remembrances of 9/11

Hey everyone, yesterday is a day that is always tough for me to get through. As someone who lived through that experience in New York, it always reminds me of many emotions I and others went through in that time period:

- knowing many people who died that day, not just victims in the towers but also firemen who raced into the buildings to try and help
- how numb we all were those first few days afterwards
- how powerless I felt
- how grateful I was for those I knew that did survive
- the outpouring of genuine unity, which we have long since abandoned
- and how we slowly started to move forward, knowing we'd never be the same again

As I watched a lot of the television coverage and read some of the print coverage as well, I noticed that 6 years out we are no closer to closing the wound then we were that day. And in all of the rhetoric of who's to blame and whether we should continue to mark the anniversary the way we do, all I know is this:

No one is responsible for the acts of these madmen, and we are all responsible for the acts of these madmen. We should do everything we can to move on from this tragedy with lessons learned and turn the page, but we should also never ever move on and minimize the importance of the lessons we learned from this tragedy.

Jim Valvano, the former basketball coach who died from cancer, said before his death, "If you laugh, if you cry, and if you think, that's a full day." Well coach, I certainly did some thinking, but there was no laughter, just a lot of crying.

In December of 2001, I wrote an on-line article for a website called All Sports. Twice a year, I re-read it because of the subject matter, and apparently I'm not the only one. I had dozens of e-mails and a few cell phone voice mails today from people who re-read it today. Still others were unable to find it, as the site has removed the page. So, for all those that inquired, and those that haven't read it, you may do so below. WE WILL NEVER FORGET - WE SHALL OVERCOME!


Two heroic athletes we should always remember
My Remembrances of Gretchen Dater and Jeremy Glick
December 21, 2001
By: Jonathan Moncrief

Christmas is a season of mixed emotions for me. I, like many people, am grateful and thankful for all the blessings I have in my life. These would include first and foremost the members of my family that care deeply for me, as I do for them. Not to mention all the friendships I have developed over the years, and the other blessings too many to mention.

Sports have also been a blessing in my life. I have taken great pleasure in experiencing, both as a competitor and a fan, many moments of success and achievement.

Yet, I am also reminded at this time of year, especially this year, of all the evil in the world. I am reminded of how powerless I really am, and how mortal I really am.

Sports, and the athletes that participate in them, have always been a coping device for me. I have been a sports fanatic all my life. Love to play sports, love to watch sports, love to talk about sports. In part, I think this is because the people I developed friendships with growing up also had similar levels of interests in sports like me.

That’s why I want to take a moment to recognize two of my friends that I can’t celebrate this season of cheer with. These are two people who I knew in my younger days, and I knew them then, and now, as athletes.

Their names are Gretchen Dater and Jeremy Glick.

Every year on December 21st since 1988, I remember Gretchen Dater, my former classmate at Saddle River Day School. Actually, I think about her often, but the anniversary date of when she and 269 others died as a result of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbee, Scotland, amplifies it. My recollections of her are of a kind and gentle young woman, someone who always wore a smile on her face and enjoyed a good laugh. My recollections of her are of a young woman who was beautiful, at an age when a young man starts to really notice those kinds of things about young women.

My recollections mostly, though, are of a school girl who didn’t buy into the stereotype of most girls back then, which was not to play sports with a passion like boys did. Mind you, this was before the explosion and popularity of women’s sports in this country. This was before women’s tennis and golf tours were popular, before the WNBA, before the WPSL.

Gretchen played sports with a fearlessness you rarely found in girls in those days. Whether it was in physical education class, or the girl’s soccer team, she always played hard. When she played floor hockey (my sport of choice) in “Phys Ed” class, she not only knew how to shoot a puck, she shot it hard. She always had my respect for that. To me, she wasn’t just another pretty girl.

She was an athlete.

Maybe that’s why hearing of her tragic and untimely death was so hard for me to accept when I first heard about it. She had so many positive qualities. Even when I knew her, you could see her artistic talents and abilities. These talents were what led her to become an art student at Syracuse University, and eventually an exchange student in London, from where she was returning home for the holidays when tragedy struck.

It was also hard to accept because it personalized the tragedy. It made acutely aware, in the early stages of adulthood, just how quickly and senselessly it could all come to an end.

Every year on the anniversary, my thoughts and feelings are always ones of anger and sorrow. Her parents were among those who championed the cause to bring those who did this unspeakable act to justice. Two such men were convicted this past January for this crime in the Netherlands, yet the real mastermind of these murders, Muammar Qaddafi and the government of Libya, remains “at large” in my mind.

Yet, tragically, we as a nation did not learn the lessons of December 21st, the lessons of air safety and the safety of our citizens that Pan Am Flight 103 taught us. For the families of the victims of that horrible terrorist attack, they have been left to ponder why it took our government 12 years and the unfortunate events of September 11th to become so enraged at state-sponsored terrorism and so united in purpose to defeat it.

For me, I wonder why I had to lose another friend. I knew Jeremy through his brother, Jonah, whom I was a classmate of for four years at Saddle River Day School. Jonah was a good friend for the years I attended school there. I attended his Bar Mitzvah, and it was through this friendship that I came to know Jeremy, as well as his other siblings.

My father put a basketball hoop and backboard on my driveway so that I could have friends over to play games with. He even put “flood lights” up so I could play at night. Jonah was one of those friends who played ball with us. My recollection is that he liked the idea of playing basketball at home so much, he convinced his father to take a section of their backyard, dig it up and pour in concrete so Jonah and his brothers could have a “home court” advantage.

I can distinctly remember many Sunday afternoons playing basketball with Jonah and Jeremy, and their little brother Jared, as well as other kids. Just like at my house, they had “flood lights” put up so the games could extend into the night hours.

I also remember both Jonah and Jeremy as being extremely skilled in judo and wrestling, as well as soccer. They may not have looked physically imposing, but believe me, they were as strong as anyone I knew back then at my age. I was taller than them growing up, so I used my height advantage in basketball games, but it was never easy matching up against them in any sport they played.

I lost touch with them after I transferred to a different high school. It turns out, from what I’ve read since September 11th, it was a huge loss for me that I lost touch with them.

After all, if you’ve read any of the accounts of the kind of family man, father, friend, brother and hero Jeremy has been portrayed in the stories since the crash of Flight 93 in Pennsylvania, wouldn’t you agree he was the kind of person you’d want to have in your life? When I first heard his name in connection with the story, it didn’t register. After all, I assumed it couldn’t be the same person I knew.

Yet, when I read the story with quotes from his older sister, Jennifer, and from his mother, Joan, I cried like my own brother had died. In some ways, for that period of my life, he was my brother.

He was an athlete.

My regrets about Gretchen and Jeremy, other than them not still being alive, is that I didn’t know them more than I did. Yet, I knew them enough to remember the many good things they had to offer. I am proud to say that I knew them both, and the memories I have of them, albeit minor ones, will be memories of passion and athletic determination that I will carry with me forever. Knowing the kind of people they were, and how valiantly they faced the defining moment of their lives, I only hope I have the same kind of courage if put in the same situation.

Sportswriter Mike Lupica said shortly after September 11th that he will never again use phrases such as heroic and courageous to describe athletes again in the games we watch. I couldn’t agree with him more.


A fund has been set-up for Jeremy's daughter, Emmy:
The Emerson Glick Foundation
PO Box 911
Windham, NY 12496.

Broken Down Carr on the side of the road

They are learning quickly in Ann Arbor what they already know in Columbus and Happy Valley and East Lansing and other stops along the national coach's caravan:

When spelling the name of Michigan football coach Lloyd Carr, be sure you start with two "L"'s (as in losses).

To be fair, Carr didn't make (or fail to make) any clutch tackles, blocks, or kicks, but if the buck stops with the head coach, and he makes millions in salary every year, then someone should turn down the temperature on his customized coach's seat. This week, it is scorching hotter than Lindsay Lohan's crotch supposedly does.

Yet, with all the talk about how Carr should be held accountable because he allowed his team to be under prepared enough to face a little a 1-AA school, allowing them to come into "The Big House" and take a big old dump in the middle of the field, to me there's a bigger issue that should be addressed - he, like many other coaches at all levels of football, can't seem to grasp "when to go for 2".

App State had a late 3rd quarter lead of 31-20, when Michigan tailback Mike "Coach, You Gotta Have" Hart scored on a 4-yard touchdown to close the gap to 31-26. With still one quarter left, and being "Mighty Michigan", many like myself figured they would kick the extra point and cut the lead to 4. But Carr decided to go for 2, and when they failed, the deficit remained 5 points.

This may not have seemed like a big play, but it was. Going for a 2-point conversion before the 4th quarter is risky, because it only has at best, statistically speaking, a 50/50 chance for success. And when you fail, you tend to chase after the "lost points" with every/any subsequent score. It reminds me of the story former New England Patriots great Russ Francis likes to tell about Pro Football Hall of Famer Ted Hendricks. One time, Hendricks was drinking so many beers that, as he was finishing his business "liquidating himself" in a locker room bathroom stall, he dropped a $10.00 bill he was holding. After announcing this to anyone within ear shot, and showing Francis the money floating aimlessly, Hendricks produced a $100.00 bill from his pocket, dropped it into the bowl, and reached in to scoop both of them out. Hendricks then stated, "I wasn't going in there for just ten bucks!"

It's the same concept when you go for 2 early in a game and fail - you wind up chasing after it the rest of the game. So when Hart's fourth quarter, 54-yard dash gave the Wolverines a fourth quarter lead of 32-31, Carr was forced to go for 2, to make up for his earlier mistake. Success would have meant a 34-31 lead, but again Michigan failed on the conversion attempt. Had they simply kicked extra points, as I pointed out to those watching the game with me at the time, the lead would be 34-31, and the eventual 24-yard field goal by App State with 26 seconds left would have only evened the score at 34 apiece, forcing overtime.

Instead, the field goal by Julian Rauch meant that Michigan needed a last-second attempt to win on a field goal that was blocked, creating the greatest upset in college football history.

It bothers me to no end to watch coaches, who seem to have 900 assistants nowadays, blow the decision of when/if to go for 2 points. As a Notre Dame fan who watched his own team struggle to gain first downs, much less score points, against Georgia Tech, I can only thank Lloyd Carr for at least providing some cover in the national spotlight for the "Fightless Irish".


BTW: Be sure to check out the premiere of the Friday Football Forecast this week, where we attempt to correctly predict the results of 5 NFL games this weekend.