Southpaw 51: How 9/11 Changed Sports
A reading list of pieces exploring the ways that 9/11 changed the world of sports.
Dear Readers,
Neither of us can remember much of the pre-9/11 world. We were very young children when the planes struck the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, so we’ve grown up in a distinctly post-9/11 political context. Since then, however, there’s been more than enough written about how that day changed America’s understanding of its place in the world and vaulted us out of a post-Cold War “end of history” consensus and into a focus on terror threats and non-state actors.
But the events of 9/11 also significantly changed sports: how fans interact with them, how the media talks about them, and how politics shape them. American sporting events—especially those in New York—served as some of the first examples of what was then considered a “return to normalcy”: President George W. Bush throwing a strike at a Yankees game, or Mike Piazza hitting a go-ahead home run in the Mets’ first game back at Shea Stadium. Looking back, this was actually a very clear demarcation of a new era—a total suffusion of sports with “patriotism,” or support for America’s burgeoning War on Terror that continues today.
So, to mark the 20th anniversary of 9/11, we’ve decided to compile excerpts from some pieces that came out this week that discuss how 9/11 changed American sports—for the better and the worse.
How 9/11 Changed Sports, Twenty Years Out
“Sport’s Post-9/11 Patriotism Seen as Unifier, and ‘Manipulation,’” by Jonathan Abrams in The New York Times.
“I don’t think that there’s anything wrong with patriotism in sport,” said Ibtihaj Muhammad, the first Muslim American to win an Olympic medal, at the 2016 Olympic Games. She added: “Sport bridges so many different people and in cultures and identities.”
But, Muhammad said, it may be time to change how the patriotism is displayed a generation after Sept. 11. When she sees a military flyover she wonders how it affects the climate or whether the money can be better used in underserved communities.
“And that’s a better way to celebrate our patriotism and our commitment to this idea of our nationality,” Muhammad said. “Why not try to elevate those who don’t have?”
“The 9/11 attacks changed the way sports networks broadcast games,” by Ben Strauss in The Washington Post.
[ESPN’s Bob] Ley said there was an important distinction between celebrating the soldiers and the policymakers. Still, he said, addressing that nuance was tricky for sportscasters. “If someone was expecting a thoughtful sports media person in the middle of all this coverage and tribute to suddenly say, ‘Yeah, but this war we’ve embarked on is a folly,’ I think that’s an unrealistic expectation — and it’s career suicide,” he said.
Longtime sportscaster Bob Costas said the airing of “God Bless America” on broadcasts began as meaningful and connected to 9/11 but that eventually changed, leaving some announcers delivering talking points that were contentious and debatable.
“Did we sometimes start to hear these never-questioned notions like, ‘Well, here are our troops, and without them being wherever they are, we wouldn’t be able to enjoy our Thanksgiving and football’?” he asked. “Yes, and I don’t think it’s unpatriotic to say. . . . That is subject to debate.”
“‘Things Are Going to Be Different Now': How 9/11 Changed Life for Muslim American Athletes,” by Shaker Samman in Sports Illustrated.
Even as [Kansas City Chiefs’ Abdullah] Husain’s career continued, though, he faced unfair scrutiny. During a home game in 2014 against the Patriots, he tracked an errant Tom Brady pass over the middle and sprinted 39 yards through tacklers for a touchdown. Afterward, he slid through the endzone on his knees in celebration before dropping his head down in prayer. Everyday stuff. Only, when he looked up, he’d been assessed an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty.
Broadly speaking, church and the NFL are synonymous. It’s not quite a joke to say that they share the sabbath. Tim Tebow, among others, made a brand for himself by falling to a knee in prayer. In Kansas City, Husain spoke with the referee after the call, and the league admitted the next day that it was a mistake to penalize him for praying. Seven years later, he says he doesn’t remember what reasoning the official gave; he can’t say for sure why he was flagged.
Says Abdullah: “I’m not the judge of men’s hearts.
“Twenty years after 9/11, do sports really heal?” by Hannah Keyser in Yahoo.
Now, with two decades of hindsight and the need to put a bow on a decision that can’t be undone, Mets broadcaster Howie Rose explained that, “Coming back to play was not only the right thing to do, it was the only thing to do."
But of course, the former is only true because the latter is incontrovertible.
Baseball was back, not to heal but because it had to be. If you look for it, there are iconic moments to be found in every game, and so the Mets and their fans found meaning in the first game played in New York City after 9/11.
“It was when Mike [Piazza] hit the home run,” Leiter said. “Seeing people that were kind of flat with respect to what was going on that night, and what has transpired in the country, they erupted, they went crazy. And we knew — I knew, people knew — that it was the right thing to play.”
“The sports media world reflects on 9/11, 20 years later,” by Richard Deitsch in The Athletic.
Trey Wingo, ESPN: I remember driving into work the entire time thinking, “Why am I going to work today? What are we going to do that is in any way meaningful or impactful? Why would anyone care about anything we had to say?” I got to ESPN and there was just general confusion, for lack of a better term. At that point, we had ceded all our airtime to ABC News. There was five or six discussions that day about whether we should do a show. My thought was what could we possibly say or do that would matter in any way, shape or form in light of the events of the day? There was one meeting in an office with an executive where Bob Ley astutely said, “Look, I hear what you’re saying and there’s no wrong opinions today. But I think because of everything that’s gone on, we should do a show about how the events of the day affected the world of sports, in no way making it a political statement and in no way making it anything other than these things happened and here is how they affected the world of sports.”
To be honest I was like, this is dumb. We shouldn’t be doing this. But Bob was adamant about it. He said, “Look, this is who we are. This is what we do. And we should absolutely do a show about how the events of the day affected the world of sports.” At that point, nobody called it 9/11. That label didn’t exist yet. So we went on the air and we did about an hour or so. I was extremely nervous prior to going on the air because this was something that was beyond the pale. You get into sports to talk about sports. You don’t get into it to deal with death and destruction and global terrorism and an attack on American soil. I do remember the first sort of intro that I wrote was a little over the top. While it might have been accurate, it probably wasn’t the best way to present the news of the day. You were trying to find the right chord because obviously, as an American, you were angry. You were very angry about what had just happened. The idea was to express the emotions and anger of the day, but also do it in a way that understood the somberness of the moment.
In hindsight, Bob was 100 percent correct. When it’s all said and done, there should be some show of record about how things affected the world of sports.
RODNEY’S ROUNDUP
Do you want to read about . . .
. . . how new NIL rules didn’t solve all of the NCAA’s problems? “Race, money and exploitation: why college sport is still the ‘new plantation,’” by Nathan Kalman-Lamb, Derek Silva and Johanna Mellis in The Guardian (September 7, 2021).
. . . the shallowness of the NFL support for social justice? “The NFL’s idea of social justice is just a sticker on a helmet,” by Candace Buckner in The Washington Post (September 9, 2021).
. . . the fight to equalize prize money for the men's and women’s World Cups? “U.S. Soccer Ties World Cup Prize Money to Equal Pay Fight,” by Andrew Das in The New York Times (September 10, 2021).