Five years later, Sept. 11 lives on in athletes' hearts

They said sports would never be the same, but it only took about a week for everyone to realize that prediction was wrong. The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 did almost nothing to diminish the investment, both emotional and financial, Americans put into the games they watch and play.

Yet the attacks touched almost every American on a personal level, and those in the sports world were not immune. From the coach's son who escaped the burning towers to the skier whose cousin died in one of the plane crashes to the baseball player whose son was born that day, Sept. 11 lives on in the hearts of many athletes in a very intimate way.

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COACH'S SON: Tim Coughlin still makes the drive from New Jersey into Manhattan every weekday for work. It never feels routine.

"I don't relax until the end of the day, when I'm in the car, through the tunnel and close to home," Coughlin said. "I know this is still a big-time target. I haven't relaxed in five years."

Coughlin's father, Tom Coughlin, was coaching the Jacksonville Jaguars at the time of the attacks. They happened on a Tuesday, game plan day, the busiest day in an NFL coach's workweek.

There Coughlin was that day, on the cell phone with Tim, trying to coach him out of the second tower that got hit. Tim made it out safely. But his life was forever changed.

"I think that, emotionally, my temperament changed a bit," Tim Coughlin said. "Not at first. But like three months after. I came to question things, get a little bit angrier in the way things were handled in some regard. I guess I became a little distrustful. It gets hard for me around that date, what's happened, and what's unfolded since then."

He thinks about moving away from the hustle and bustle and memories of New York someday. But at 34, and still an up-and-comer in the bond trading business, Coughlin can't yet call all his shots. He is now closer to family, ever since his father moved back to the area to coach the Giants.

Tim said Tom Coughlin was already well attuned to his family before the terrorist attacks. It's an image few outside the coach's inner circle see. But Sept. 11 sharpened the focus a bit.