{"id":433955,"date":"2026-09-12T14:42:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-12T14:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/433955\/"},"modified":"2026-09-12T14:42:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-12T14:42:09","slug":"campus-recreation-holds-memorial-step-tribute-for-9-11","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/433955\/","title":{"rendered":"Campus Recreation holds Memorial Step Tribute for 9\/11"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

University of Houston student partaking in the Rec Centers 9\/11 Memorial Step Tribute, on Friday, September 11, 2026, in Houston, Texas. | Gillian Wisniewski\/The Cougar<\/p>\n

Campus Recreation <\/a>held its first Memorial Step Tribute in honor of first responders who served on 9\/11 at the Recreation Center today.<\/p>\n

Using a StairMaster in the Rec Center lobby, the tribute served as a unique version of the Fireman\u2019s Challenge.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou do the floors that they climbed on that day, 110 floors or 2200 steps,\u201d said Fitness Program Manager Victor Ramirez. \u201cIt\u2019s a modification of it where we\u2019re just going all day and people are signing up for timeslots.\u201d<\/p>\n

Each person who attended picked one or more slots of three minute intervals and switched off continuously from the beginning of the day to the end of the day.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo give tribute is the main thing. To walk at least a little bit of what others sacrificed for us, is a blessing,\u201d said psychology sophomore Naomi Chavera.<\/p>\n

For Ramirez, who was responsible for initiating the idea, the tribute is not just to commemorate those fallen, but to act as a reminder, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re starting to see the effects of time where people are thinking about 9\/11 as the past, but it\u2019s still a huge part of our history,\u201d Ramirez said.<\/p>\n

As time goes on, it is easy for younger generations to lose sight of the impact that an event like 9\/11 created, Ramirez said.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, there are still many students who take it seriously.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that it\u2019s a terrible, terrible event that occurred, not just something that happened,\u201d said optometry sophomore Daniel Maguadog. \u201cI was lucky enough to grow up a few years before most of the undergraduates here, but I hate when it gets watered down.\u201d<\/p>\n

To Maguadog, the people who recognize the day as what it is have not gone unseen.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like the act of doing it is great, symbolic and gives light to what people climbed that day,\u201d Maguadog said. \u201cBut the true power of the event they got here is the people walking by and not letting today be another random Friday.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not only did the students pay their tribute, but the University itself has permanently commemorated <\/a>the event with a steel beam from the Twin Towers from \u201cGround Zero\u201d on display outside of Student Center South.<\/p>\n

UH is the first and only campus to have a piece of the World Trade Center in Texas.<\/p>\n

The Rec Center made their own accessible memorial to those whose lives were lost, displaying names in the lobby and on TVs.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m hoping that it becomes more real to the participants,\u201d Ramirez said. \u201cReading it and seeing that, knowing that we\u2019re going to continue to make a priority in our nation to remember this day.\u201d<\/p>\n

news@thedailycougar.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u00a0 University of Houston student partaking in the Rec Centers 9\/11 Memorial Step Tribute, on Friday, September 11,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":433956,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[17802,150712,56,58,57,150713,73531],"class_list":["post-433955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-9-11","tag-campus-recreation","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news","tag-memorial-step-tribute","tag-rec-center"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433955","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=433955"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433955\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/433956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=433955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=433955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=433955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}