I remember picking up the phone on the afternoon of Sept. 11, 2001 to call a football coach.

It seemed surreal.

Two passenger planes had crashed into the North and South towers of the World Trade Center just hours earlier. Both towers had collapsed.

Another jet slammed into the Pentagon.

Thanks to the bravery of several passengers on Flight 93, a fourth bore into a field in Shanksville instead of another populated target.

And there I was, phone in hand, fingers punching buttons, calling a coach to talk to him about a football game that may or not be played Friday night.

It seemed so trivial. It seemed almost callous.

What was I going to say? What was he going to say?

As it turns out, it was therapeutic — for both of us.

We talked about the events of the day and very little about football.

As I made more phone calls throughout the evening, similar conversations took place.

Everyone was numb.

But we all still had jobs to do.

And we did them.

Most of the games were postponed that Friday. Moniteau decided to play. I didn't cover that game, but I heard about the outpouring of patriotism in West Sunbury that night and wished I was there.

Games were eventually played — some on Saturday. Others on Monday.

But they were played.

Life went on.

We healed through sports.

Now, 18 years later, the world is radically different, both within the sports realm and outside of it.

The vast majority of the high school athletes of today weren't alive when the 9/11 terrorist attacks took place.

To them, their knowledge of the events are boiled down to the pages in a history book, or television accounts — like the John F. Kennedy assassination was to my generation and Pearl Harbor to the generation before them.

It's amazing how much one can remember against the backdrop of an event like 9/11.

Here's some of my memories through a sports prism:

I remember the Monday Night Football game on 9/10 between Denver and the New York Giants.

Broncos' wide receiver Ed McCaffrey suffered a gruesome broken leg in that game.

Now his son, Christian, is one of the best running backs in the NFL.

I remember covering a Slippery Rock High School football game at Wilmington on Saturday evening.

There was a great deal of patriotism on display there, too.

I remember a Sunday without the NFL — and eerie day without football in what would have been Week 2 of the season.

I remember Chicago Cubs outfielder Sammy Sosa sprinting into the outfield at Wrigley Field with an American flag in his hand and waving it. I remember him blasting an opposite-field home run against the Astros and circling the bases with a smaller flag in his right hand.

I remember the first game in Heinz Field history on Oct. 7. I covered it, received a commemorative pin that I still own and watched as President George W. Bush appeared on the Jumbotron before the game to announce the United States was beginning military action in Afghanistan to depose the Taliban and root out Osama bin Laden.

I remember every football team wearing an American flag decal on the back of their helmets.

And, of course, the New England Patriots won the Super Bowl.

It was the last time I actually rooted for the Patriots.

Sport offers a unique opportunity to cement memories and feelings through any event.

Especially significant ones like 9/11.

Mike Kilroy is a staff writer for the Butler Eagle.