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Sports weren't important on Sept. 11, 2001

By: Doug Sarant
| Published 09/05/2021

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THE WOODLANDS, TX -- Next Saturday it will be September 11, 2021. Yes, it'll have been 20 years since 9/11 and I'm not getting over it. I will never get over it. Like you, I just manage to try and get used to it.

That was the day that made athletics seem completely insignificant. Even though sports rules my life and I would have a tough time continuing on in life without it, that day made me totally forget about sports and made me re-evaluate my priorities and put everything that I do in life, into perspective.

I'm sure we all have some type of connection to those who were killed during that insane day. You may know someone who was directly involved or maybe you know someone who knows someone who was directly involved. Even if you didn't, we were all involved and deeply affected as Americans.

To this day if I talk to someone I haven't seen for a bunch of years, I always ask them where they were when the madness occurred. It's just interesting to listen to people describe where they were and how they were feeling at that time. Not one person doesn't remember where they were. You'd have to be brain dead to not know. I remember that whole day and I'll let you in on a little of it.

On Sept. 11, I was typing some reports at my house and not paying attention to the outside world when I was interrupted by the sound of the phone. Linda was calling and as soon as I answered the phone, she asked how I was...if I'm OK. I was like 'What's wrong? Since when do you call and ask if I am OK?'

Then she told me we were being attacked. She said the Twin Towers were down and the Pentagon was hit as well. She added that whoever it was, was flying planes into buildings and using them as bombs.

My first thought was someone had manipulated the whole air-traffic control system and this was going to go on all day. Then I came to my senses and realized that would be impossible.

We ended the conversation with 'I love you,' like we always do. Except for one thing. I throw that 'I love you' thing around pretty loosely. When I hung up the phone, I realized that I actually meant it that time. That was my first eye-opener. I now knew we were all in some kind of trouble and felt secure in knowing that I had 'the better half' looking after me.

It was then that I glued myself to the television for the rest of the day and watched replay after replay. I was trying to make sense of the whole thing and was searching for some way to become optimistic about this whole thing. During the course of the day, I called a friend of mine who was a pilot. His name was Jack Schantz (rest his soul) and he may have been the most optimistic guy I knew at that time.

Although my friend, Jack was extremely long winded, it didn't bother me that day. I wanted Jack to rail me about how we will be okay and how we have good people in charge that will do the right things. He explained to me that in no way were pilots flying those planes into buildings. It had to be trained terrorists. As it turned out, he was proven correct. He said if it was he, or any pilot being forced to fly the planes in a manner that would be dangerous to other people, they would have acted like they were going to do what the terrorists wanted, but would have done the safest thing possible, which would have been to make a quick detour and try to make a water landing on the Hudson.

I asked him how long he thought it will take us to get over this disaster. Jack came back with the most obvious common-sense answer by saying we can start by hoping the television stations, sooner rather than later, stop showing the replay of the planes hitting the buildings and people jumping out of them to their deaths. That was so true.

Soon after our conversation it was difficult to find a replay. I assumed it was an unwritten law to not show the replays. Jack was 'right on'. I'm glad I called him as he was a breath of fresh air that day.

No matter how tough you are, no matter how adamant you are about never putting your guard down and letting other people in, Sept. 11 was a day I felt it was okay to just let other people know you were not feeling too good about this and that it was okay to show some affection for each other. Whether it be hugging family members and friends or just walking down the street and nodding to someone you don't know, we were all in this together and to watch everybody be concerned for one another was refreshing to me.

It would be nice if we could act like that all the time and didn't need a major catastrophe to be drawn closer together. That's understandable though because, I guess, you could just file that under human nature.

Now that we have gone through Sept. 11, I feel comfortable in saying I may write some sports articles that put me in the cynical and overzealous category. However, when Sept. 11 occurred, sports didn't mean squat to me.

Long story short, my 8-year-old son came home after school that day and knew some of what was going on, but not exactly. He knew something was wrong because most of the students in his class were pulled by parents. I think we did the right thing with him that day by keeping him in school, but we weren't sure back then.

At that time of day, it was beginning to become difficult to see replays. I managed to find a station that was still clueless as to the 'code' that was in place. I showed him the replays and he didn't get upset but expressed wonder at why anyone would want to do that. The only thing I could come up with to say to an 8-year-old was that there are some crazy people out there who don't like our way of life. He came back with, 'Why?' All I could do was try to explain. Admittedly, at that moment my parenting sucked because I didn't have a clue as to how to explain it properly to a young child.

Over the next few days, I received calls from people who were involved and who were really shaken up which should have been enough to drop me. However, the one thing that really got me was when my son came home from school a few days after Sept. 11 and went to his room quietly.

A short time later, he came up to me and handed me a picture that he drew. It was a picture of a plane on its way towards a building. I just looked at it and he looked at me with a serious look on his face which is rare. He didn't wait for a reaction and just walked back to his room. It was like his gift to me. I couldn't read his mind but I think he was just telling me he was okay.

Before school the next day, he asked if he had football practice later that day. My son was looking forward to sports again. When the incident occurred, sports was the furthest thing from my mind.

After a few days, sports would be helping me recover from this heinous, senseless and cowardly act of violence. The healing process was beginning. I was relieved to feel that sports were back in my life again.

Please share your personal stories to me at pressbox_92@hotmail.com

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