25th anniversary<\/a> of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11\u00a0\u2014 the deadliest attack on American soil in the country\u2019s history\u00a0\u2014 sparked a lot of memories for people on Friday. For Cowboys fans, it\u2019s natural for them to remember Teague running out with the American flag for the team\u2019s first game after the attacks. It was an iconic moment, seeing a member of America\u2019s Team running out with the American flag.\u00a0<\/p>\n![\"Dallas]()
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Dallas Cowboys safety George Teague carries a US flag as he is introduced prior to the Cowboys game against the San Diego Chargers at Texas Stadium in Irving, TX, September 23, 2001.<\/p>\n
Paul Buck\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
Teague, now the head football coach and athletic director at John Paul II in Plano, came from a military family and grew up on military bases. That\u2019s why he decided to grab the American flag from someone else in the pregame tunnel and run with it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt the pride in the sense of, ‘Hey, I know what our country stands for,’\u201d Teague told The Dallas Morning News. \u201cThis flag means something different for me, probably more than whoever was going to run out there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Teague didn\u2019t think much of the moment other than the pride he felt at the time. It was moments before the Cowboys faced the Chargers, after all. He later realized how much the moment resonated with people when he saw photos circulating. Teague keeps a photo collage of the moment in his office. It\u2019s behind his chair, and often on his mind.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Teague said the 25th anniversary sparked a lot of emotions about the terrorist attacks and conversations about it. He said he talked with one person at the high school on Friday who broke into tears thinking about the terrorist attacks.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYou just talk about where we were, how it felt, how the country was unified, how people were really drew to each other, and you kind of miss that,\u201d Teague said. \u201cYou hate that it was caused by tragedy, but it\u2019s a very solemn reminder that there are a whole lot more things important in life and we take things for granted sometimes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Teague also talked with his team about the anniversary before they take on Bishop Lynch on Friday night. Even though his players weren\u2019t born during Sept. 11, there are lessons they can learn from it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cFootball, we\u2019re always talking about how it is life and how so many instances that happen in a game relate to work, jobs and other things. So when you talk about the attacks of 9-11, these guys are young, but our message is still about service and sacrifice,\u201d Teague said. \u201cA lot of the terms\u00a0you use in football, as well. It\u2019s about community. So maybe [they] weren\u2019t born or didn\u2019t experience it, but there\u2019s this whole big piece of team and unity and country and community when we\u2019re talking about this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Teague said John Paul II plans to honor the 25th anniversary on Friday with a tribute reminiscent of the NFL\u2019s \u201cSalute to Service\u201d initiative. They bought hats and shirts for their staff members. They\u2019ll also have a big American flag during pregame to go along with the National Anthem and a prayer.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Teague said they had to get volunteers to hold the flag. He didn\u2019t have to look far for one. His son, James Teague, was one of them. On a day that\u2019s been emotional, seeing his son volunteer to hold the flag\u00a0\u2014 akin to what Teague did 25 years ago\u00a0\u2014 was touching for him.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Teague we\u2019ll remember that, just like people remember him for his iconic moment a quarter century ago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dallas Cowboys safety George Teague, (31), carries an American flag onto the playing field at Texas Stadium in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":433700,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,104,103,125464,150661,93042,90417],"class_list":["post-433699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-high-school-sports-football","tag-september-11-2001-attacks","tag-tp-dallas-cowboys","tag-tp-high-schools"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=433699"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433699\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/433700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=433699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=433699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=433699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}