Mike Yoder/Journal-World PhotoOKLAHOMA CITY ? Christian Moody could’ve kicked up his feet, taken a nap or watched the endless flow of NCAA Tournament basketball games on TV back at the hotel.
But the Kansas University freshman chose to come here — to a solemn field of chairs, trees and memories encased in cut stone and scarred minds — for a stark respite from the most exciting sporting event of his 19 years on earth.
Basketball can wait.
“You can’t forget about things like this,” said Moody, a KU forward, as he visited the Oklahoma City National Memorial, site of a 1995 terrorist blast that killed 168 people. “This is here to remind us. That sentence at the front — ‘We come here to remember … may all who leave here know the impact of violence’ — is right: We can’t forget.”
Moody and dozens of other Jayhawk faithful journeyed Friday to the 3.5-acre site a few blocks from the Ford Center, where KU will face Arizona State about 7 p.m. today for a chance to play in the regionals next week in Anaheim, Calif.
Mike Yoder/Journal-World PhotoAt the memorial, fans set aside their crimson-and-blue enthusiasm to ponder their place in a world divided by conflict: troops waging war in Iraq, Saddam Hussein vowing revenge against the United States and regular Americans wondering what comes next.
For Michael Collison, 13-year-old brother of KU star Nick Collison, the sight of 168 chairs put his tournament journey in perspective. Each empty seat, built of stone and bronze, is inscribed with the name of a blast victim; 19 victims were children.
Michael knows this, sees the tragic reminders arrayed on the sloped field where the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building once stood and wonders what could happen. The Collison family van could be rolling into Anaheim next week, or he could be joining his parents on a plane next month for the Final Four in New Orleans.
“It’s just kind of scary,” Michael said, looking across the vast black granite reflecting pool, where N.W. Fifth Street used to be. “I like to hope that we won’t have any trouble. I don’t want to be one of those chairs. I don’t think anybody does.”
His father, Dave Collison, recalled previous visits to Ground Zero in New York, site of the most devastating of the 9-11 attacks that put the country on terror alert. The Oklahoma City memorial’s silent beauty may have softened the site’s harsh past, but it couldn’t mask a father’s frustration with the rise of terrorism.
“It’s the inhumanity of man,” Dave Collison said. “It’s difficult to fathom.”
Janet Murguia, KU executive vice chancellor for university relations, circled the reflecting pool during her first trip to the site and marveled at its serenity, even with dozens of people walking on the granite path salvaged from the Murrah building.
She’s looking forward to tonight’s game, hopeful for at least another week of relative detachment from the worries of war.
“These basketball games help us move on, and live our lives, to give us some form of escape when more important things are happening elsewhere,” she said.
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Topeka resident Alfonso Hernandez brought his grandson, Nate Cisneros, to the memorial as they, too, awaited tonight’s game. The possibility of terrorist attacks followed them as they strolled through the site’s one-story-tall west gate, past its empty chairs and onto the Rescuers’ Orchard, where fruit trees are just starting to bloom.
They gazed up at the Survivor Tree — an 80-foot-tall American elm that withstood the blast — and resolved not to let terror fears get them down.
“The next attack could be worse, for the U.S. and the world,” Hernandez said. “The only thing we can do is survive. And pray.”
