Rutgers Football Head Coach Greg Schiano reflects on 9/11 anniversary
Today marks the 24th anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City back on September 11th, 2001. A day that we will never forget.
Rutgers Football Head Coach Greg Schiano was asked about those events in his press conference earlier this week and he discussed how important it is to educate the team on that day and the importance of remembering.
“It’s still real important, right? 37 Rutgers alums lost that day,” Schiano said in his weekly presser. “Personally, a guy who I grew up with just two doors down was lost that day. A lot of us all lost people that are from this area and also what it did in changing the world.”
“I have a great gratitude to the people who serve our country and protect us. I will educate the team and I do every year because most of these kids, if not all of them, weren’t born yet. So to them it’s just something they read in the history books, but I think being located where we are, I will always tell the story. We stood on the practice fields and you could see the smoke on the horizon. We knew we
weren’t playing a game, but our players just wanted to go out to get their minds onto something else. So it all definitely hits home.”
Schiano went on to talk about his team taking a trip to National 9/11 Memorial & Museum a few years ago, which is part of the pregame events for the Pinstripe Bowl every year.
“A couple years ago when we were at the pinstripe bowl, one of the events that they did was take us down to the site and then we went on a tour,” said Schiano. “I think now a lot of the guys, having gone through that just really understand it much better. But, again half the team wasn’t with us then, so I’ll definitely still educate them. As a team, we try to not only talk about football, but what’s going on in their world, what’s going on in the world. Because the thing that can’t get lost is we’re educating young men to hopefully become the kind of grown men that we want in our society. So we take that real seriously. I take that real seriously in dealing with our football team.”
In total, there were around 3,000 people lost on that tragic day. As mentioned above by Coach Schiano, 37 of which were Rutgers alumni and they have all been listed above.
- Paul A. Acquaviva RC’94
- Evan J. Baron NCAS’81
- David O. Campbell RC’72, GSM’74
- Alexander H. Chiang GSNB’82
- John R. Cruz RC’93
- Brian T. Cummins GSN’91
- Gavin F. Cushny UCN’85
- Michael A. Davidson LC’97
- Jayceryll M. de Chavez LC’99
- Michael A. Diaz-Piedra III NCAS’74
- Patrick J. Driscoll GSNB’75
- Judy Santillan Fernandez UCNB’97
- Stephen J. Fiorelli ENG’80
- Colleen L. Fraser LC’74
- Jeffrey B. Gardner CC’87
- Alayne Friedenreich Gentul RC’78
- Barry H. Glick NCAS’63
- Richard J. Guadagno CC’84
- Charles H. Karczewski RC’89
- Brendan Mark Lang LC’89
- Ming-Hao Liu GSNB’89
- James A. Martello LC’83
- Brian E. Martineau NCAS’88
- Michael J. McCabe UCNB’83
- Virginia A. Ormiston ENG’81
- Dominique L. Pandolfo RC’96
- Jon A. Perconti LC’93
- Donald A. Peterson GSM’67
- Patrick J. Quigley RC’82
- Tom B. Reinig GSM’78
- Richard D. Rosenthal GSM’75
- Maria Theresa Santillan NCAS’96
- Scott M. Schertzer LC’97, SMLR’97
- Neil G. Shastri RC’98, RBS’98
- Michael C. Sorresse NCAS’89
- Kristine Marie Swearson UCNB’96
- Gregory K. Wachtler RC’98
NEVER FORGET.
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