Calgarypuck Forums - The Unofficial Calgary Flames Fan Community - View Single Post - September 11, 2001

Cowboy89 · 08-30-2011, 09:38 AM

I was in Grade 12 the morning of September 11, 2001. I attended a school where it was largely unstructured and you could come and go as you pleased during the day. As a result a group of friends and myself watched the events of the day on the TV from my parents house as we really couldn't bring ourselves to carry on as if it were a normal day.

We all returned to school around 3PM for football practice. It was a drizzly cold September afternoon, and the scene kind of felt surreal as our coach, who was one of those inspirational Joe Paterno types, gathered the team around in a prayer (it was a Catholic school). In a speech he described the events of the day as life changing, especially to my generation. Looking around the huddle, I just knew that a war would ensue and some of those guys in the huddle would participate and sacrifice. Sure enough now ten years later one of those guys died in Afgahnistan and another(one of my better high school friends) lost his legs there. Our coach proved to be very prophetic, and I think in a lot of ways our team ended up closer as a result of September 11th, even after high school as a lot of its members participate in the annual 'Loops for Troops' run in June.

08-30-2011, 09:38 AM	#10
Cowboy89 Franchise Player Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Calgary AB Exp:	I was in Grade 12 the morning of September 11, 2001. I attended a school where it was largely unstructured and you could come and go as you pleased during the day. As a result a group of friends and myself watched the events of the day on the TV from my parents house as we really couldn't bring ourselves to carry on as if it were a normal day. We all returned to school around 3PM for football practice. It was a drizzly cold September afternoon, and the scene kind of felt surreal as our coach, who was one of those inspirational Joe Paterno types, gathered the team around in a prayer (it was a Catholic school). In a speech he described the events of the day as life changing, especially to my generation. Looking around the huddle, I just knew that a war would ensue and some of those guys in the huddle would participate and sacrifice. Sure enough now ten years later one of those guys died in Afgahnistan and another(one of my better high school friends) lost his legs there. Our coach proved to be very prophetic, and I think in a lot of ways our team ended up closer as a result of September 11th, even after high school as a lot of its members participate in the annual 'Loops for Troops' run in June.