A fund has been set up for Emerson Glick,
daughter of Jeremy and Lyzbeth.
To donate to her fund, checks can be
made
out to:
jeremysheroes.org
Jeremy at 11-years-old
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Jeremy Glick was a student of Ogasawara Sensei at KOKUSHI
DOJO.
He was a hero fighting hijackers on
UA93
which crashed in Pennsylvania on September
11th. Here's an article from Bergen
Record.
A friend, a father, a hero
Friday, September 14, 2001
By ADRIAN WOJNAROWSKI
Record Columnist
An e-mail flashed on Josh Denbeaux's
office
computer Wednesday morning, a
frantic missive
from his sister wondering whether
the name
on the list of passengers on
United Airlines
Flight 93, Jeremy Glick, was
the younger
brother of his old high school
friend, Jonah.
Denbeaux's mind started racing,
remembering
this was the hijacked, Newark-to-San
Francisco
flight that missed its targets
and crashed
in rural Pennsylvania. This was
the flight
on which officials believed passengers
had
overtaken the terrorists, and
preserved lives
and American institutions on
the ground as
they perished in a cornfield.
"When I heard those terrorists
only
had knives," Denbeaux said
softly Thursday
afternoon. "It had to be
the Jeremy
Glick that I knew. He wasn't
just going to
be fighting them, he was going
to be a leader
of it. Those attackers are pretty
[expletive]
sorry, because they ran into
the toughest
son a bitch I've ever known."
At the time, Denbeaux hadn't
heard the story
of the cellphone call Jeremy
made to his
wife, Lyzbeth, in the final minutes
of the
flight, telling her to live a
good life and
take care of his sweet, 2 1/2-month-old
daughter,
Emerson. Denbeaux hadn't heard
the story
of Jeremy assuring his wife of
the passengers'
plan to storm the terrorists
in the cockpit,
and go down fighting on Flight
93.
When word first got out that
Glick had died
on this plane, nobody had heard
these stories.
It didn't matter. They knew they
were coming.
They knew Jeremy Glick.
"Immediately, I knew he
was one of the
guys who took them down,"
said Joe Augienello,
the coach of Glick's soccer team
at Saddle
River Day School. "I guarantee
it. He
was a tough, hard-nosed kid.
He was my captain,
the protector on my team, and
if you gave
him a bloody nose, and knocked
his teeth
out, he'd still be coming after
you again.
He wasn't the most talented kid
on the team,
but Lord, you never wanted to
be in that
kid's way."
They remember him on the mats,
and soccer
and lacrosse fields of Bergen
County. They
remember Jeremy Glick, the judo
black belt
and the high school wrestler,
who as a freshman,
walked into the gym and instantly
had upperclassmen
deferring to him. Most of all,
they remember
his sweetness and decency, his
good character
and good family, the way he loved
Lyz, his
grade school sweetheart, and
that sweet baby,
Emerson.
Now and forever, they'll remember
him as
a hero. Always, they'll remember
him charging
that cockpit, ending his life
the way he
lived it: fearlessly, and for
everyone else.
He was the third of the six Glick
children,
raised in Oradell by parents,
Lloyd and Joan,
who worked tirelessly to give
their kids
an elite education at Saddle
River Day School.
He wasn't the best student, the
most graceful
athlete, or the best looking
kid in the class.
It never mattered. Jeremy Glick
was just
the kid everyone wanted to be.
"I was two years older than
him, but
all I ever wanted to do was emulate
him,"
said Brad Stein, a high school
wrestling
teammate and now the owner of
a computer
consulting firm in West Paterson.
"He
and his brother, Jonah, ran our
wrestling
team. You know, I don't know
that I ever
remember Jeremy losing a match.
Ever."
Today, Jeremy Glick could well
be one of
the greatest champions American
sports has
ever produced. Who knows where
our country
would be without him and the
heroes of Flight
93? Where were those terrorists
going to
fly the hijacked plane? The White
House?
Air Force One? The Capitol? Somehow,
the
darkest day in American history
could've
been worse, officials insist,
without the
daring courage of Glick, and
the people promising
to storm the cockpit with him.
They saved
lives, even as they lost their
own.
Sometimes, we wonder about sports,
about
its redeeming value, about lessons
learned
on fields, and courts and mats.
Today, a
nation remembers the courage
of West Milford's
Jeremy Glick, 31, and the passengers
of Flight
93, husbands and fathers turned
national
heroes. Still, there's an excellent
chance
those terrorists are on the way
to Hell,
wondering who that tough SOB
was that insisted
on fighting them to the death.
"All I can think is that
it's too bad
he didn't know how to handle
a plane,"
said Nagayasu Ogasawara, the
owner of Kokushi
Dojo, a Westwood judo school
where Glick
started studying as a 7-year-old.
"Because
he smashed those people right
away. Maybe
he had help with others on the
plane, but
I know he wouldn't have needed
it. Three
people with knives? It would've
been no problem
for him."
Glick was traveling to San Francisco
on Tuesday
morning for his sales and marketing
job,
the city where eight years ago
Ogasawara
had an unexpected meeting with
his old student.
All the Glick children learned
judo under
Ogasawara, but Jeremy was the
best of them,
nearly winning a national junior
championship
at 15 years old.
"He was not just physically
strong,
but mentally too," Ogasawara
said.
Ogasawara had made the trip to
San Francisco
City College to coach West Point's
cadets
in the 1992 college championships,
when out
of nowhere, Glick rushed across
the gymnasium
and threw his arms around his
old teacher.
As a University of Rochester
senior, Glick
had no coach. He had no team.
"Actually,
he was the team." Ogasawara
said.
It was just Jeremy, all alone,
winning the
national title with Ogasawara
cheering in
his corner.
Jeremy Glick was unforgettable.
Just a kid
who people never, ever forgot.
And they wouldn't
have needed him to die a hero
for this to
be true. Just Monday, his younger
brother,
Jared, stopped by Coach Augienello's
office,
just to visit and say hello.
Jared told him
that Jeremy was doing wonderful
in his job,
that Lyz and Emerson were the
lights of his
life.
"All I did was cry this
morning,"
Augienello said Thursday. "But
the only
time I could come close to smiling
was imagining
sitting next to Jeremy on the
plane. I could
hear him, saying, "Aug,
let's get these
[bleeping] guys.' I'm sure they
pounded the
[crap] of them."
"It's just a shame Jeremy
couldn't fly
the plane, too."
So Thursday afternoon, Augienello
told the
Saddle River Day School soccer
team the story
of Jeremy Glick, and promised
the kids they
were going to wear his old jersey
number
on their uniforms this season.
It's been
a long time, 13 years, since
the kid graduated,
but the coach knew he remembered
the number.
The assistant principal found
him an old
yearbook of the Class 1988, and
sure enough,
there was Jeremy Glick, No. 17,
just as his
coach remembered.
"There's a big picture of
him on the
cover, that No. 17 kicking the
ball, and
getting ready to head down field,"
Augienello
said, and always that's the way
they'll remember
Jeremy Glick, running fast and
furious, inspiring
everyone to understand that those
terrorists
never counted on running into
Jeremy Glick
and the passengers at his side
on Flight
93.
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