Remembering the Day the Sports World Stopped…

At my office at Morgan Stanley...in Phoenix. It was a little after 5 am, I was at my desk reading the boxscores in USA Today. Someone came by and said a "plane flew into the World Trade Center." Having lived and worked in New York previously, and knowing of previous accidents involving Cessna's and the like, my first reaction was, "so, happens all the time."

A few minutes later, I got an email alert, then went downstairs to the employee cafeteria/lounge where you could see everything happening on CNN.

Morgan Stanley set up an emergency hotline for family and friends which was run through Phoenix, I spent most of the day talking with relatives of people who worked in New York. Needless to say, it was a trying experience.

I was actually still in high school, in Spanish class. My teacher got a call from the office to tell me and go get my stuff because I was being dismissed. I thought someone in my family had died or something. The office didn't say anything to me at all, so I was waiting outside when my older brother pulled up. It was right after the plane had hit the Pentagon and the details were still murky. My mother had dismissed me because they did find out the planes had come from Logan Airport in Boston already. As my brother pulled up though I started non-chalantly walking towards his truck until he yelled out, "Hurry up dumbass, we're at war -- they just bombed the Pentagon."

The rest of the day was just a haze of events that still seems like it was all a dream when I look back. It was one of the first big introductions to the real world I had gotten up until that point in my life.

I was sitting in spanish class, sophomore year of HS. We had a new teacher, it was her first year teaching. It was early in the semester and there wasn't much work to do, so we were basically killing time until the bell rang, talking about where she got her degree, how she got to our school, etc. Then the principal came over the PA, told everyone in the school to turn on their TVs. The rest of the day was a haze, glued to one TV after another as we moved from class to class. For one class, we had to leave the main building and cross the parking lot to a trailer behind the school. A girl I barely knew was crying at the door, we were headed to the same class. "I'm scared to go outside," she said. So we crossed the parking lot, holding hands, shaking. One of the scariest days of my life...

I was dead asleep and my Mom called. Her first words were hysterical "They blew up New York and Washington!!!"

"What? Who?"

After I turned on the TV and realized it was just the World Trade Center and Pentagon, I was actually relieved!

I instantly remembered that not even two weeks before 9/11 I was watching a show on PBS that was about a journalist who was in Afghanistan since the Soviets invaded in 1979. The Taliban was kicking him out of the country and he was interviewing a driver that was taking him to the airport. The driver said "You Americans, you do not understand that they can hijack planes and crash them into your capital, into your World Trade Center, whatever. You think you have safety and security but they will make you feel what we feel here."

I had a buddy who was an Army Ranger at the time and he later told me when the first plane hit they went on "High" (I forget the name) alert and they thought it was a drill or a joke. Before the second plane even hit, they already knew that Osama bin Laden was the one responsible.

It was a crazy day in US History. Hopefully it won't be forgotten like all the other important days in US History that no one seems to recall...

I don't have much of an exciting story, but I remember it being scary as shit. I was in 6th grade and I was home sick that day. My dad and I were watching SportsCenter when we got a call from one of his friends that a plane crashed into the World Trade Center. We turned it on right after the first tower fell and we watched the second tower fall on live television. I remember the anchors were in like a state of pure shock at what had happened. I think that scared me more than anything because I don't think I totally understood what was going on. I didn't really know what the World Trade Center was, so just hearing the fear and anxiety in my dad and in the normally composed news anchors (I forget who it was) was probably the scariest part of all.

Upon me arriving on campus I walked by a TV...There was a huge crowd around it watching the events unfold. The first tower just collapsed...I don't know why but I decided to go to my class. Surprisingly enough, my professor acted let he didn't have a clue as to what was going on, going about instructing the class as normal. Perhaps he did, but since he was an old f*** he was hard to read.

After class, I went by the same TV, watching the 2nd tower come down live, learning about what was going on at the Pentagon. Trying to figure out as many what the hell was going on and what was going to get hit next?

The remaineder of the day and week I was just glued to the boob tube watching the media freezy unlike nothing we've seen before...Listening to all the stories, watching all the pictures. Sitting there watching people jumping from the building to their deaths as they chose to go the way they wanted to go...It was certainly the craziest day in US History. And like Manny put it, hopefully it won't be forgotten like all the other important days in US History that no one seems to recall...Sad thing is, it already has been!

I worked at a sports bar at the time. I had closed the night before, so I was asleep when it began. My dad called me, "You might wanna turn on the TV, this is pretty historic." Later that day, I went to work and we were packed. Not because of sports, but we had the TVs. Instead of giving score updates, I was passing on the latest news. It was packed and yet, silent at the same time. I wore an American Flag pin I found in mom's drawer. When she saw me wearing it, she cried. It was the pin my grandmother had worn every day my grandfather was deployed in WW II (I hadn't counted the stars). Two weeks later I enlisted.

In class. I was in fourth grade.

It's events like these that help put politics into better perspective. Unfortunately, everything tends to fade away as time passes.

We need to stop these Democrat/Republican hate fests. Who cares if your opinion on gun control is different from someone else? With all the petty grade school fighting that's been going on back and forth between the two presidential candidates, I only hope that we can get our ass in gear and realize that even more than being a Republican, or Democrat, or Independent -- we are all Americans.

With all the stuff going on with Russia and in what is looking like the Cold War Part II, we need to get our shit in gear and start acting like a United States of America.

I don't think the Sports "World" Stopped. The County Championship (cricket) carried on as normal. I wouldn't mind betting that other sports scheduled for that day carried on everywhere bar America. I was coming home from school at the time, and I remember being annoyed that The Simpsons was taken off the schedule because of this. I was only 11 at the time though...

I worked at a country club at the time. I had just come in from cutting the fairways on the front nine. My dad was waiting for me (he worked there too). He told me a plane had crashed into the WTC. We went into the breakroom to watch the news and within seconds of me watching TV the second tower got hit. It was eerily quiet because the course was located directly under a traffic pattern and that afternoon there were no planes in the sky. I can remember getting mad at the Members because they were golfing and laughing and having a good time. We were all allowed to leave after we finished cutting the course and I went home and spent the rest of the day with my family.

I was at my desk in Auburn Hills, MI hard at work when I was told that there was some sort of explosion at the World Trade Center. Many of us went to the work-out room to turn on the news to see what was going on.

Later in the day, I went home to spend time with family and be thankful for what I had. At the same time we mourned the losses and prayed for souls of the people in mourning.

I was a student at Castleton State College, having breakfast at the Fireside Cafe, where a TV would be put in the days ensuing the attacks, BTW. However, I didn't turn on the set in my dorm until after the second tower fell.

Later that day, I called back my parents – my dad left me a message on my voicemail – and told them how much I loved them. I remember two days later when it rained; I took it as tears from heaven.

The following day, in nicer weather, the students and staff of CSC gathered between Woodruff and Leavenworth Halls to observe the moment of silence on that day. Before I left to go home for that weekend, I went into a church near campus and prayed for those who perished and and their families.

I also remember watching Jack Buck's poem on ESPN after MLB returned to action the following Monday...

See also: the bottom of Armchair Weekend in Review (September 8-10, 2006)

I was at home, in Leominster MA, on Maternity leave. My son was 7 weeks old. I just woke up in the morning and turned on the TV when after the first tower was hit. I though the boy's dad had left on some stupid movie. It wasn't until I changed the channel that I realized what was going on. I watched the 2nd tower get hit as I sat on my couch, with my baby, crying. I didn't have the car with me and my daughter was in school 45 min from when I lived. It only got worse when news started coming out that 2 of the planes came from Boston. My grandmother was supposed to be flying back to Hawaii that week, and she always flew United and American. I called my dad at 5am his time (HST) to find out when she was flying. He was already up for work for the day and told me she was already home. I was on the phone with him when the first tower fell. We got off the phone then because he had to get in touch with clients who were now going to be stranded on the island for what turned out to be 4 days. Had I not been on maternity leave, I would have been evacuated from work; every Mall in Massachusetts was closed by noon.

I remember being in the car on my way to school (freshman year of high school) and listening to NPR and the big story of the day was Michael Jordan coming out of retirement to play for the Wizards. When I got to school, the first thing I did, like usual, was go to my gym locker to put my soccer stuff in there. Our cardio room had four TVs, and at least one of them was showing footage of the first tower burning (this was around 8:10 CT). I remember thinking "what a stupid person, flying into such a large object". I went to assembly and the headmaster reported that the second tower had been hit. I don't think it really hit me until around 8:30 or so during grade meetings when the music department chairman comes running in reporting that the Pentagon had been hit as well. I remember the rest of the day going from class to class being glued to the news, listening to kids worrying about their brothers being drafted, hearing offers from teachers to walk with students just to the bathroom, watching the librarians scramble to locate what place could the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania could have been attacking (and coming up with the conclusion of Camp David before the White House was revealed), and eventually the last period around 2:15 came along and our math teacher (who was an oddball) had the gall to actually teach that day (though he was right about no new news coming out, so it was a waste to watch TV through his period). All sports practices and games were cancelled, and I ended up in front of the TV at home watching more news coverage...

I was in 6th grade. Technology class when all of a sudden everyone was getting out early. But none of the teachers would tell us exactly what was going on. I got picked up from school and got home and it was on every news channel, I didnt find out til about 11 tho

my third grade class room, i really don't remeber doin what

I was in my mom's house. It was very sad day.

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