NEW YORK (1010 WINS) — Chris Cannizzaro was just a baby on Sep. 11, 2001, but as the son of a fallen firefighter, he knows the story well.
"My dad was a fireman who was in Red Hook Ladder 101 on the day the towers went down," Cannizzaro told WCBS 880 reporter Peter Haskell in an interview.
Cannizzaro, who was less than a year old when his dad Brian was killed, wants to make sure other young people remember and acknowledge what happened, too.
"I see it's hard for a lot of people to fully understand it,” Cannizzaro said.
Now a senior baseball player at Bucknell university, Cannizzaro is one of the newest student athlete advocates for the Tunnels to Towers Foundation which launched a new student athlete initiative in September aimed at utilizing college athletes to educate young people about 9/11.
“Just being able to support their message and use my platform as a student athlete to get their message out,” Cannizzaro said. “To kind of inform other people on what they do and how they can help honor these amazing heroes.”
Cannizzaro joins three other student athletes—Kailyn Hart, a junior lacrosse player at Stony Brook University, Nick Eiler, a junior basketball player at Hartwick College and Stuart Head, an Appalachian State football player—as the inaugural student athlete advocates.
“We are thrilled to continue to grow the Tunnel to Towers Foundation Student-Athlete Advocate program and bring on these amazing athletes to continue the foundation’s mission to do good," said Tunnels to Towers Chairman and CEO Frank Siller. "Their inspiration to honor the lives of America’s heroes and spread awareness amongst their peers makes them a perfect fit for the program and it is our hope that they will inspire younger generations to do the same"
For Cannizzaro, whose connection to 9/11 is deeply personal, his work continues in making sure people never forget.
“Almost everything I do, I think about him and I tried to live through him and carry out his legacy,” Cannizzaro said. “And make sure that everybody knows who he is and that he's a hero and he gets the respect he deserves.”
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