After Friday?s Sacramento State football practice, players and coaches were still numb and confused about how and why something like last Tuesday?s tragic event could happen in America.

On Tuesday, the United States was bolted with terrorist strikes on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Terrorists took control of three American airliners and guided them to the buildings, causing unprecedented damages. A fourth plane crash-landed just outside Pittsburg, Pa.

Under “normal” circumstances, the Hornet football team would have already been at their designated location, in this case Portland, Ore. Friday afternoon.

Given the situation, however, the squad was thankful to be grounded in Sacramento.

“This was definitely the correct thing to do,” wide receivers coach Bob Ghazanfari said, referring to the postponement of Sac State?s Big Sky Conference opener against Portland State University.

Ghazanfari is of a few members of the football team that is of Middle-Eastern descent.

“Number one, this is out of respect for the folks who lost their lives and the families who have lost loved ones,” Ghazanfari said.

“Number two, tragedy can never be overlooked,” he continued. “Playing football on Saturday would be overlooking this tragedy. Especially something of this magnitude.”

What also troubled Ghazanfari was the geographic relation to where the planes were intended to arrive. All four planes were headed to California.

“This event is extremely ironic for us in a sense that we live in the Capitol of the biggest and most influential state in the nation,” Ghazanfari said.”And to think, all four of those planes were headed to California, one to San Francisco. Very scary.”

Head coach John Volek expressed the same sentiments on the subject of whether or not to play the game.

Volek praised the efforts of Sac State President Donald Gerth for putting pressure on the Big Sky Conference to cancel the games.

“President Gerth rallied the rest of the school presidents in the Big Sky and said these games cannot be played,” Volek said.

The Big Sky was one of the last NCAA conferences in the nation to postpone games last week. The delay had Volek in a state of panic, as he wondered how his team would get to Portland and where the team would stop and eat.

“You?re talking about a 14-hour bus trip if in fact we did have to play this game, so stops are mandatory,” Volek said. ” Lodging became a problem. I mean, one minute we had a charter plane, the next minute we didn?t, one minute we do, next we don?t.

“So you can imagine the stress I was going through during the week,” Volek added.

Traveling concerns were considered secondary to Volek compared to the other obstacle put before himself and the rest of the coaching staff. Healing the scars left from the tragedy was their number one concern.

“How do you begin to talk to your kids?” Volek said.

“The first thing I wanted to do was have a staff meeting,” he added. “We have a lot of diversity on the staff: African-American, Caucasian (and) Arabic. So internally, I wanted the coaches to be able to vent their fears, frustrations and anger.”

Volek and the rest of his staff wanted to make a concerted effort to rally around coach Ghazanfari.

They did, and the next job was to have a team meeting.

“I just wanted to give the players a chance to talk about this,” Volek said. “They?ve seen clips of Pearl Harbor but the thought of war never came full circle until Tuesday. “They finally realize what happened at Pearl Harbor, and it took a tragedy to help them see it.”

Volek said his team had received plenty of support from the administration, fans and students.”My mailbox is loaded with well wishers, individuals who care about the player?s mental state after this,” Volek said.

The image of Tuesday?s terrorist attacks in New York and Washington brought back recent memories for defensive lineman Mohammed Warrad, a Middle Eastern Muslim. Two years ago, Warrad was visiting his native homeland Palestine and saw firsthand what war was all about.

“Two summers ago, I was in the house (in Palestine) and all of a sudden I hear sirens whistling, guns being fired, screams from neighbors ? just chaos,” Warrad said.”It looked like a scene from a movie. One of those action-packed war movies.”

What Warrad witnessed was the Germans launching an attack on Palestine.

“I?m very concerned about my native country,” he said. “There?s not a day that goes by that I?m not thinking about them.”

Warrad and thousands of other Muslims living in Sacramento are now finding themselves defending their religion and their practices.

“Muslims are not supposed to perform any acts of terrorism,” said Warrad, who was shaken by last Tuesday?s events.

“These are just sick individuals. It doesn?t matter that they were Muslim,” Warrad added. “Does this give one the right to stereotype my religion because a few bad apples committed a terrible crime? Timothy McVeigh (for example). Can I sit here and say every white man in America is just as sick as he was?”

Warrad received a tremendous amount of support from his teammates, who have shown a keen interest in being there for Warrad.

“My teammates, I consider them brothers. We?re a family. They have not judged me. They know I love America. This is the home of the free and the land of the brave. I?m proud to be an American citizen.”

The Hornets are now tackling a new issue, namely the fear of traveling. After its regular-season opener, Sac State will travel to Ogden, Utah to face Weber State University.

“No doubt, we will be nervous, but you know, football is a way of life for these kids,” Volek said. “They?ve been doing it for so long that, maybe this is the best way to turn the page. By getting out on the field and playing. This is our outlet.”