2,200 steps: Purdue ROTC hits Ross-Ade early to honor 9/11

Purdue ROTC runs the equivalent of the steps to the top of the 110-story World Trade Tower to mark 9/11 anniversary, in a stadium run hoped to be a community event next year

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2,200 STEPS: PURDUE ROTC HITS ROSS-ADE EARLY TO HONOR 9/11

They set the Ross-Ade Stadium clock Monday morning to countdown from 1 hour, 42 minutes, marking the time between when the first of two hijacked airliners hit the World Trade Center towers the morning of 9/11 – 8:46 a.m. that Tuesday in 2001 – and when the second tower collapsed at 10:28 a.m. in New York City.

And hundreds of Purdue ROTC cadets and alumni started running the stadium steps, in remembrance of first responders who climbed stairwells trying to evacuate the twin skyscrapers in a coordinated terrorist attack that took the lives of nearly 3,000 people in New York, Washington, D.C., and western Pennsylvania.

Within that 1:42, the cadets – up for a 5:30 a.m. start – ran at least 2,200 steps through sections of Ross-Ade bleachers to represent the number of stairs to the top of the 110-story World Trade Center.

Purdue Army ROTC cadets run the steps at Ross-Ade Stadium Monday morning, as part of the inaugural Tri-Service 9/11 Memorial Stadium Run. (Photo: Dave Bangert)

That was the equivalent of running all the Ross-Ade steps 1½ times, as part of an inaugural Tri-Service 9/11 Memorial Stadium Run.

“This is for them, not for us,” Braxton Mallott, an Air Force ROTC freshman, said.