I spent the 25th anniversary of 9/11 at two football games Friday afternoon and evening.
Covering kids who weren’t even born when the world stopped turning.
They’ve read about Sept. 11 in books and online. They’ve probably watched the videos of the planes hitting the towers. They know what happened.
But they weren’t there. And yet Friday, I watched many of them carry American flags onto football fields and stand quietly for moments of silence honoring people who died 25 years ago.
For me, Sept. 11 will always be one of those days I remember almost minute by minute.
I was working at the Norfolk Daily News when the first plane hit the World Trade Center. I was the assistant sports editor, and I remember continuing to call coaches for stats because we still had sports pages to finish.
That seems strange to think about now. The world was changing in front of us on television, and I was still calling coaches asking how many kills somebody had or how many yards somebody rushed for because there was a newspaper to finish.
At first, we were watching what appeared to be a horrific tragedy unfold while trying to do our jobs.
Then the second plane hit, and everything changed.
We knew. This wasn’t an accident.
Like so many people who lived through that day, I remember the television. I remember the conversations. I remember trying to understand what we were watching and realizing there really wasn’t anything to compare it to.
And I remember having to go cover a volleyball match that night at Norfolk Catholic.
The games still went on. I stood there during the national anthem with tears in my eyes. Suddenly, the words felt different. The flag looked different. Everything did.
There was something else weighing on me that day, too. We had found out just days earlier that I was pregnant with my first daughter. In eight months, we were going to have a baby.
While watching something unimaginable happen to our country, I remember wondering what kind of world we were bringing her into.
My baby is 24 now. And Friday, 25 years after that day, I was back on the sidelines doing what I’ve done for most of my adult life — covering high school sports.
Only this time I was photographing a generation that wasn’t alive for any of it. I thought about that a lot over the weekend.
Sept. 11 is a memory for me. For them, it’s history.
They don’t remember how quiet the skies became when planes stopped flying. They don’t remember being glued to the television or trying to reach family members. They don’t remember the uncertainty of those first hours or how strange it felt to wake up Sept. 12 and realize the world wasn’t quite the same one we’d gone to bed in two nights earlier.
They don’t remember because they can’t.
But they can understand why we remember.
Friday, I watched football players carry American flags onto the field. I watched students and fans stand silently. For a few moments before the whistles, tackles, touchdowns and cheering began, football wasn’t the most important thing happening on that field.
And maybe that’s what struck me most.
Twenty-five years ago, I stood at a high school sporting event with tears in my eyes during the national anthem, wondering what the future would look like for a baby I hadn’t even met yet.
Twenty-five years later, I stood at high school sporting events watching kids who weren’t even born then honor a day they know only through the stories we’ve told them.
A quarter century later, so much has changed.
But around the communities I cover, I still see young people who understand what that flag represents and who know some moments deserve to be remembered, even when the memories aren’t their own.
They weren’t there. But Friday, they remembered.
And Friday’s moment of silence spoke volumes.
