How the NYPD and FDNY honor 9/11 with football, 20 years on

Editor's note: This communicative was primitively published connected Sept. 10, 2021. The pursuing enactment is from writer Tom Junod.

Four years ago, I went to MetLife Stadium successful the Meadowlands to spot the cops play the firemen -- or, successful the parlance of New York City nationalist service, to spot the Finest play the Bravest. I went due to the fact that the unceasing rivalry betwixt the 2 departments, and truthful the 2 shot teams, was the worldly of NYC legend, but besides due to the fact that connected this time they were playing successful observance of the twentieth day of 9/11. Both the NYPD and NYFD had mislaid acold excessively galore radical connected that day, and I wanted to spot if the players could enactment speech their rivalry successful bid to observe a communal purpose.

They did not enactment speech their rivalry. They respected each different excessively overmuch for that.

Of course, they treated each different similar brothers successful the pregame ceremonies that honored their dead. But connected the field? Forget astir it. And the stands were adjacent rougher, with cops and firemen heckling each different nonstop from the opening kickoff to the last whistle. The cops gave a peculiarly hard clip to a wide receiver for the Bravest named Joe Herman. At archetypal I thought they rode him due to the fact that cipher connected the Finest could halt him -- due to the fact that helium was the champion subordinate connected the tract and led the Bravest to victory. But aft the crippled I asked radical wherefore No. 13 was specified a target, and this is the reply I received:

"Well, there's similar this thing, with Joey."

"This thing?"

"Yeah. Like, a thing."

"What benignant of thing?"

"You're gonna person to inquire Joey."

I asked Joe Herman and coiled up penning a communicative astir him. He was 32 years old. But helium had already lived a beingness of calamity and nonaccomplishment and divided allegiances -- a beingness that forced him to marque intolerable choices. There are 2 large tribes successful New York City, constabulary and fire; Joe Herman was calved of some of them, and aft spending clip with him I understood arsenic ne'er earlier however 9/11 lives connected not conscionable successful memory, but successful the humor of the good and the brave.

Joe Herman died connected Sunday, Sept. 1, 2025, successful a motorcycle mishap connected Long Island's Southern State Parkway. I went to his funeral, and determination witnessed the powerfulness of a memorial whose participants, by their ain choice, are nary strangers to grief. Hundreds of firemen successful formal uniforms stood successful solemn attraction extracurricular the church, and watched dozens of cops spell inside, including galore who played against Joe for the Finest. Joe arrived and departed successful a casket borne connected the furniture of a occurrence engine, arsenic a constabulary chopper flew overhead. But this clip cipher gave him the business. They gave him their salutes.

I americium arrogant that ESPN is honoring Joe Herman by republishing connected Sept. 11 the communicative I wrote astir him successful 2021. He suffered the nonaccomplishment that changed his beingness everlastingly erstwhile helium was 3 years old. His girl Lacey is astir to crook 2. Remember her arsenic you read.

YOU WOULD THINK they'd amusement immoderate respect. You would deliberation that the cops would, conscionable once, refrain from breaking balls, fixed the solemnity of the occasion. But you cognize what? They don't. And you cognize why? They're cops. They're ball-breakers by definition. And truthful adjacent though it's a solemn juncture and a ineffable time -- adjacent though this year's shot crippled betwixt the cops and the firemen, the Fun City Bowl, is dedicated to the 20th day of 9/11 -- the cops are mercilessly heckling the firemen. They're heckling the precise thought of the firemen, which is that they unrecorded unneurotic successful firehouses and navigator and cleanable for each other, that they instrumentality attraction of each other. "Hey, marque maine a f---ing sandwich!," the cops successful the stands outcry astatine the firemen connected the field. "Get maine a cupful of coffee!" Sure, the firemen connected the different broadside of MetLife Stadium successful New Jersey's Meadowlands indulge successful immoderate heckling of their own, chanting "DUN-kin' DO-nuts" implicit and implicit again, to punctual the cops of each those hours they supposedly walk drinking java successful their cruisers. But the firemen don't get arsenic idiosyncratic arsenic the cops do. They don't prime retired a subordinate and thrust him, by name, the full game, the mode the cops thrust Joey Herman.

Joey Herman is 32 years aged and a firefighter for the Fire Department of New York, the FDNY. He works astatine "The Nuthouse" successful Bed-Stuy, Engine 214, Ladder 111. He's besides a wideout for The Bravest, which is the FDNY shot team, locked since the game's founding successful 1973 successful eternal conflict with The Finest, oregon the cops. He'd beryllium the archetypal to archer you that portion the level of contention betwixt the 2 teams leads to occasional bloodletting, the level of play is, shall we say, inconsistent -- "let's f...