Sep 9, 2016; Syracuse, NY, USA; General view of the Carrier Dome prior to the game between the Louisville Cardinals and the Syracuse Orange. Photo Credit: Rich Barnes-USA TODAY Sports
It was going to be a fantastic weekend, a unique football experience.
Our hotel rooms were reserved on the north bank of the Niagara River between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, almost within view of Niagara Falls. For some of the couples making the trip, it would be their first time to put on the thick blue parkas and take the boat ride on the Maid of Mist into the dense spray beneath the thunderous cascade of water continuously pouring over Horseshoe Falls on the Canadian side.
We would fly into New York, spend two nights at Niagara Falls, then drive to Syracuse where I would represent Lindy’s in the Carrier Dome when Auburn played the Orange (their teams were known back then as the Orangemen and Orangewomen). The game was scheduled for Sept. 22, 2001.
Auburn was supposed to play in Baton Rouge the week before, but that Sept. 15 game was cancelled, along with every other college and professional football game, and all other sporting events in America, that weekend.
Four days earlier, on Tuesday, Sept. 11, a well-organized, well-financed group of Muslim extremist terrorists attacked the United States in a multi-pronged assault that brought down two skyscrapers, damaged the Pentagon, crashed an airplane in a Pennsylvania field, killed thousands of innocent victims, and changed the fabric of life on the planet forever.
After much debate, it was decided to start playing games again around the country the following week. But, many thousands of fans, understandably fearful of flying and apprehensive about safety, decided to stay home.
Our trip to Niagara Falls was a victim of what happened on Sept. 11. But four of us … my cousins Myers Hyche and Wesley Salter, and friend J.T. Norris … took the flight anyway. It did prove to be a unique football experience, but not in the way it had been planned.
It was a beautiful Saturday, much like it was that Tuesday morning in Manhattan, but the setting was nothing like normal college football. On the streets, RVs and tents were replaced by firetrucks and firemen holding boots collecting money for disaster support. It seemed dark and foreboding inside the Carrier Dome, a smaller and warmer facility than I had expected. The bands played more patriotic songs than school fight songs, while fans for both teams waved small American flags. Before the game, firemen and law enforcement officers were recognized and there was a moment of silence. In the cavernous facility, you could hear a pin drop. When the game got underway, I was on the sideline and it was so loud that you couldn’t hear the person standing next to you … literally.
There was a game that day … Syracuse won, 31-14. Auburn’s offensive team included three freshmen who would go on to stellar careers … Jason Campbell, Ronnie Brown and Carnell Williams … and earn some national championship recognition when their senior season produced a 13-0 record. But, on this day, competition was almost an afterthought.
The focus was on unity. Old and young. Black and white. Male and female. Upstate New York and rural Alabama. Our country had been attacked. There would be consequences. Firemen and other first responders were heroes. And, every caution and action possible should be taken to reduce the chance that this could ever happen again.
The terrorist conspirators had been equal opportunity killers. More than 90 countries lost citizens in their attacks.
The dead included athletes and former athletes. Mark Bavis, a passenger on the plane that hit the South Tower, was a hockey left-winger and NHL scout. Eamon McEneaney had played lacrosse for Cornell. Nezam Hafiz, who worked on the 94th floor of the North Tower was a cricketer who had represented Guyana, and 11-year NHL veteran Garnett Bailey played on a Stanley Cup winner. Dan Trant played for the Boston Celtics, while Mari-Rae Sopper, who died when the plane hit the Pentagon, was on the way to California to begin her career as a college gymnastics head coach.
And, the dead included several dozen fellow Muslims. Stockbrokers and restaurant workers. Immigrants and converts. Six women, including one that was seven months pregnant. A hotel worker and a NYPD cadet who died trying to save others. Even though most Muslims in America are hard-working and law abiding, that made no difference to the hijackers, who only wanted violent indiscriminate killing.
There was a common thread. The terrorists trapped and surprised defenseless, innocent victims. That’s what cowards do and have been doing for a long, long time, and continue to do today.
Last Friday night, as I watched on television as Louisville played Syracuse in the Carrier Dome, I thought back to that game 15 years ago. The thought struck me that even the seniors on those teams had probably not even started grammar school when the World Trade Center towers fell. And, it struck me just how much has changed since those days of unity and resolve.
Travel has become a time-consuming, arduous ordeal. My mission team that went to Ukraine about two months ago had to take off shoes and belts and go through metal scanners at four different airports. It didn’t use to be that way, but the need for it is greater than ever before.
Not only is it harder to enter a foreign country, it’s even harder to enter a stadium. Many college programs are for the first time this season allowing only small clear plastic bags as containers to be brought through the gates.
At sporting events, it’s apparently acceptable now to disrespect the American flag, the banner of the country that provides athletes the opportunity to earn millions of dollars for playing games a few weekends a year. I have a hard time imagining that happening in the Carrier Dome 15 years ago.
And what happened to respect for those first responders, the ones whose lives are in danger every day, the ones who died trying to save the 9/11 victims, but now have to worry if they’ll be targets for snipers every time they take a call?
What happened to the idea that an attack on freedom anywhere, is an attack on freedom everywhere? What happened to the idea that if you disrespect the American flag, you disrespect the people who fought and died to defend it and to insure the freedoms that come with it?
We’ll have another full slate of college football games this coming weekend.
I’ll be in the press box in Auburn as Texas A&M comes to Jordan-Hare in a game that will likely determine which team can be a Southeastern Conference Western Division contender — and which one could fight for a winning season.
Alabama travels to Oxford to face Mississippi, taking its No. 1 ranking, trying to stop the Rebels from winning a third consecutive game in the series.
And on Saturday afternoon in Syracuse, it will be Homecoming as South Florida travels to upstate New York to play the Orange. It’s being recognized as Education Day.
When the band takes the field to play our National Anthem in Auburn, I’ll proudly stand and sing. I’ll appreciate the privilege and opportunity to have that press pass, to do a job and to celebrate the freedom that allows it to happen.
And, I’ll again think back on what was happening in our country, in New York and in the Carrier Dome 15 years ago. That’s something I’ll never forget … something that none of us should ever forget.
