At halftime, people reminisced over the loss of a fallen soldier; Pat Tillman, whose No. 40 Arizona Cardinals jersey was retired on Sunday. The Tillman family was on hand for the ceremony, and were thankful that Pat’s spirit and memory live in all of us. Pat’s widow, Marie Tillman, was presented with a framed jersey during the ceremonies.
The story of Tillman is a great one. Pat was a seventh round pick of the Cardinals who wasn’t expected to become the player in which he did. He was someone who was told that he “wasn’t big enough” or “didn’t have the talent”, and yet succeeded because of his desire to become one of the best and how he played showing great emotion. Because of his hard-work, Tillman broke the Cardinals single-season record for tackles, recording 224 in 2000. He quickly became one of the best players on the Cardinals, receiving a contract extension offer by the organization.
Then came the mournful day of September 11th, which really affected the Tillman family. Due to the events that occurred that fateful day, Pat and his brother Kevin enlisted in the Army Rangers. They felt that it was more important to help their country and do something more meaningful than football. Pat and his brother didn’t do this for the publicity, rather to do what they felt was the right thing to do.
Pat’s impact was felt around the NFL Sunday. Along with the halftime ceremony at the game this weekend, players wore with pride No. 40 decals on their helmets to honor Pat Tillman. Along with the decals, the NFL announced that all profits from the sale of Tillman’s jerseys would be donated to The Pat Tillman Foundation. Pins were distributed at the game to the fans in Tillman’s honor.
Arizona would have liked nothing better than to ‘win one for Pat’ Sunday, but all odds were against them at home, against the Super Bowl Champion Patriots whom have won 16-straight games coming into Arizona. Unfortunately, after a rally in the third quarter that got the Cardinals within five, Arizona failed to come any closer and lost 23-12.
The Cardinals (0-2) travel to Atlanta (2-0) next week, trying to snap the league’s longest road losing skid at 14 games.
