In the gruesome aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, New York City Police Department detective sergeant Michael Mayer was assigned traffic control, morgue detail and sifting through World Trade Center debris for human remains.
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Within a few weeks, he joined the monumental WTC recovery operation at the Fresh Kills Landfill on Staten Island, where workers transported by truck and barge some 1.8 million tons of debris from Ground Zero.
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Over the months to come, Mayer was among the thousands of city, state and federal personnel confronted with unspeakable but vital tasks: searching for bodies and body parts, forensic evidence and belongings that perhaps could be returned to a grieving family.
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Framed by the mounds of garbage already there, Mayer said in a phone interview Wednesday, the eerie and horrifying reality of the scene conjured contradictory feelings.
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All at once, he felt like he was entering “the bowels of hell” but also thought of it as “sacred ground” and a religious experience. An experience that proved all the more agonizing over the years as it became evident recovery workers were exposed to a toxic mix of hazardous materials with devastating health consequences.
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According to the National Institutes of Health, the sifting and sorting operation yielded material evidence from the attack, 4,257 human remains and 54,000 personal items.
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One of those items passing through a conveyor belt was a two-inch or so foam red and gold football bearing the Chiefs logo.
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As a zealous sports fan, Mayer was attuned to what it represented as he plucked it off the line.
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Looking back now, he wasn’t exactly sure why he pulled that and one other item: a golf ball with a marking from Aon Corporation, which suffered the deaths of 176 employees.
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Mostly, though, he figured they were headed to destruction or disintegration in the landfill and that he should keep them instead as memorial reminders of sorts. He placed them on his basement bar.
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Over the months to come, though, it became obvious to him where that football belonged: someplace where it would have meaning, he said, and where “someone’s going to cherish it the way it should be cherished.”
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As can be seen in a new display in the Chiefs Hall of Honor at Arrowhead Stadium, he sent the ball to then-coach Dick Vermeil with a note about its background.
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And a poignant notion.
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“‘I am sure that one of the victims in the World Trade Center was a big Chiefs football fan and would be very happy that their football made it (to) Arrowhead Stadium,’” he wrote then. “‘I am equally sure that a man like yourself will find a special place for the ball in the locker room of your office where it will have some meaning.’”
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Soon thereafter, he got a phone message from Kansas City. As he relayed it, a 79th Precinct colleague asked Mayer if he was working an out-of-state case.
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The message, though, was from Vermeil, who in a phone interview on Thursday vividly recalled the ball and what it meant.
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“When you receive something like that … it’s a lot more than just a message,” he said. “It sends you emotionally to the experience and how bad it was.”
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While Mayer initially was skeptical it really was Vermeil as he called back, he immediately recognized Vermeil’s distinct voice from his NFL broadcasting days.
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Vermeil thanked Mayer profusely and invited him to join the team for a meal the day before the game when they played at the New York Jets in September 2002.
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Mayer was overwhelmed by the response he got at the meal, where he recalled speaking with quarterback Trent Green and being greeted by numerous others as they were told of his gesture. He and his family also were guests of Vermeil and the Chiefs at the game the next day, won 29-25 by Kansas City.
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From 2002 to 2008, the note and ball were built into a shadow box affixed to a locker room wall adjacent to the training room and coaches’ offices. Within the box also was a commemoration of from where the football came and the date with the messages of “UNITED WE STAND” and “WE WILL NEVER FORGET!”
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When the Chiefs renovated Arrowhead after the 2008 season, the precious items were moved to the Chiefs “hidden treasure” storage area in SubTropolis, the world’s largest subterranean business complex.
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Until a few weeks ago, when Chiefs historians Bob Moore and Mike Davidson felt compelled by the 25th anniversary of Sept. 11 to make it part of an exhibit connected with The Foolish Club and founder Lamar Hunt.
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Also featured in the new showcase is one of the Kansas City Fire Department boots that was passed around Arrowhead in the Chiefs’ first game after Sept. 11 — a Sept. 23 matchup with the New York Giants after the NFL and many other sports shut down in the first days after the attacks that killed some 3,000 people.
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Upon learning the surreal was all-too-real that day, Vermeil once told me, he experienced a sensation of “almost like your blood is draining out of your body.”
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“It just makes you limp,” he said Thursday, adding, “I imagine it’s the same kind of feeling that people had” when Pearl Harbor was attacked.
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Even from afar, most anyone can remember where they were that day … and the disconcerting feeling of trying to process the unfathomable.
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In a 2021 interview with The Star, former NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue said he came to feel the attacks were worse than Pearl Harbor and the Kennedy assassination — after which the NFL had played its scheduled games.
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In this case, he added, “you just couldn’t go on.”
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At least not immediately.
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But part of moving forward could be found at Arrowhead that September.
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In the days before the game, Kansas City Mayor Kay Barnes proclaimed it New York City Day. Signs around the area declared Kansas City’s love for New York. Chiefs fans sang “home of the brave” at the end of the national anthem instead of “home of the Chiefs.” And they passionately applauded the Giants, who had made several trips to Ground Zero and visited with families and first responders.
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At Hunt’s behest, some 500 boots were passed through the stands for relief in New York.
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By the end of the day, they were brimming with more than $200,000.
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“Checks, cash, change,” former Chiefs president Carl Peterson told me in 2021, laughing and adding, “I think some people put their credit card number in there.”
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Bolstered by Hunt and the organization’s own contribution, the Chiefs soon sent a check for $451,413.88.
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Afterward, the Giants took out an ad in The Star thanking the Chiefs, their fans and the citizens of Kansas City “For Their Heartfelt Kindness, Hospitality and Generosity.”
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For months afterward, Peterson remembered receiving hundreds of letters of gratitude.
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As he spoke about it a few years ago, he sighed deeply as he remembered Vermeil receiving the note and the ball that is both scarred and sacred.
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“It survived the Twin Towers,” Mayer said.
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All the days spent there took a toll on Mayer and his wife, Mary, who also was a NYPD detective.
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Over what Mayer estimated was a six-month period, each worked 12-hour shifts seven days a week — including many stints at the landfill.
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Asked if they’d suffered consequences of the work, Mayer said each has non-melanoma skin cancers and that Mary has breathing issues.
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But he also appreciates the deeper and broader meaning of the harrowing experience.
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And all these years later, Mayer still hopes that somehow, someway, the ball he assumes was on someone’s desk will be recognized by a family member.
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“That,” he said, “would be truly amazing.”
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As Mayer spoke Wednesday by phone, I stood by the exhibit with Davidson as he described it to Mayer and thanked him once again for what he hadn’t understood had made the impact it did. Maybe, he said, this will be the year he finally comes to Arrowhead for a game.
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“Words can’t describe my thanks,” Mayer said, “for just talking to me about it for a few minutes.”
Bu hikaye ilk olarak yayınlandı 10 Eylül 2026, 12:56.
Gregoryen ilahisi
Kansas Şehri Yıldızı
Vahe Gregorian, St. Louis Post-Dispatch’te geçirdiği 25 yılın ardından 2013’ten beri The Kansas City Star’da spor köşe yazarlığı yapıyor. 10 Olimpiyat da dahil olmak üzere geniş bir spor yelpazesini kapsadı. Vahe, Pensilvanya Üniversitesi’nde İngilizce eğitimi aldı ve Mizzou’da yüksek lisans derecesini aldı.