Football really did mean something after Sept. 11

 Like nearly everyone who was in the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, I remember where I was when 

I learned of the attack on the World Trade Center.

I was in the insurance business – writing was still a paid hobby at the time – and was attending a meeting in Lexington, Kentucky that Tuesday morning. I'm not sure how much time had elapsed after the buildings had been hit before we had a break and saw things unfold on the lobby television. Both towers had been hit by that time, but while we were on break, the reports started coming in that another plane hit the Pentagon.

While everyone there knew the world had changed that morning, I don't think any of us really comprehended how much things were changing that morning.

A few minutes after we returned to the meeting, someone burst into the room saying, “One of the towers just collapsed.”

Needless to say, there was very little insurance business discussed the rest of the day. Most of us stayed in the lobby to watch things unfold.

I thought of my family. I thought of how America had been so blessed to have not had a war on its soil for 150-plus years, yet we'd just been attacked.

Like most other Americans, I was simultaneously scared and angry.

By the end of the week, I had learned just how important some of the simple pleasures we know as Americans really are.

Anderson County was scheduled to play Western Hills in a high school football game the Friday following the attacks. If you remember, President George Bush asked to address the nation that night, so most high schools postponed their Friday games to Saturday night. The colleges and pros canceled for the weekend.

I believe the high schools had it right, though.

That Saturday night, Anderson and Western Hills, two winless football teams, took the field at Anderson's Warford Stadium. That the Bearcats took a 50-6 win was not the real story. It turned out to the the only game Anderson County would win that year, although Lexington Catholic later forfeited another.

The packed house was the story back on Sept. 15, 2001.

The fans participated in a moving patriotic service before the game. They cheered on their teams, both of which played with emotion. And, if anything, that game, and many others like it that day, was our way of fighting back.

We might not have carried a gun or fly a plane, but in a small way, we were saying, “You can bruise us, but you can't keep us down.”

That night provided one of the most memorable post-game interviews I have ever conducted. Anderson's coach at the time, Jimmy Joe Jackson, one of the all-time nice guys, was mighty happy about the win. A very good social studies teacher for his main job, he was even more proud of what those few hours had meant.

We'd seen the towers collapse. We'd seen the carnage at the Pentagon.

We'd started learning about the passengers thwarting a fourth attack, perhaps on the Capitol or the White House.

We were bruised and hurt.

But that Saturday night, the flag was flying high. Little by little, the United States was fighting back.

And Jackson could have spoken for millions of Americans when he said, “Osama Bin Laden is not going to stop us from playing football.”

Or stop us from doing anything else.