As we prepare to pause and remember the events of the darkest day in modern American history, I think it’s also important to remember what happened afterward.

The dastardly deeds done on September 11, 2001, changed the world and the United States forever.

We’ve not been the same since.

Oh sure, in some ways we have completely recovered, and America has collectively shaken its fist at those who cheered as our buildings fell with people still inside and as planes crashed with passengers still on board.

What followed was the normal stages of grief — deni al, anger, depression, and, ultimately, acceptance.

That manifested itself, in part, in the number of people who went to lower Manhattan to help search for survivors and to lend what assistance they could.

25 years later, the vision of an airplane filled with people crashing into a skyscraper filled with people just starting what would be their last day on earth still shocks and angers me.

That day was a Tuesday, and there was a period of a few days where we just didn’t know what to do with ourselves.

Is it ok for us to go to work?

Do we watch the TV news coverage?

There were no rules for that kind of thing. It’s one thing when the president is shot and killed in Dallas and we watch the reports on TV, but it’s totally different when we were watching one tower burn while the second plane hit the other World Trade Center building.

We saw the whole thing with our own eyes.

Ultimately, there came a point at which America had to get back to functioning. We had to show the people behind the attacks that they didn’t win and they were never going to beat us.

But how? Where do we start?

The journey back began with sports.

Four days after the attacks, Indiana high school football teams took the field to play their Week 4 games.

The atmosphere was different, to be certain.

Some people hadn’t left the house since that Tuesday morning. Some people felt guilty for going to a football game that Friday night.

But people went, and when it was over, almost everyone was glad they did.

It wasn’t easy, but it was necessary.

And, frankly, it was clear that Indiana and middle America were not a target in all of this, and we were in no danger sitting in the bleachers or in the press box.

Major League Baseball waited 10 days to restart its season. Because of how the attacks were carried out, flying restrictions were ultra-tight, and people didn’t really want to get on an airplane right away anyway.

Pro football returned later that same weekend.

And slowly, one event after another began to spring back up. Those chicken fundraisers came back on the community’s calendar. The chili cookoffs were rescheduled. The fall festivals prepared to welcome visitors.

It’s like when someone close to you dies. Whenever the period of mourning ends, you must seek out the “new normal”. Oh, be sure, it will never be the same, and “normal” will never feel quite right because a part of you is missing. A piece of you that mattered is gone, and it isn’t coming back.

That happened in America in the days and weeks after Sept. 11.

But we knew we had to start back toward a path of getting back to living, even if our only motivation was that we were doing it in remembrance of those who were no longer with us.

And, as is usually the case, each person has a different way of dealing with grief and a different timeline for how long it will take to get to the other side.

But somehow, we had to plow forward.

And we did.

And it was sports that led the way.

It was sports that said to Americans, “follow me, we’ll get there together.”

It was sports that gave us the distraction from the news videos of planes and tanks moving through the sands and hills of the Middle East, the parade of trucks hauling debris from Ground Zero, and the aerial views of the smoldering crater in the shape of an airplane in western Pennsylvania.

It was sports that let us know we could emerge from hiding.

And the roar of the crowd felt a little louder then.
We needed sports in the weeks and months after that awful day, and it delivered.