Memories of 9/11

It’s impossible not to reflect on 9/11 on the fifth anniversary of the tragic events of 2001.

The entire NSU athletic department was together, attending the always entertaining and mandatory fall semester department meeting, beginning at 7 a.m. that morning in the Stroud Room of the fieldhouse.

I was one of a few people at the meeting with a cell phone. Sometime about 8:30, I got a call from a good friend who was shaken up by what she was watching on television – something none of the five dozen of us in the meeting had any idea was unfolding.

The meeting was about to conclude, so I waited for it to wrap up a couple of minutes later and spread the word as quickly as possible. As I was explaining what I’d heard, athletic department icon Thomas Foster walked into the room and said the Pentagon had just been hit and the situation was unsettling.

I remember football coach Steve Roberts canceling practice that afternoon. I remember the confused discussion that ensued among athletic administrators around the nation, and certainly in the state and Southland Conference, trying to figure out what was prudent and appropriate. Some schools, very few, went forward with activities and games. I can remember thinking that if we were worried about security and logistics in the SLC, I couldn’t imagine how a BCS school could give any assurance of safety at its stadium that weekend.

Ultimately, all games in all sports for NSU and the SLC were postponed or cancelled through the weekend. That meant Demon QB Ben Beach and his family never saw his picture on the cover of the game program for the home game that weekend against Gardner-Webb.

An interesting byproduct of the cancellation of the G-W game was our entry into the scramble to fill the sudden open dates. The Demons were able to hook up with Oklahoma State for a game on Sept. 29, since both teams lost games on Sept. 15 and had open dates that weekend. The connection was NSU strength coach David Deets, who came to us from OSU (where he is now back, on staff as a fulltime coach, still with enough purple in him to greet and eat dinner with Coach Mike McConathy and the Demons basketball team last December a night before NSU toppled the Cowboys at Stillwater). Deets had close ties with the assistant AD in charge of scheduling at Oklahoma State.

When the football team took the field again, on Sept. 22 at TCU, we like to reflect on the thrilling 27-24 overtime win by a team that went on to reach the I-AA playoffs and nearly beat Montana in Missoula. I remember the pre-game ceremonies and the vibe around the stadium before kickoff in Fort Worth on a lovely September evening. Nobody knew what might be ahead, but we were truly the United States of America. You saw as much red, white and blue as you did purple in the tailgating area on that beautiful campus.

I heard today that one in five Americans knew somebody who was killed or injured on 9/11. I am fortunate not to be in that number and I hope you are too. But one former Demon football player was very close to the scene.

Carl Hazlewood, who graduated two years ago after helping the Demons win the 2004 SLC championship as a tight end, was a Naval Academy student and football player on 9/11. He came to NSU the next spring.

He had been at the World Trade Center, on the roof, three weeks earlier. He had friends who worked in the building. There were Navy graduates killed at the Pentagon.

Hearing Carl talk about how the campus in Annapolis quickly changed into a tightly guarded military installation, in part because at the time authorities considered it a potential target for terrorists on 9/11 and in the aftermath, was chilling.

I remember trying to reassure my friend when she called that morning. No foreign government would be involved in such an attack, I said, and I told her the world was about to see the best of America. That proved true, for a time. Hopefully today’s observances can rekindle some of that collaborative spirit and determination.