A Day to Remember for Many Reasons

As the editor of two sites on the FanSided Sports Network, you might think it’s difficult to put together two posts with 9/11 as a “theme”. But that’s just it. 9/11 is not a theme. It was, is, and always will be a reality. But it is a little bit on the difficult side to cohesively produce two posts.

Then I got to thinking…no it’s not.

Why? Because this day holds a different meaning to everyone that remembers. And that’s a good thing. It’s simple really…remember.

Just to have you in the know, I am also the site editor for Blog Red Machine, the FanSided blog that covers the Cincinnati Reds. I’ll return to that in a bit.

So how can this day hold different meaning for everyone? All you have to look is look at the landscape and it’s all around.

In Albany, New York, ten lives will change. Not because of 9/11 (well, maybe to some of that ten), but because they will take a huge step in their careers. The top 20 on the LPGA Futures Tour will receive their cards today. They will next year be members of the LPGA in 2012.

But I’ll give way to a few to tell you how they view today.

Hard to believe the Pink Panther will not be adorned in her customary pink attire on a Sunday. But today is different to Paula Creamer. As it is to Justin Rose…

And 9/11 does hold a similar meaning among those affiliated with the PGA TOUR. Via their Twitter feed…

Then I got a link in my Twitter timeline. It was to an article published on GolfChannel.com authored by John Hawkins. Hawk explains what he was doing on this day ten years ago.

"“Tenth hole, Great River GC in Milford, Conn. Many Americans remember what they were doing and where they were doing it when they first heard of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks – apocalyptic events usually receive special exemptions and head straight to the memory’s long-term vault. Details of the devastation were sketchy at first, but when someone tells you with a straight face that a couple of commercial airliners crashed into the World Trade Center, the location of a little white ball can seem rather insignificant.Still, we hit our tee shots at what was then the par-3 10th, all of them poorly, then decided we didn’t want to play anymore. I live about 50 miles north of New York City and quickly remembered my wife was taking a train to midtown Manhattan that morning. Fifteen minutes earlier and she would have gotten stuck, probably for hours. Instead, she was back before noon, by which time grim reality had wrapped its hand around the nation’s throat.”"

These two paragraphs create impact to me and within me. And that brings me to my post on the other site.

I’m not going to re-publish the whole piece here. That’s not even my purpose. I will supply the link and you can choose to read it. After all, living in America, we have that freedom. It’s here.

Today, tournaments will be won (as Simon Dyson has already done at the KLM Open…for the third time joining ranks with Seve and Langer as three-time champs), lives will be impacted with their status as a professional golfer, the Walker Cup appears to be in the hands of the GB&I squad, the NFL will really kick off their season. So many events are still carried on worldwide.

The event of the day is happening now in NYC. Here’s how Paul Stankowski is taking it all in…

Lives will be changed today that have no direct attachment or impact to the events of 9/11 and the ceremonies at Ground Zero. That’s not at all a bad thing. It shows that we all have the ability to carry on in our lives.

To say “never forget” is a strong credo. And along with Stankowski and many others, I will not either.