UT ROTC and Veterans Joined by Ohio State Students in 9/11 Memorial Stair Climb
Longhorns gather at Mike Myers Stadium to climb the steps in honor of the victims and first responders on the 25th anniversary of attacks.
Blanketed in the darkness of early morning, nearly 200 people shuffled into the Mike Myers Stadium on Friday for The University of Texas’ annual memorial stair climb in commemoration of the Sept. 11 attacks. Lighted only by the fluorescent glow of the overhead field lights, students from the UT ROTC units gathered alongside veteran alumni and visitors from Ohio State University.
At the base of the bleachers, students stretched, and some began to dress in weighted vests after a speech from Capt. Grahame Dicks, the commanding officer of UT’s Navy ROTC program. This year, to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, students from both universities banded together.
While participants were encouraged to go at their own pace, the focus of the event was climbing over 2,000 steps along the bleachers — representing the 110 floors inside each of New York’s World Trade Center towers. Together, students and community members from Texas and Ohio State weaved up and down the stadium’s steps in remembrance of those lost that day, including the first responders who made rescues amid the rubble, heat and thick smoke in full gear.
Dicks, who mentors the University’s students in their journey to becoming service members and led this year’s climb, said the experience of hosting a community in events such as this make the experience especially meaningful.
“In my lifetime I’ve never known our country to be more united than in the days and weeks and months following those horrible attacks,” Dicks said. “If we can use events like this to try and bring us back to that unity, then I think that’s a great thing.”
Fresh from his time in the U.S. Naval Academy, Dicks began his duty as a helicopter pilot in 1996. Remembering the days and weeks after the 9/11 attacks just years later, he recalls his deployment in support of post-attack operations as the most impactful of his career. Hosting the annual stair climb, he said, is important to keeping the spirit of the anniversary alive year after year.
“With the exception of some of the active-duty members of my staff and our prior enlisted students, the majority of the students in our program were not born when 9/11 happened,” Dicks said. “They don’t have that core personal memory of that day, and yet their generation has been impacted by that day just like every other.”
From the beach in his hometown along the Jersey Shore, senior human biology student Jimmy Treshock grew up with a view of the New York skyline. Each summer, residents and commuters flooded New Jersey from the city, shaping the community Treshock grew up knowing.
Many of the people Treshock met had experienced the tragedy of the 9/11 attacks with their own eyes, making the impact of the anniversary more personal to him. After moving to Texas to attend UT and join the Navy ROTC program, Treshock said the stair climb is a reminder of the cost of freedom that sticks with him and his peers as they make their way across the bleacher steps.
“The 2,071 steps that we will climb is our way of remembering the actions of the first responders who climbed all 110 stories of those burning buildings in full gear just for the safety of others,” Treshock said. “As we move onto the 25th anniversary and beyond, I know that the meaning of this day will not lose its weight for both those who witnessed the attacks and those born after it.”
This year marks the third year of participating in the University’s stair climb for junior civil engineering student Daniel Lee, who said climbing the stairs gives him a moment to truly reflect on the pain experienced by the surviving families of victims lost in the attack. While the students push themselves physically, Lee said the experience grants him perspective on the sacrifice made by the first responders.
“It’s a lot of stairs, but we aren’t having to do it with any weight added,” Lee said. “I just think about that. If it’s hard for us, the first responders did it with so much more.”
Aerospace engineering senior Ruby Nolan said the experience of coming together with students from Ohio State ahead of the weekend’s football game between both schools was a heartwarming way to honor this year’s milestone anniversary. To Nolan, who hails from New York, the physical and mental challenge of a stair climb was a reminder of the ongoing importance of honoring the memorial in their military careers.
“The love for this memorial has not faded one bit in New York, and now being a Texas student, I can see that the memory is all across the country, if not worldwide,” Nolan said. “We must never forget, especially if we aspire to serve our country. To understand our history is crucial, and we must honor those before us every day.”
