The morning of Sept. 11, 2001, was like so many other mornings in the Northeast at that time of year.
Until the entire world changed on a dime.
Now it's 24 years later. How is that possible? It's nearly a quarter-century later. There are no longer Princeton athletes who had been born before that horrific Tuesday all those years ago.
They only know what they've been told or what they've read. For those, like TigerBlog, who were there, for whom the events and the emotions of that day will never fade, today will always spark feelings of unease.
To that end, TB will again share with you what he has for the last few years about 9/11:
He was dropping off TigerBlog Jr. at the University
League Nursery School, on the far side of the parking lot outside
Jadwin. It was the most perfect weather day, crystal clear, sunshine, no
humidity, not a cloud to be found.
TB dropped TBJ off at the school, and the woman who was the office
manager said that a plane had flown into the World Trade Center.
TigerBlog walked outside, looked up, and thought "how in the world did
that happen?" By the time he got to Jadwin, he found out how.
Most of that day was spent huddled around the only television around,
the one in the athletic training room in Caldwell Field House. It was a
day where people spoke very little, where everyone had dazed looks on
their faces.
By mid-afternoon, he went back to get TBJ at the nursery school. He can
still see the children, swinging on the swings, playing in a sandbox,
oblivious - happily oblivious - to what had happened to the innocence of
the world outside that playground.
Later that night, after it was dark, TigerBlog walked outside to the end
of his driveway and looked up. There were no planes in the sky. They'd
all been grounded. TB remembers it vividly, the sight of the stars,
without planes, above a world of confusion, angst, uncertainty, fear.
If he had to pick one word, it would be scary.
In fact, when TB got to Jadwin that day, the first person he saw was John Mack, now the Ford Family Director of Athletics and then in his first year of working in the department.
There were 14 Princetonians who were killed on 9/11. There were hundreds more who were near Ground Zero when it all happened.
One of those who died was men's lacrosse player John Schroeder, known to everyone in the program as "Stinky.". TB wrote about him on the 20th anniversary. It's as emotional and heartbreaking a story as TB has ever written.
When TB went to meet with John's father Jack, he was struck by the American flag that hangs in his kitchen. The stripes are composed with the names of every person who was killed that day.
It's an overwhelming thing to see them all there and to imagine all of their stories. And, each time the anniversary roles around, there are people who mark another year without them.
By the way, here is what one of Schroeder's teammates wrote about him shortly after 9/11:
“There are two images that run through my head over and over. One is of
Stinky picking off that pass. It was as if he said ‘I’ll do my job when
it’s asked of me. I am part of the greatness that is this team.’ The
other is an image of Stinky on Tuesday. This is how I picture it –
Stinky was badly injured initially but was capable of escaping from the
building. He was on his way down the stairs when he ran into some rescue
personnel heading the other direction. He did the right thing and
turned back to help. I imagine him carrying a worse-injured person down
the stairs, making typically Schroederian sarcastic remarks on the way
to help the other person out, when the building collapsed. I agree with
you, T, that Stinky is in heaven, probably playing lax, with too many
members of our family watching in the stands. When we do gather, Stinky
will be there too, and the first and last rounds will be on him.”
Sept. 10 is the last day of innocence.
Sept. 11 is the day it all changed. It's a day that always needs remembrance, and reverence.
Posts
