This Sunday, the SC Featured segment on ESPN’s SportsCenter will profile 9/11 hero Mark Bingham.
Bingham was a passenger on United Airlines Flight 93, Sept. 11 2001 and one of the heroes who stopped the plane from reaching its intended target, the U.S. Capitol building.
Bingham was one of 33 passengers and seven crew members who perished when the plane crashed in rural Pennsylvania. Afterward, he was identified in some obituaries as a “gay rugby player.”
“The impact those three words had together in that obituary is where we take the story,” said Ben Webber, producer of the segment for the ESPN Features Unit.
“The biggest part of his story was not just one inclusive rugby team,” Webber said. “It’s the number [of teams] that have formed since his death because of the hero that he was.”
“Every two years, they have the world cup of inclusive rugby, where every inclusive rugby team in the world comes to win the Bingham Cup,” Webber continued. “It’s been all over the world, as has Mark’s story, which has allowed countless gay men who also enjoy rugby to be comfortable, which was not really the case before Mark passed.”
The feature will debut in the 10 a.m. ET SportsCenter and re-air in other editions throughout the day.
