Having started his fourth season as an integral part of the Duke football team, Mike Hart embodies the notion of a hard-working, dedicated student-athlete. In fact, the senior tight end practically eats, drinks, and sleeps the game.
But football's all-consuming nature took a back seat for Hart last Tuesday when terrorists attacked the World Trade Center in downtown Manhattan. A resident of Saysville, N.Y., a suburban Long Island town within driving distance of the Big Apple, Hart has been to the city on many occassions throughout his life and, more importantly, knows many people who live and work in New York City on a daily basis.
Thus, when planes struck each of the Twin Towers, Hart concentrated wholeheartedly on his close friends and family, not football.
"Just being so close to it and having been to the World Trade Center so many times, it... hit me really hard," Hart said. "It was like, OWhy am I playing football today?' It was just so hard to focus. I really think I had one of my most sluggish and mentally slow practices [Tuesday] because of all the things that happened."
Hart had many people for whom he was concerned when he learned of the attack while in class at the Sanford Institute of Public Policy. Needless to say, he was shocked when he first learned of the incident.
"I was kind of blown away at first," Hart said. "I was like, OThis is pretty hardcore.' Then, when I was starting to leave, I heard that the buildings were collapsing and that's when I started to bug out. I went home, I started calling all my family and I couldn't get a hold of anybody."
Hart reached his father, who witnessed the attack as he was finishing his commute into the city, at around noon and soon after he talked to two of his uncles that live in Manhattan. In fact, both of these uncles work near the World Trade Center, but neither of them was directly affected by the attacks because of other obligations. One of Hart's uncles never made it to lower Manhattan because of a doctor's appointment, while the other uncle, who, incidentally, had a meeting scheduled in one of the towers later that afternoon, decided to go to his daughter's swim meet and be late for work.
After learning the whereabouts of his family members, Hart focused his attention on finding one of his best friends who works for Goldman Sachs, an investment firm whose headquarters are adjacent to the Twin Towers. The tight end became extremely worried as the hours passed and no one, including his friend's mother, had been able to get in touch with him. Hart went to football practice Tuesday with no idea where his buddy of 19 years was, and it was not until after practice that he received a message from his friend's mother that he was all right.
"He actually had to run away from the building that was falling on top of him," Hart said of his friend. "He said he ran about 5 miles in his suit and shoes. He's got blisters all over his feet now. He said that he thought he was going to die."
After such a traumatic experience, it has been quite difficult for Hart to concentrate on football over the past few days. Even though he is able to focus on his assignments when he is executing plays for the Blue Devil offense in practice, he has come to the realization that the importance people place on football is not even comparable to the significance of the tragedy that struck New York and Washington, D.C.
"It puts everything in perspective," Hart said. "This is a game and people forget that it's a game. They think of it as life-or-death situations, but obviously, it's not, because [the terrorism] is. People lost their lives and people are down there rescuing people and losing their lives.... We put in a lot of time and effort but it's really trivial.
"It really makes you think about why you're doing this. You're doing this for fun, obviously, because otherwise you wouldn't do it. But when you look at it, it's not that serious."
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.