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by
Joe - jgand@pcfootball.net
9-9-07
It’s
that time of year once again…
…time
to remember the fallen.
For those
of you who have read my columns before, you know the drill.
For those
of you who haven’t, allow me to re-cap. Every year around
this time I re-print a certain column that I wrote in 2002. It
goes as follows…
I still remember where I was. I don’t think I will ever
forget where I was when I heard the news.
I was getting
ready for work in my living room, sitting in front of the TV
watching SportsCenter as usual. ESPN News broke in with
a special bulletin, with some news that The
World
Trade
Center
in
New York
had been attacked. They wanted us to turn to ABC News
for more details.
I didn’t
think much of it and I thought that it wasn’t a big deal
because they didn’t give out very many details. I continued
to watch SportsCenter as I put my shoes on, and I saw it down
on their sports ticker. They usually flashed the scores from
the previous night’s games, but on this September morning
they flashed something that I will never forget –
WTC collapse
after…
…planes
crashed into towers…
…tune to ABC
for more details.
The first
thing that I thought was “What?” “WHAT?!? NO FUCKING
WAY!!!”
I grabbed the
remote and punched the buttons to switch to ABC as fast as I
could…
…and
that’s when I saw it…
…a huge
cloud of dust in the place where the Twin Towers once stood.
It was at this
moment that my wife decided to come out of the bedroom. The
first thing she saw was the look on my face. She kept asking
me what was wrong and my mouth could barely form the words.
“The
World
Trade
Center
in
New York
was attacked. Both of the towers have collapsed. They’re
gone.”
She came in
and watched the TV with me, and we both sat there, dumbfounded
as they replayed the collapse of Tower 1. Neither one of
us could believe what had happened. But there was more
– a plane had crashed into the Pentagon as well. Not only
that, but there was another plane still out there, and it was
a plane that was supposed to be on its way to the West Coast!
Specifically LAX!
Since I live
in the
Southern California
area my mind raced as I tried to think of all the targets that
terrorists could possibly hit out here. The most obvious
was the Boeing plant at the
Long Beach
Airport
just a few miles down the street from where I live. The
next one was TRW, just a few miles away from where I work!
Both companies are defense contractors, and they would have
made some pretty good targets. I called into work to get
some advice on whether I should come in or not because we
didn’t know if we were going to be safe. I was told to
come on in.
I went in and
kept a radio at my desk so that I could get the latest news
and pass it on to everyone else at the office. As the
day wore on we gradually heard the story. About how the
planes were hijacked and deliberately crashed into the towers.
We also heard of the fourth plane that had gone down in a
Pennsylvania
field, and how they weren’t sure if it had been hijacked or
had gone down on its own. Later we would hear the
stories of how the passengers had decided to fight back, and
paid for their bravery with their lives.
We all know
the story that followed – the rescue effort that turned into
recovery. The clean up of what became known as “Ground
Zero” which was just completed yesterday. The
deployment of troops to
Afghanistan
to find Osama Bin Laden and his Al-Queda network. W’s
stirring call to arms before a joint session of congress.
The donations that poured in to
New York
and the tributes that followed.
So I know what
you are thinking. What does any of this have to do with PC
Football?
Nothing…
…and
everything.
Recently there
was a football game played – a real football game. But
these were not NFL players that took the field. No,
these were true heroes. These were the players from the
FDNY Bravest Football Club and the NYPD Finest Football Club.
Both of these teams met in the 30th annual “
Fun
City
Bowl” on May 19th. The game was originally
slated for
St. John’s
University
, but because of the demand for tickets it was moved to Giants
Stadium in
New Jersey
– directly across from Ground Zero.
The game
itself was a penalty filled affair. These were not NFL-tested
veterans on the field. These were cops and firefighters
that played football because they loved the game. But
more importantly, they played to honor their lost brothers.
Lost in the rubble of the
Twin
Towers
, but never forgotten in their hearts. This fact was in
evidence before the game, as the “Bravest” recognized the
surviving family members of the 22 team members out of the 343
firefighters who were lost on September 11th. Group
after group of parents, widows, and children were escorted to
midfield to receive the player’s framed jersey bearing a
plaque inscribed “Forever a hero on our team.” The
NYPD was fortunate not to lose any team members that day, but
they did honor the 23 fellow officers who perished on 9/11.
In the end the
NYPD prevailed 10-0 to record their 9th straight
win over the FDNY, and take a 21-9 lead in the series, but
none of that mattered. What mattered was that they had
come together to raise money for 9/11 charities, and to honor
their brethren.
That is what I
have tried to do recently.
I made a new
roster for Madden 2002. I created the FDNY Bravest and
the NYPD Finest and put them into their own file. I used
the teams that were created by Bly Gilmore on MaddenMania,
which evened up the Maniac and Instigator rosters, and moved
those players onto the FDNY and NYPD rosters. I had
intended to change the names of the players on both teams to
reflect the rosters for the fire and police teams. I was
able to find the actual roster for the FDNY, but I am unable
to fine the roster for the NYPD. I have included the
file for the FDNY, which contains the FDNY names, along with
positions, numbers, height and weight.
If anybody out
there can find the NYPD roster and wants to make the changes,
I invite you to do so. I also ask that if you do find
them, if you could share them with the rest of us who have the
rosters, we would be very grateful. In this way we can
all pay tribute to those men who gave their lives on that
terrible day every time we play with these teams.
I know that is
what I will be doing every time I play with those rosters.
OK, first
off to let you know what happened in the NPSFL, the NYPD
Finest beat the Los Angeles Centurions 36-20 to win the league
championship, so congrats to the Cops of the NYPD.
Secondly
I need to tell you guys that this site is in trouble, both
financially and in terms of its membership.
Financially
the ideal would be that this site would run on donations made
by you guys. There are plenty of other sites out there that
are run every month just on member donations alone. Sites like
MVPMods or EAMods have no problems pulling in money. However,
those sites have members who not only sign-up for the boards,
but who also follow through and actually activate their
accounts so that they can contribute to the boards.
That’s
the second part of why PCFootball.net is in trouble…
For
months now I have posted in the boards and even on the front
page how necessary it is for new members to activate their
accounts. As of September 9, 2007 there are 1,051 people who
have registered for the forums. However out of those, only 709
of them are counted as registered members. In my
administrative controls I show 335 users who are awaiting
e-mail confirmation. That means that 335 of you have not
bothered to activate your accounts for some reason!
In the
past I have tried to contact you and tried to tell you that
you needed to a) contact me if you were having problems
activating your account, or b) activate your account when you
get the e-mail, or c) look in your junk e-mail box to make
sure the activation e-mail didn’t get sent there. If I
didn’t hear from you then I would have to assume that you
were not really interested in posting on the boards and your
account would be left the way it is.
So far,
no one has contacted me one way or the other.
Look
gang, it’s really simple. If you want to post on the boards
you have to activate your accounts. If you don’t activate
your account, the boards will simply read you as a “guest”
who is ineligible to post in the forums. These days the only
ones who are posting anything on the boards are myself,
Endicot Road
, and people wanting to advertise cd-cracks looking to get
banned for piracy.
A long
time ago this used to be a fun place to come to. Now it’s a
lonely place. Earlier in the year I was contacted by a
representative at EAMods.com about the possibility of merging
the two sites together. We would have had all of the files
joined together, I was going to take my columns over there and
we all would have been together on their forum boards. The
only snag at the time was that we couldn’t reconcile the
databases for the two forums so those would have to remain
separate entities. As far as I know we are still trying to get
all of our downloads over there as well as a space for my
columns, but everything has been put on hold for the moment.
This has
been a great place to come for the past five years, and I
would like for it to continue to be a great place to come for
the foreseeable future. But in order for that to happen we
need a contribution from you. I don’t care if the
contribution is money or in the fact that you activate your
account and contribute something to the forums. All I am
asking is that you do contribute something to this site.
Please.
The
future of PCFootball.net depends on it.
Until
next time…
Read Joe's past columns in the archives
by clicking here |
