Hours before hijackers committed the largest terrorist attack on American soil, director of athletics Rich McDuffie was with Eastern’s volleyball as they flew back from a tournament in Alaska.

Their plane landed at Chicago’s O’Hare airport at 6:30 a.m., less than two hours before the first plane hit the World Trade Center.

On the bus ride back to Charleston, senior Jennifer Fisher received a call on her cell phone from her mother, telling her about the tragic events unfolding in New York.

When McDuffie returned to Charleston, he found himself in a very delicate situation. After Sept. 11, no one knew what was the appropriate thing to do. One of the questions in the minds of everyone in the athletic department was, should we play?

“None of us knew what to do,” McDuffie said. “I gave the coaches and the athletes the option to take a few days off.”

The NCAA made some of the decisions for McDuffie. All football games were canceled that week. So were most of the other athletic events scheduled for the rest of the week.

When play resumed, McDuffie had a new challenge. How to make Eastern students, athletes and fans feel safe at games?

His first step was to discuss safety issues with the University Police Department.

“The campus police started working with our people at football games cause that is really the only event that draws really large crowds,” McDuffie said. “They helped us check bags and other security concerns like that.”

Charleston’s size and location made it easier for McDuffie to ease everyone’s minds.

“We’re a small community to begin with,” he said. “There’s not a major airport so we were not as concerned as a larger area.”

Another concern for McDuffie and Eastern’s athletes, was traveling from game to game.

Again, Eastern’s size and location made it easier for everyone to feel safe traveling. With few teams that Eastern play being more than an eight hour drive away, Eastern seldomly needs to fly to an away game.

Slowly, everyone settled back into their routines and resumed life as normal even though the attacks were still fresh in everyone’s minds.

“We tried to get back to normal as much as possible,” McDuffie said.

A year later, Eastern students, athletes and fans can go to a game feeling secure in their safety.