Column: Sports and patriotism after Sept. 11, 2001

Sept. 11, 2001 began as any other day would during freshman week. I was in bed recovering from yet another . . . interesting . . . night.

But it was when my girlfriend Jessica came in early from tennis practice yelling, "We're being bombed! Oh my God, we're under attack!" that I knew it was a day that would change my life and countless lives across the world.

Immediately my roommate Mike and I went to the TV and flipped it on to be greeted by one of the most gruesome scenes ever to be shown on screen — the smoking wreck of a plane sticking out of one of the Twin Towers, an image that CNN showed over and over again, in slow motion, and then a second jet liner hit the other tower.

It was a terrifying time to live through, and the effects of that fateful day have been felt in every aspect of society. I remember reading an account at www.goprincetontigers.com about a former Princeton football player who survived the attacks in which he described what it was like evacuating from the Towers as they were falling down around him. Every experience changes a person, and the world changed that day because every person can recount their experiences of Sept. 11, 2001, just as I have here.

In the same fashion, the world of sports changed then. Immediately following the terrorist attacks, the sports world shut down out of respect. Games were cancelled. Life seemingly halted. Here at Princeton, the football team had its opening game canceled against Lafayette, never to be made up. Several other Tiger teams canceled games and matches as the nation tried to recover.

The world did the same. I remember flipping through ESPN the day after the Towers fell and seeing that Sportscenter did not have a whole lot of sporting events to cover.

And with the terror attacks, fear gripped the populace. I remember going to a minor league hockey game over my Christmas break and having to pass through a security scan — something I had never done before, not in all the hundreds of sporting events I've been to. Security everywhere was at an all-time high — traveling for the holidays took me nearly six hours, and I was on an hour and 15 minute flight.

After the attacks people were proud once again to be Americans. At sporting events people did not necessarily wear their team's colors, but the American colors. Then the Super Bowl (which was played a week later because of 9/11) came and people once again remembered their patriotism. I remember people who were avid Rams and Raiders fans saying that it just seemed appropriate that the Patriots would win the Super Bowl this year with what had happened.

When the U.S. national team brought home the second-most medals from the Winter Games in Salt Lake City, people seemed so much more excited. Heck, just look at what happened at the U.S. Open. I was watching James Blake, ranked No. 25, playing top-seeded Lleyton Hewitt of Australia. And in the crowds were two competing audiences — the Americans and the Australians. The Americans were unrelenting in their support for Blake, despite the fact that he was not picked to win and he was a relative unknown on the tennis circuit. He was American and they were going to root for him regardless.

The spirit that fans have shown in the last year has been truly inspiring, and it speaks volumes about what it means to be an American. Sports are woven into the American psyche so much that they are almost reflections of each other. While the terrorism of 9/11 was meant to inspire fear in the populace, all it did was make them more patriotic and that spirit has shown itself in the sports world. Take, for instance, when the Major League Baseball players almost went on strike. The outrage from the fans that their nation's pastime would stop over a squabble for millionaires to get more millions was just awesome.

So my message is to make sure we keep it up. Fans, spectators and players alike — be proud you're an American and show it. Don't get so jaded and dragged down that you forget your patriotism — it is what makes sports so enjoyable.