NFL on 11 September: Show patriotism in football stadium
Sunday, September 11th, 201110 years ago, put the grieving professionals through a rejection of the match. In memory now, ten years after 11 September 2001, showing the flag. But security measures are extended out of fear.
Back to normal – it was this one time impossible. The resistance of American professional sports came from the locker rooms of professional football league the NFL, one day after the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington. Within hours, he became a massive signal to the owner of the 32 clubs who wanted to continue playing as if nothing had happened.
“You need time to grieve, time to recover yourself this,” said Vinny Testaverde, then the quarterback of the New York Jets, who had worked as a teenager at the site of the destroyed skyscrapers. “And until you return to your normal life.” Many players refused, just days after the attacks to go out there and forget everything. “Normality means something different at this moment. ”
The quarterback and many of his colleagues threatened with a boycott for a day. The result: The league called off an entire game day and thus produced a unique domino effect: from baseball to football, from golf to motor sports – all events were sold and moved. An unusual exercise: instead of being distracted by grief and anger at the stadium or on television, all of America was forced to sport a loose Sunday, take a break and reflect.
A true patriotism show that nearly failed
Ten years later, the commemoration of the 11th September 2001 extroverted character. The NFL, known primarily for its enormous sales (eight billion dollars per year) and a physical hardship and strict discipline with which to identify millions of Americans use the anniversary to a demonstrative act to season opening, which falls into the symbolic date , wants to show the flag.
The largest effort is before the evening game between the New York Jets and the Dallas Cowboys, which takes place in a stadium on the other side of the Hudson River, a few miles away from the site at the moment the new created World Trade Center. Coaches, players and police officers and firefighters, who were then at the southern tip of Manhattan in use will sing the national anthem and develop giant Stars and Stripes. All assets are to wear sewn loops that deal with the anniversary.
A true patriotism show, which would be almost failed. The club owner, in 2001 necessarily had the game plan to hold barred, the professionals in the context of a protracted wage dispute for months of play, risking failure and financial losses, because they wanted to limit their salaries. Displaced in these days, the story of NFL player Pat Tillman, who resigned in January 2002, a well-paid contract with the Arizona Cardinals and announced himself as a volunteer with the American army.
“Because our games take place simultaneously, they are an attractive target”
The only professional athlete who turned the shock of the events in consistent action, died in April 2004 during a mission in Afghanistan when he was accidentally wounded by a comrade killed with three shots. Tillman was initially hailed as a hero and obscures the true story of the military leadership. The official version was a long time: Tillman was shot by Taliban fighters. Since, at the insistence of the family came out, as the Defense Department had exploited the death of the football pros, his willingness to sacrifice the League leadership is not even worth a press release.
The games on Sunday, not only in Washington where the Redskins compete against the New York Giants, and in the suburbs of New York, where the Jets, the Cowboys received, are characterized by an increased security effort. Just about every NFL meeting is taking place for years make semi-finals – with an average of 65 000 spectators. Now there are fears that terrorists might use the anniversary to new attacks.
“Because our games take place simultaneously, they are an attractive target,” says Jeffrey Miller, the security chief in the league, has ordered that more bomb sniffing dogs are used and are scanned before entering the auditorium intense than usual. Such controls have since autumn 2001 in American football stadiums agenda. “Such is life,” said a fan in Jacksonville a few days ago. “This is not a problem.” The new normality indicated.
