Every year I've taken part in Pat's Run, I have a playlist for the journey, and in it, the Jay-Z/Linkin Park mashup "Numb/Encore."
On these Saturday race mornings, Pat Tillman is always top of mind, someone I knew in a reporter/player context, a person I sat next to on 9/11 as the towers burned on the TV in front of us. As the runners (and walkers) start the event created in Tillman's honor, there are reminders of him everywhere.
And early in the run and the song, there are lyrics that catch me every time when it comes to the late Cardinals safety.
Just draw off inspiration
Soon you gonna see you can't replace him
With cheap imitations for these generations
The words, for me, will be connected to Tillman – truly someone who can't be imitated.
The 20th Pat's Run is Saturday at Arizona State, its 4.2-mile course wrapping up inside Sun Devil Stadium as usual. I am proud to have participated in 17-going-on-18; I missed the first one and another when I was out of town in 2017. The two that weren't in person because of the pandemic, I signed up and did a shadow run in my neighborhood.
The first race had about 5,000 participants; that number has grown to more than 30,000 annually. It isn't the four-plus miles that draws as much as the legacy of Tillman, who starred at ASU (wearing No. 42, hence the 4.2 miles) before going from seventh-round Cardinals draft pick to starting safety to setting the NFL world buzzing when he turned down a $3.6 million free-agent contract in 2002 in order to join the Army Rangers.
Then, in April of 2004, he was killed in action.
I remember that morning — I was still a Cardinals beat writer for the East Valley Tribune — vividly. I was in the kitchen, bathrobe on, toddlers eating breakfast on a Friday when my cell phone rang. A producer I knew a little from a local TV station was calling to ask if I had heard that Tillman had been killed. I, like everyone, was stunned.
It was the day before the draft — that's when the draft was still Saturday-Sunday, and the Cardinals would select Larry Fitzgerald with the third overall pick the next morning — but everyone gathered at the Cardinals' Tempe training facility. It was supposed to be that last day before the draft, when the topic was guessing who got picked where. Instead, the organization was crushed.
After Tillman's death, a handful of friends came together to come up with an event to honor him. A year later, the first Pat's Run was held.
It helps raise money for the Pat Tillman Foundation, which aids active military personnel, veterans and military spouses with scholarships.
And for the 20th time on Saturday, it serves as a reminder of who Pat Tillman was, and what he stood for, and the inspiration he long has been.
