25 years after 9/11, Strahan, Testaverde, others relive the emotional memories — SkimNews
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- ESPN compiled 9/11 oral histories from more than a dozen NFL figures — players, coaches, team officials, a league official and a fan — to mark the 25th anniversary.
- The NFL paused games for 12 days after the September 11 attacks, resuming on September 23, 2001 after intense behind-the-scenes debates about whether it was appropriate to play football again.
- The Giants arrived at Newark airport on a red-eye shortly before United Flight 93 took off, with team personnel walking past the gate where the terrorists boarded the plane that later crashed in Pennsylvania.
- The Jets and Giants visited Ground Zero to deliver supplies and boost morale of rescue workers, while Washington players attended a memorial at Arlington National Cemetery.
- Tony Sichenzio, a Giants fan who survived because he attended the Denver game the night before, left a voicemail for GM Ernie Accorsi saying 'my love for the Giants saved my life'; he lost 47 of 51 colleagues on the 104th floor of the World Trade Center at Cantor Fitzgerald.
- Chris Mara, now a top Giants executive and member of the founding Mara family, lost four close friends on 9/11; his daughter Kate Mara was on an American Airlines flight that departed around the same time as the other crashed planes.
Why it matters: The 25th-anniversary oral histories reveal how the NFL's decision to resume play on September 23 became a galvanizing moment for a grieving nation, but the personal testimonies — from a survivor whose Giants fandom saved his life to a team executive who lost four friends — show the human cost still felt across the league community a quarter-century later.
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