Former players remember suiting up in days after national tragedy

The skies had never been so quiet above Greendale High School.

Close enough to General Mitchell Airport, the school frequently combats the sounds of air traffic overhead. But on Sept. 12, 2001, offensive lineman Greg Koch was struck by the silence.

“We always have traffic over our field,” Koch said. “Then all of a sudden, a military plane flew overhead. I freaked out. There weren’t supposed to be planes in the air. It was eerie, the silence of the sky. I remember that very specifically.”

Now an assistant coach with the Panthers, Koch recalled the sober aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, striking 15 years ago on a Tuesday morning after most students had already arrived at school

Air traffic was grounded in North America for a full two days, slowly whirring back to life in the days that followed. Most high-school practices were canceled that day, and the NFL and Major League Baseball both canceled games for the remainder of the week.

That left the Friday night prep contests as the only game going.

“We got to play against Greenfield; I remember that game like it was yesterday,” said Steve Stoltz, a junior receiver on the Panthers that season, playing for his brother (and still head coach), Rob. “We had a moment of silence before the game, and I remember all the football players raising their helmets to the flag during the national anthem. It was an emotionally charged game. Everyone used that game for a release of all those emotions, the fear, the anxiety, the anger. It was kind of a next-level scenario, the energy we brought to the field. It was kind of surreal and something I’ll never forget.”

Confusing time

Like many, Jake Davis remembers precisely where he was – walking to his photography class – when one of the planes hit the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. The attacks extended to a crash into the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., with a fourth plane falling short of its target in Pennsylvania. Then a senior at Homestead High School and now head football coach at Germantown, Davis said there was some discussion about whether to play three days later.

“As kids, we wanted to play,” Davis recalled. “Looking at the big picture, the idea was we wanted to not let anything get us down, especially an act of terrorism. We didn’t want it to not let us do something people can enjoy and something that can bring us together.”

Facing Cedarburg, Davis and the other team captains locked arms with Cedarburg players and coaches at midfield during the national anthem, alternating links in the chain between the two teams.

“We sang the national anthem as a whole group,” Davis said. “It was a powerful message in a time where the nation was struggling; we did what we could in our own small corner of the United States. Uniting and still playing a game meant a lot more to everybody.

“There was no precedent for it,” he added. “You read about things in history class, but you never dream of it. It was a huge historic event, and there was a lot of uncertainty about where it was going to go from here. It was kind of a blur after the day it happened up until the football game. Those are the two days I really have nailed down (in my memory).”

Mukwonago’s Jordan Kroll said the schoolwide policy was not to have televisions on that fateful Tuesday morning, but the current MHS defensive line coach said most teachers did flip to the coverage.

“Most teachers got the historical significance right away,” said Kroll. “I remember coming home that day and talking to my dad, debating whether there was going to be a war. Are people going to have to sign up for the military? Will gas prices go up? It was all unknown.”

What was known, however, was that Mukwonago would get a chance to play football.

“The football aspect, as I recall, just seemed like business as normal,” he said. “For three hours that day, I didn’t worry about anything other than football.”

American pastime

Steve Stoltz pointed out that the attack came two years after the shootings at Columbine High School in the Denver area, where two students opened fire, killing 12 students and one teacher before taking their own lives.

“Emotions were still raw; we weren’t numb to that kind of thing occurring in the country, as we are now with school shootings and terrible violence that has occurred over the last handful of years,” Stoltz said. “Granted, this was different, a terrorist attack. My jaw was dropping watching it all unfold.”

Like many watching the television coverage after the first plane hit, he saw the second tower struck by a second plane live.

“Everyone internalizes that sort of thing very differently, but … we really understood how privileged we were to continue to play football and live our lives as free citizens of the United States of America.”

Koch remembers that someone –- he never learned who -– was able to get American flag decals for the Greendale helmets for that game against Greenfield.

“When we finally got on the field … football is already an emotional time,” he said. “Hearing the anthem put a lot of stuff in perspective; we had a lot of emotion coursing through our veins, more than a normal high-school football game that day. People needed that escape. Nothing had moved forward. The world had just come to a stop. We were finally putting it all aside, (saying) ‘Let's move on and be America again, get on with regular life. It was just a different day, completely.”

Each year, Davis remembers the events again during the early weeks of football season, when the 9/11 anniversary rolls around.

“We always play around that time, and it always brings back that week of memories,” Davis said. “We asked before the season, ‘How many guys were not even born when that happened?’ As an adult, we educate our kids on what that time was like, and honor those who lost their lives.”