Twenty-five years later. September 11, 2001, remains a day when the numbers can never tell the whole story. Nearly 3,000 people were killed in the attacks, each leaving behind families, friends, colleagues and communities that would never be the same. Among those lost were at least 44 people connected to the New York-area soccer community — players, coaches, parents and others whose love of the game was woven into their everyday lives.
They were not household names. They never played in a World Cup or walked onto a professional field in front of thousands of fans. They were the people who made the local game what it was: the coaches arriving early on Saturday mornings, the parents standing along the touchline, and the players who competed simply because they loved soccer. Their names may be unfamiliar to much of the soccer world, but they mattered deeply to the people who knew them.
Remembering the Players and Coaches of 9/11
Among those remembered by Front Row Soccer are Marty Boryczewski, a former Saint Peter’s College goalkeeper; Craig Gibson, who played for Barnstonworth Rovers in the Cosmopolitan Soccer League; and Joe Maggitti, a member of the University of Baltimore’s 1975 NCAA Division II championship team. Billy Johnston and Sergio Villanueva were FDNY firefighters who were also part of the soccer community, with Villanueva playing for the College Point Flames.
There were coaches, too, whose impact reached far beyond the field. Paul Zols coached at Oceanside United, while Danny Trant coached the Northport/Cow Harbor Bandits. The memorial lists also include parents of young players and others whose connection to soccer came through the children, teams and clubs that filled their weekends. Eastern New York Youth Soccer Association has continued to remember members of the area’s soccer community lost that day, including players, parents and coaches.
A Soccer Community That Never Forgot
In the years immediately after the attacks, soccer became one of the ways people in the New York area gathered, mourned and supported one another. The 9/11 New York Soccer Foundation was established to help families of soccer-community members who were killed, and a November 2001 fundraiser at Farmingdale State College featured three games attended by a large crowd. The soccer field could not erase the grief, but it gave people a place to stand together.
That spirit has endured. Memorials, moments of silence and anniversary tributes continue to connect generations of players who were not even born when the attacks happened with those who remember exactly where they were that morning. A 2001 Washington Post account captured the role soccer played in that healing, noting how the sport could bring people together during an almost unimaginable time of grief.
Twenty-five years on, that may be the most fitting way to remember the soccer souls lost on September 11. Not as statistics, and not simply as names on a memorial, but as people who coached, played, cheered, supported their children and shared a game they loved.
Every time a young player pulls on a jersey, every time a coach stays late after practice, and every time parents gather along a touchline to watch their children play, a small piece of that community lives on.
Remembering the Soccer Souls Lost on 9/11, 25 Years Later