Remembering Jimmy Riches

A good friend of mine forwarded me an article this morning about Jimmy Riches, a former Belmont Abbey College alumnus and basketball player who was tragically killed during the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Riches will be inducted into the Belmont Abbey Sports Hall of Fame later this week. Excerpts from Richard Walkers article Belmont Abbey offers honor to former student-athlete, Sept. 11 hero that ran 9/30 in the Gaston Gazette

A New York City firefighter, Riches lost his life during the Sept. 11,2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. For his courage, valor andsacrifice, Riches will be honored as one of 12 inductees of Belmont Abbey'sfirst Sports Hall of Fame banquet Thursday at the school's Wheeler
Center.

Riches and a fellow firefighter died carrying an injured woman down the stairs on a stretcher. Jimmy Riches' father Jim Riches, who retired last December after 31 years as a fireman, heard that story on the day of the attacks. The tale was confirmed six months later when Jimmy Riches' body was recovered.

"Jimmy always had fun at whatever he did, whether it was playing basketball, being a policeman or fighting fires," Walters said of Riches, who would be 37 today if he were still alive. "That golf tournament is one of the best days in the year and one of the worst. You don't like why you're there, but you know it's to honor a friend and to raise money for a good cause."

"It's like his life. Jimmy always had this saying: ‘It's not the years of your life, it's the life in your years.' That's how he lived and that's how he's been remembered."

As a fellow Belmont Abbey alum and former Belmont Abbey basketball player, it is great to see that Jimmy Riches will be honored for his service to our institution and more importantly to our country. Although I never had the opportunity to meet Jimmy and do not know him personally, we can all learn a lot about his outlook on life from this story.