My 9/11 story: I covered the Giants' game at Denver on Monday, Sept. 10, 2001. Then the world changed the next morning. Here's how I got home.
10 Sep 2001: A shot of the big screen during opening ceremonies before the game between the New York Giants and the Denver Broncos at Invesco Field at Mile High Stadium in Denver, Colorado. The Broncos defeated the Giants 31-20.Mandatory Credit: Brian Bahr /Allsport Credit: Getty Images/Brian Bahr
The soundtrack of a dark day and night crackled over the radio.
A prayer service in rural Kansas. A blood drive in Oklahoma. A news update somewhere near St. Louis. Traffic reports approaching New Jersey.
Everyone who remembers Sept. 11, 2001, has a story to tell, and this one is no more important than yours, and far less important than many.
But it’s mine, and 25 years hence, it remains a memorable blur, filtered through the lens not only of history but of happenstance: Being a Newsday reporter covering the Giants as they navigated those trying times along with everyone else.
It began in Denver, on the night of the first regular-season game played in what is now known as Empower Field at Mile High, then as Invesco Field.
The defending NFC champion Giants lost, 31-20. Kerry Collins threw three touchdown passes, two to Amani Toomer.
Many fans in the New York area stayed up late for the “Monday Night Football” game, causing them to report late for work on Tuesday, in some cases saving their lives.
The Giants themselves took a red-eye back to New York, getting off at Newark Airport around the same time that terrorists were boarding United Airlines Flight 93, bound for Washington, D.C.
For four competing newspaper beat writers — Kimberly Jones, then of The Star-Ledger; Tara Sullivan, then of the Bergen Record; Paul Schwartz of the Post and me — trying to get home for a week of Packers-Giants hype, there was an early wake-up call and a trip to the airport for a flight that never took off.
The scene at the departure gate was one of chaos and confusion, filled with rumors of additional attacks across the country, most of them false. Would-be passengers were herded into the main terminal area, where against all odds we secured what seemed to be the last rental car in Colorado, a red Ford Explorer that Hertz offered for the low, low price of $250 a day. Sold!
The ensuing 28 hours were a high-speed montage across two-thirds of the continent that served as a reminder of America’s ability to come together when it has to.
No, the mood was not as dark or as dangerous as in New York, Washington, D.C., or Shanksville, Pennsylvania. But everyone rallied for the cause.
Pickup trucks brandishing American flags streaked across the mostly empty landscape, and those radio updates and a small portable TV with a dying battery told us all we needed to know.
By the time we made it home on the night of Sept. 12, we were back to being New Yorkers and everything was more real than ever, especially the sight of an altered lower Manhattan skyline.
That point was driven home the next day during the drive to Giants Stadium to cover practice.
As I arrived in the parking lot, news broke that the NFL had postponed that week’s games, which was a good idea, because the Giants and Jets were threatening not to play regardless.
As I walked onto the practice field, with smoke in lower Manhattan still visible in the distance, coach Jim Fassel brought the players in for a huddle at 11:37 a.m.
There would be no games that week. Michael Strahan and other players spoke eloquently to reporters about the NFL’s decision and why it had to be made.
Co-owner Wellington Mara, then 85, became emotional. He recalled the difference between 9/11 and the biggest previous attack on the country in his lifetime.
“It was very remote, and I was at a very tender age,” he said of hearing news from Pearl Harbor — during a game at the Polo Grounds — on Dec. 7, 1941. “I didn’t know where Pearl Harbor was. But I know where the World Trade Center was.”
Members of the U.S. Army wave American flags during pregame ceremonies for the Giants' game at Kansas City on Sept. 23, 2001, the first Sunday of football after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11. Credit: ASSOCIATED PRESS/JASON A. COOK
The Giants did their part that week, including a team visit to first responders in lower Manhattan.
Come the following Sunday, they were back in action, against Kansas City, in what normally would be a hostile environment in one of the NFL’s loudest stadiums.
But fans greeted the visitors with cheers and the Giants won, 13-3. Many waved American flags. Some reached over to hold hands with Giants waiting in the tunnel to run onto the field.
This was two days after Mike Piazza’s game-winning home run against Atlanta at Shea Stadium. Like the Mets, the Giants felt great pressure to win.
Still, it was just a game. Newsday columnist Shaun Powell, whose brother Scott died in the attack on the Pentagon, spoke in the press box to Giants radio analyst Dick Lynch, whose son Richard died in the attack on the World Trade Center.
“What else am I going to do?” Lynch said of his decision to work. “Get any sadder?”
Giants guard Jason Whittle had raced to Bellevue Hospital on 9/11 to sit with a family friend, Randy Drake, after Drake was gravely wounded by falling debris while on the job as a construction worker near the Twin Towers.
After the victory over Kansas City, Whittle was told that Drake had died the night before.
Later in the season, Whittle reflected on that afternoon in Kansas City and said, “I was proud that day. It was unbelievable. Being from Missouri, I was just glad everyone there showed so much class.”
As for the four of us who explored the country in a red SUV, we still exchange texts about it every Sept. 11. It’s just one story, but it’s ours.
Neil Best retired from Newsday last December after covering sports for more than 40 years. He was Newsday's Giants beat writer from 1995-2005.
