Jim Livengood said it was like an illusion. Like it didn’t seem real. That it was inconceivable. To see the first plane and then the second.
Was it really possible?
Was this really happening?
Have you blinked yet?
It has been 25 years.
A quarter of a century. That long since the deadliest terrorist attack in history, as well as the deadliest incident for firefighters and law enforcement personnel in American history.
September 11 still haunts so many. Four hijacked planes. Two crashing into the World Trade Center towers, another into the Pentagon and yet another into a Pennsylvania field after passengers rebelled.
It was also significant in the sports world and how it reacted to such tragedy.
How all levels and leagues and conferences responded to it.
Points of concern
“Right now, there are a lot of people where that time is squarely in their memory bank,” said Livengood, the former UNLV and Arizona athletic director who was running the Wildcats department at the time. “Thinking back 25 years, what an incredible day that was. We were worried about all kinds of things, and the last thing we were worried about was when we were going to play next.
“You’re concerned about the student-athletes. You’re concerned about the department. You’re concerned about the conference. And it was more about the country and what was going on. Was this just the start of something? What comes next? The thought of playing games … there were just so many other factors involved. You’re trying to figure out whatever decisions you were making were something we could live with later.”
The phone calls were endless among conferences across the country. Multiple ones a day. But sports had to find its way back. It just wouldn’t be immediately.
The sports world came to an abrupt stop.
The NFL canceled all games on Sept. 16. Baseball didn’t play on Sept. 11 and went three more days without staging games. NASCAR. Golf. Major events were called off all across sports.
This was also true for Division I athletics.
Craig Thompson didn’t watch the news that morning. He simply readied himself for work and headed into the office, where the then-Mountain West Commissioner ran a league born just a few years earlier in 1999.
“When I got there, I was immediately bombarded with calls,” Thompson said. “I didn’t know what had happened. Twenty-five years. It’s not like it was yesterday. I turned 70 a few weeks ago, so 25 years of the 70 I have been on this earth … that’s a long time ago.
“The only reference we had was the JFK assassination in November of 1963. That was the only one on if we were going to play or we weren’t going to play that first weekend after. And then the commissioner of the SEC (the late Roy Kramer) said, ‘I don’t know what y’all are going to do, but we’re going to play.’ And it was like, ‘Now wait a minute, Roy.’ ”
Kramer at first indeed announced his league would compete that first weekend following the attacks, but public pressure (and the fact the NFL had postponed its games) made the conference change course.
Kramer always held true to the idea that playing was the better way of doing things. In fact, an SEC game between Mississippi State and visiting South Carolina on Sept. 20 was the first matchup of Division I schools to be held following 9/11.
“The bottom line is we didn’t play on the 15th and six of our eight teams played on the following Saturday the 22nd,” Thompson said. “It’s kind of like, but nowhere near the same (magnitude), skipping 20 years ahead to COVID. That was tough.
“We had three schools in three different California counties with three different procedural mandates. We had Wyoming, which had a different perspective. Then you had the Air Force Academy and Colorado State in a very blue state. You had the two Nevada schools. Everybody was all over the map.
“Those were the two (worst) incidents for us as (a conference).”
UNLV was scheduled to play Colorado State on Friday following the 9/11 attacks but that game was postponed. The Rebels would return at Arizona on Sept. 22 but play their first home game at Sam Boyd Stadium since the attacks on Sept. 29 against BYU.
It was a game that featured intense patriotic pregame tributes and large American flag displays during the national anthem.
Returning to play
Jason Thomas was the all-everything quarterback for the Rebels then and remembers how strange it felt after the attacks when no planes flew over the practice field, a normal occurrence at UNLV when landing at the now Harry Reid International Airport.
“It’s crazy that it has been (25 years),” Thomas said recently. “My wife and I both attended UNLV and she played volleyball so we both have different experiences with it as our seasons were going on at that time.
“I watched the second plane go into the tower live so everyone that experienced it had some type of trauma from it. It was a crazy moment. The way it happened and all unfolded, we weren’t really in a public time back then in terms of social media and all that. But to have that happen on television and everyone see it … “
All teams and leagues eventually returned to the fields of play, spurred on by the words of President George W. Bush. He talked about not letting the terrorists win, how significant it was that life in the United States returned to a level of normalcy as soon as possible.
And that included sports.
“Most definitely,” Thompson said. “President Bush’s words helped all of us in many ways.”
Contact Ed Graney at egraney@reviewjournal.com. Follow @edgraney on X.
