Summer Premium Live and Catalog Auction
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 8/4/2016
“Do they play of don’t they play?” That was the big question facing NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue late in the day of September 11, 2001 after the terrorist attacks against the United States. The decision was to play the league’s full slate of games five days after the attacks, when a nation was still grieving, wondering and in turmoil. It was decision to be made similar to the ones after the Pearl Harbor attacks in 1941 and President Kennedy’s assassination in November 1963. With tensions and opinions high on both sides – many people thought the NFL should play so as to not let the terrorists affect our lifestyles, while many others felt the games should be delayed to respect those who lost their lives.
It was a difficult decision, which we will allow Tagliabue’s own words to articulate: “It was clear to me that the NFL had come to be a huge symbol of the qualities Americans like to see in themselves – resilience, working through adversity, never giving up," he says. "The NFL had to do something. The dominant atmosphere was one of death, devastation, fear and paralysis. Put it all together and the thing to do was recognize the despicable nature of the attacks and the horrible loss of life. You did that by canceling games and getting your priorities straight. And then you came back the next week to show resilience and that we were all standing tall in the face of adversity and carrying on.”
And carry on they did…a full 12 days after the 9/11/01 attacks. Tagliabue and NFLPA Executive Director Gene Upshaw attended that day’s game in Kansas City, honoring two of the league’s most respected owners in Lamar Hunt of the Kansas City Chiefs and New York Giants owner Wellington Mara.
With the Giants winning that contest 13-3, an emotional team presented one of the actual game used footballs to New York City mayor Rudy “America’s Mayor” Giuliani. This game used football has one panel painted white with “GAME BALL PRESENTED TO MAYOR GIULIANI IN HONOR OF THE VICTIMS AND THOSE WHO MADE US PROUD GIANTS 13 – CHIEFS 3 SEPT. 23, 2001”. The Giants team emblem adorns each side near the points. This football is a tremendous relic form that emotional time in our country, and presented to one of the many men who led a city and nation’s healing during that time.