The Red Bandanna

by Tom Rinaldi

  After acknowledging that he could offer only a symbol of his respect, he turned to his left, looked toward Jeff and Alison, who were standing at the edge of the room, walked over, and presented them with the game ball.

  “It was overwhelming,” Addazio said, “the emotion in that locker room.”

  The players stood up and burst into applause, some cheering, many crying. Addazio gave Alison and Jeff the floor.

  The players again took a knee as Jeff held the game ball in his arm.

  “Just to stand here in front of you,” Jeff said, “and look in your faces . . . and see the determination there.” His voice was steady. Often it was Alison who shared their son’s story, looking out at strangers who’d never known him but wanted to understand. He would cede the floor to her, knowing the emotion would be too great for him. But here, facing a hundred young men, sweaty and proud, he was happy. He was back amid a team, surrounded by athletes, as he had been for so many of Welles’s games. These Eagles played a different sport, but wore the same uniform for the same school. He felt connected. He talked about Welles as a peewee football league player, undersized but able to deliver a blow, and the team laughed and smiled. He spoke about Welles’s devotion to BC. And he thanked them for their play. “You have honored us greatly.”

  He put his arm around Alison, standing beside him. She spoke without hesitation.

  “The courage and determination you showed, and the teamwork out on the field, was breathtaking,” she said. “And we know the odds were against you coming out here. I said, yeah, but they haven’t played the game yet.”

  Jeff had the final word.

  “I love these freakin’ shoes,” he said, pointing down toward the cleats with the red bandanna patterns. The room exploded with laughter. As they made their way out, several players stopped and hugged them. One gave them his game shoes. Another told them he’d chosen BC after learning Welles’s story as a high school player in New Jersey.

  “I just wanted to tell you how much your son means,” he said.

  The night held its own meaning for Addazio as he looked back on it, a coach who had endured struggles and success in his career, and who’d reached the pinnacle of the sport.

  “This is the highlight,” he said, recounting the seven minutes it took for the scene to unfold. “I was more captivated by that than holding the crystal ball after beating Ohio State for the national championship. That moment in that locker room right there, I don’t want to take away from our title. But this,” he said, and paused. “This was deeper.”

  After that season, the staff renovated its offices in the football building on campus. Coming off the elevators into the refurbished lobby, the first thing every visitor sees is a wall-long photo from the USC game. It was the only image Addazio considered.

  “I wanted the Red Bandanna Game to be on that signature wall,” he said. “It just stands for what we want to stand for at BC.”

  As for the game cleats Jeff received from a player, they sit on a shelf in the house in Upper Nyack on proud display, right next to the game ball.

  • • •

  Still.

  His name has been spoken by the president, his story documented on national television.

  His example has been made the foundation of a school curriculum and his number worn on jerseys as a sign of honor.

  His identity has been carved in stone on his college campus, and his symbol waved in stadiums, worn by thousands, preserved in a museum, held up to a generation, presented as a standard for living.

  Still.

  More than a decade after, the absence governs so much of time, an emptiness forever encroaching, a shadow in all light.

  Presented with the bandanna, he holds it tightly, squeezing the fabric in his hands.

  Were he to open it, spread it, look into its pattern, and let its colors enter and fill him, what would he see there? Would there be a picture or a void? Both or neither? Years later, there would be the relentless fact, too vast to hold inside. He’s gone.

  “I still weep every day for my son,” the father says, his breath seizing. “At some point of every day. Sometimes it’s in the morning when I’m shaving. I’m standing in front of the mirror and I have a 19 that is tattooed over my heart. And the memories just keep flooding back. I weep for the loss of a potential that was unfulfilled. What he could have done in his lifetime had he lived long enough. I weep for the family he never had. I see his contemporaries, his buddies from high school, from college, married, with wonderful little children. I weep for the children that he didn’t have.

  “But really,” Jeff Crowther says, the red bandanna in his hands, his chin high, his gaze firm and strong, “I just weep for the loss of his company.”

  He stops.

  The slide show continues, unbidden and unceasing, the colors of his boy flashing, playing on inside him.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  It is no small request to ask a mother and father to share the territory of their lives, at once most precious and most painful, with a stranger. From the first moment I met Jefferson and Alison Crowther, they granted me an extraordinary trust. For this, I owe them far too much to repay or recount. Through dozens of interviews, phone calls, and visits to Upper Nyack, their memories became the living pulse of this narrative. Without them, this book would not be.

  Thank you to Welles’s sisters, Honor and Paige, for their time, honesty, and insight into Welles, and for traveling back into some of their brightest and hardest memories, to lend a shape to the past. And to the future, as Honor did in naming her first child Welles Remy Fagan, born in 2004.

  As a portrait of strength and a proof of spirit, the Crowthers are as much a wonder as they are a family.

  For information on the Welles Remy Crowther Trust, please visit www.crowthertrust.org. To learn about the educational and leadership curricula based on Welles’s story, please visit www.redbandannaproject.org.

  The idea for a fuller narrative of Welles’s life came not from me, but from Scott Moyers at Penguin Press, who first saw its possibilities. He has worn every hat and played every role necessary in this book’s creation. His endless patience, constant encouragement, and sure-handed editing have been as essential as air. Through the doubts, thanks for being mine in the struggle.

  Also at Penguin Press, I am grateful for the contributions of the open-hearted Christopher Richards, for his careful and empathetic reading of the manuscript; Claire Vaccaro, for her strong and clear design; Darren Haggar, for creating so many versions of the evocative bandanna jacket; Sarah Hutson and Tessa Meischeid, house publicists who embraced this story before the pages were close to complete; Matt Boyd, the marketing maestro and an author’s favorite voice of introduction; and Ann Godoff, who saw the good in this story, and encouraged its place in the world.

  David Black, literary agent and one of the toughest men I know, endured more than I can imagine in the time between receiving this book’s proposal and its first manuscript, and always found time for support, counsel, and straight talk.

  Thanks as well to Nick Khan at CAA, a consigliere more than an agent, whose interest and guidance from the book’s commission to its completion were selfless and unflagging.

  One of the first suggestions I received in the process was to enlist a good researcher. Here, I exceeded all advice by gaining the help of my colleague at ESPN William Weinbaum. To overstate Willie’s contributions would be impossible, and to consider his work as research only would be entirely wrong. The best reporter I know, he served as the book’s conscience and shepherd, its eyes and heart. The pages bear his imprint as much as mine.

  I am grateful for those involved in the ESPN feature on Welles, without whose work this book would not have been written; Drew Gallagher, whose passion for the story came long before my own, and whose producing of the television piece remains a lesson to me in my work; Gregg Hoerdemann and his c
rew, who captured the indelible images that brought Welles’s journey to life; Tim Horgan at Bluefoot, for his singular editing talent; and Victor Vitarelli, who oversaw the project and helped it reach its best form.

  Also at ESPN, my gratitude goes to John Skipper and John Wildhack, for allowing me to pursue this story in a different venue.

  Thanks, too, to all those who helped me at Sandler O’Neill, the firm that refused to fall. Over the past five years, Jimmy Dunne has been open and available at every turn. And to those employed there, then and still, who shared their memories of Welles and the stories of their survival, I am grateful.

  To my brother, Robert, who worked for more than a decade on the eighty-first floor of the South Tower of the World Trade Center, and who left his office there in the spring of 2001, I am grateful. To my sister, Doretta, whose meeting across the street from the towers on September 11 was canceled early that morning, I am grateful for you, too.

  I wrote the majority of this book in the house my father, Ralph, built. I did most of the written work at his old desk. I’d like to believe his spirit has read these pages. I am beholden to him, forever.

  My mother, Eileen, was my first and most faithful reader of the words written in that house nearly every day. Her encouragement and empathy, her patience and cheer were boundless and made a greater difference than I can ever describe. Thank you, Mom.

  To our son, Jack, and our daughter, Tessa, you are the joyous purpose of all.

  To Dianne, to whom this book is dedicated: The door opens . . .

  How will I do this?

  You are how. And will be, always.

  A NOTE ON SOURCES

  From the original telling of Welles’s story as a television feature in 2011 through the completion of this narrative five years later, I am deeply indebted to many—for their time and memory, their work and care, their knowledge and patience, for their help in the reporting of this book.

  I am grateful to the following for the interviews they granted and, in them, the insights and information they shared: Steve Addazio, Jessica Alberti, Marcie Baeza-Sauer, Michael Barch, Lee Burns, Matt Casamassima, Peter Cassano, Salvatore Cassano, Paige Crowther Charbonneau, Alison Crowther, Jefferson Crowther, Timothy Curry, James Devery, Matt Dickey, Matt Drowne, Scott Dunn, Jimmy Dunne, Tim Epstein, Honor Crowther Fagan, Chris Ferrarone, John Finlay, Karen Fishman, Mark Fitzgibbon, Drew Gallagher, James Gilroy, David Gottlieb, Jon Hess, Willie Hopkins, Johnny Howells, Lee Ielpi, Tyler Jewell, Mary Jos, Stephen Joseph, Matt Katchmar, John Kline, Jane Lerner, George Leuchs, Rob Lewis, Susie DeFrancis Lind, Angelo Mangia, Ben Marra, Pat McCavanagh, Natalie McIver, Dave Moreno, Ed Moy, Charles Murphy, Edward Nicholls, Keith O’Brien, Matthew O’Keefe, Justin Patnode, Nyack historian Win Perry, Chuck Platz, Jessica Quintana Hess, Karim Raoul, Chris Reynolds, Matt Rosen, John Ryan, John Scott, Jonathan Sperman, Jody Steinglass, Tom Sullivan, Gerry Sussman, Kevin Tiernan, James Tremble, Chris Varmon, Paul Wanamaker, Scott Wiener, and Ling Young.

  Most of the interviews were transcribed and archived by NoNotes.com.

  While the vast majority of this book comes from primary source material gained through interviews with those listed above, the reader surely understands the depth of reporting done on the September 11 attacks, across myriad outlets by hundreds, if not thousands, of journalists. Of those works, I leaned most heavily on several.

  As mentioned in the text, 102 Minutes, by Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn, was invaluable, not only in helping to convey the context around Welles’s experience that day, but also in ways broader and more fundamental. The history of the towers, the intricacies of their design, the accounts of the survivors, and the painstaking chronology of those minutes between the first plane’s strike and the second tower’s fall are essential to any understanding of the day’s events, and of Welles’s movements that morning.

  Also noted in the text, “Fighting to Live as the Towers Died” the Times’ piece reported by Dwyer, Flynn, Eric Lipton, James Glanz, and Ford Fessenden, was the first mention of Welles, without name, as the man with the red handkerchief helping others on the seventy-eighth floor. In addition, the Times’ accompanying piece, “Accounts from the South Tower,” included vital interviews that aided in telling this story. In particular, Lipton’s interview with Judy Wein and Fessenden’s interview with Ling Young were essential in adding to the primary interviews done for this project.

  A book that was especially important in helping to understand the challenges and dimension of the fallen towers, and the pile’s unique horror, was William Langewiesche’s singular American Ground: Unbuilding the World Trade Center. His chronicle of the recovery effort and the pile’s clearing deeply informed this account.

  For the plainest facts rooted in the attacks, most involving exact timings and numerical totals, I relied on The Complete 9/11 Commission Report (The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States) as a definitive source.

  The Press Office of the Fire Department of New York provided information, as did the New York City Fire Museum, about the FDNY and its posthumous honoring of Welles as a firefighter. And the Social Security Administration is the source for the data on newborns named Welles.

  Terry Szuplat, the White House speechwriter who worked with President Obama on his remarks for the dedication of the 9/11 Memorial Museum, given May 15, 2014, responded to our questions about the context and contents of the speech.

  The Boston College athletic department was generous in its help and was an invaluable resource.

  Welles’s story was chronicled, in dozens of ways, long before I first learned of his valor. As mentioned in the text, Jane Lerner was the first to report his identity, as the man in the red bandanna, in her work for The Journal News, and played a key role in the nation’s discovery of his actions.

  I also owe a debt to the following journalists and their respective works, for the reporting that helped to provide greater context and important information on other subjects that played a role in Welles’s story. In each case, the pieces were deeply helpful in the insights provided, during the research and writing of this book:

  “For Many on 9/11, Survival Was No Accident,” USA Today, 12/20/2001, Dennis Cauchon.

  “Requiems for Victims: A Time for Prayer and Reflection,” The Journal News, 9/30/2001, Nancy Cacioppo.

  “Volunteer Firefighter Found at Ground Zero Laid to Rest,” The Journal News, 3/31/2002, Jane Lerner.

  “Sandler O’Neill’s Journey from Ground Zero,” Fortune, 9/1/2011, David Whitford.

  Portraits of 9/11/01, “The Collected Portraits of Grief from the New York Times,” Times Books, New York Times staff.

  “Nyack Sketch Log: 150 Years of Volunteer Firefighting,” Nyack News & Views, 8/27/2013, Bill Batson.

  “After September 11: Starting Over,” Fortune, 1/21/2002, updated 9/11/2015, Katrina Booker.

  “Her Heroes,” CBS News, 9/4/2002, Tatiana Morales.

  “Upper Nyack Dedicates Plaque to Harry Wanamaker Jr.,” Nyack-Piermont Patch, 6/10/2012, Adam Littman.

  “A Close Bond and the Unending Toll of 9/11,” The New York Times, 6/8/2012, David Dunlap.

  “Fatally Stabbed Nyack Man Remembered as Teammate, Served Time for Assault,” Patch.com, 6/27/2011, Kevin Zawacki.

  “A Man of the Land, Ozzie Fischer Jr. Dies on Island He Nurtured for Nine Decades,” Vineyard Gazette, 7/28/2011, Julia Wells.

  “Hudson River Rescue Still Defines Upgrade of Fire Dept.’s Marine Unit,” The New York Times, 1/14/2011, Liz Robbins.

  “Boston College Uses Emotion and Its Running Game to Shock No. 9 USC,” SI.com, 9/14/2014, Pete Thamel.

  “Bosley Crowther, 27 Years a Critic of Films for Times, Is Dead at 75,” The New York Times, 3/8/1981, Robert D. McFadden.

  “Red Bandanna Honoring 9-11 Hero Goes Perfectly with UCF School Colors,” Orlando Sentinel, 9/6/2011, Mike Bianchi.

 
; “A Year of Living Gratefully,” Golf Digest, 12/2002, Bill Fields and Tim Rosaforte.

  “After 5 Years, His Voice Can Still Crack,” The New York Times, 9/9/2006, Joe Nocera.

  “Obama Honors Victims of Bin Laden at Ground Zero,” The New York Times, 5/5/2011, Mark Landler.

  “Postcard from NY: Iconic Images,” Nyack News & Views, 6/24/2012, Alison Perry.

  “If You’re Thinking of Living in: Nyack,” The New York Times, 8/14/1988, Jenny Lyn Bader.

  Marine1fdny.com, website of Marine 1.

  “The Long Good-Bye,” New York magazine, Robert Kolker.

  “Toni Morrison’s Manuscripts Spared in Christmas Fire,” The New York Times, 12/28/1993, Robert D. McFadden.

  “The Heart of a Firefighter: 9/11 Hero Welles Crowther Named Honorary Firefighter,” FDNY News, 12/2006.

  America Remembers, CNN special reports, 2002.

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