September 11 is always a day that brings out emotions.
Fear, anger, sadness and hope are only a few of those.
Like I do just about every year on this date I’ll go down a YouTube wormhole of footage from that awful day and think back to being a sophomore in high school when Mrs. Boldt came running into our classroom, telling my communications teacher Mr. Wills to immediately get the TV on.
The rest of that day was eerie and I’ll never forget being at football practice that afternoon and seeing a lone jet fly overhead and realizing later that it was Air Force One.
The days that followed brought some answers but a lot more questions and some of those questions we continue to ask to this very day.
The one good thing that came of that awful day was how united so much of this nation felt. It was at least a positive in what was otherwise as dark of day as this nation ever saw.
The days that followed brought a sense of unity and togetherness in many ways. Suddenly the results of baseball and football games didn’t feel like they were as important anymore because other things were.
Notre Dame’s game at Purdue that following weekend was postponed until the end of the regular season, meaning Notre Dame returned to the field for the first time following the attacks to play Michigan State on September 22.
Notre Dame lost that day, not that the result ultimately matters much. What I remember from that day was both Notre Dame and Michigan State’s bands playing “Amazing Grace” in front of an emotional crowd and members of both bands feeling the emotion of the moment quickly after.
Sports have an insane ability to unite but also distract us from the issues of the world. On this anniversary of the darkest day ever on United States soil, let’s never forget the feeling of that day, also hope for all college football teams kicking off this weekend to be able to provide an entertaining distraction for their fans all fall long in a year that could so desperately use it.