't contain poison. Coolers, backpacks and large bags were banned. As days and then seasons passed without our precious games being harmed, some of us began to grumble about the inconveniences, and the perceived slashes at our personal liberties.

Some of us might want to walk in the heavy shoes of Major Edward Cetnar, commanding officer of New Jersey State Police's special operations section. Cetnar and his squad reached downtown Manhattan two hours after the towers fell, and they didn't leave for a week. They, and hundreds of other volunteers from all parts of North America, worked steadily in a hailstorm of glass and metal, helping sift through smoldering fires and steaming chunks of the unthinkable. What started as a rescue operation quickly moved to recovery. The rubble at Ground Zero was a vast crematorium.

"We found just victims, no survivors," Cetnar said in a phone interview Thursday. It's a lament you hear from most every first responder. In the years since our world tilted drastically, Cetnar has been one of many on the front lines making sure the bubble around our games stays sealed. The NJ State Police are responsible for policing the Meadowlands, home to both the Jets and the Giants, and lurking in the underbelly of sport's ritualistic carnivals -- the tailgate parties, the dancing girls, the overpriced hot dogs -- are reminders we can never return to a more innocent time, before the towers came tumbling down.

There are swat teams patrolling the stadium tunnels, aviation units ready in case terrorists attempt to launch a rocket grenade, marine units nestled in the murky area waters. "The rare times we see a shift in attitude because someone doesn't like being bothered with security measures, we remind them across the river, those building no longer exist," Cetnar said. "We were a huge threat every Sunday [before September 11] and we still are every Sunday because we put about 80,000 people in those seats, and if terrorists want to do something, what better way than to make a statement right across from New York City?

"Our job is to make sure 80,000 people get in and get out safely and enjoy themselves."

Talk to more than a few of the first responders who labored for weeks at Ground Zero's smoking pile and you're bound to detect a familiar cough, perhaps notice sentences halted by arduous breathing. Remember, a full six weeks after the attacks, as the Yankees and the Arizona Diamondbacks helped soothe a nation's frazzled nerves by playing an entertaining and emotion-packed World Series, rescue workers were still picking through the rubble and attempting to identify the remains of nearly 3,000 victims.

Some of these rescue workers now suffer from respiratory troubles; others have more serious health issues and disabilities. The fallout is debilitating, sometimes lethal. Two Septembers ago, George Martin, retired co-captain of the Super Bowl XXI Giants, began walking across the George Washington Bridge connecting New Jersey with New York. He headed west, for the Pacific Ocean, and after trekking 3,003 miles across 13 states, Martin had raised more than $2 million for 9/11 responders.

"It's such a misnomer to be called a hero just because you play a game on a national level," Martin, a defensive end for the Giants for 14 seasons, told me. "Being a transplanted New Yorker and someone who watched in awe as those guys did everything they possibly could for us after September 11, I felt compelled to reciprocate. I feel we as Americans haven't shown our appreciation for how they've helped keep our nation safe and the sacrifices they've made for us."

Martin and a few football pals -- including Gary Jeter, Joe Morris, Harry Carson, Keith Hamilton and O.J. Anderson -- have a much shorter trip planned this Sunday, when they take another walk for his charity "a Journey for 9/11," to benefit what Martin calls "the heroes of Ground Zero." It's a sweet 13 miles from the GW Bridge to Giants Stadium. By the time Martin and crew reach their destination, the Meadowlands should be rocking.

Eight years on, sports -- our national religion -- survive and thrive. Whether it's at small-town high school games under Friday night lights or in colossal stadiums showcasing professional gladiators, celebrate by cheering your heroes this weekend. But don't forget to thank the ones who really count.