RALEIGH, N.C. — Like most Americans old enough to remember the events of Sept. 11, 2001, NC State football coach Dave Doeren remembers exactly where he was on that Tuesday morning 25 years ago.
But Doeren, then an assistant coach at Montana, spent part of that day worried about the fate of his father, Bill, who was supposed to be on one of the two American Airlines flights from Boston that crashed into the World Trade Center that morning.
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“My sister called our secretary, Linda Cardinal, and she came down and knocked on the door and said, ‘Hey, you got to get on the phone. Your sister’s calling. She’s freaking out,’” said Doeren, who was at work early for a position meeting. “And, of course, she thought he had crashed because at the time, cell reception was nothing. You couldn’t get anyone on the phone. I think it took us four or five hours to actually get somebody to tell us that he didn’t.
“What happened was the cab that picked him up that morning didn’t show up, and so he missed the flight. Thank God, right, that he missed that flight. But I’ll never forget that day because for four or five hours we thought we had lost my father in a plane crash.”
Hijackers took control of four planes that September morning with one crashing into the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. and another in a Pennsylvania field, in addition to the two in New York City. More than 3,000 Americans died.
“We just, staff wise, all stood around the TV watching,” he said. “I remember seeing the first tower on fire and then you see this plane coming in and hitting the second tower, and you’re just like in shock. How could something like this be happening in our country?”
Most college football players weren’t even born yet.
“I try to describe that to the team, and when you’re 18, 19, you’re like, ‘Yeah, it’s a good story.’ But for those of us that witnessed it, I mean, it was intense,” Doeren said. “And the things that came out of that with our country, it was crazy and the way that followed and everything else.”
Bill Doeren, a Navy veteran, died in 2023. He suffered from Alzheimer’s for the last decade of his life, something Dave Doeren has talked publicly about in the past.
NC State will wear special “Wolfpack Warrior” black camo uniforms Friday, Sept. 11 when they host Richmond at Carter-Finley Stadium in honor of those who died on that day.
“This is another way to honor not just the military, but the first responders, NYPD and all the firemen that were there on the scene,” Doeren said. “We’ve all watched the shows, the movies, the you-name-it about what happened that day and how crazy it was. It’s just a chance for those that are up there watching down on us and for those families that went through it to know that people care. That was a hard moment on everybody, and we’re just trying to honor that.”