By admin 
LOS GATOS – As two F-15s roared over Helm Field at 6:55 p.m. Friday night, a commemoration 25 years in the making set up the quintessential community event in the town of Los Gatos: football under the lights.
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It was there that Todd Beamer and Mark Bingham graduated from Los Gatos High one year apart in the late 1990s. It was over Pennsylvania that they made the fateful decision to storm the cockpit of United Flight 93 on Sept. 11, 2001, forcing terrorist hijackers to abandon their plans to attack the U.S. Capitol on one of the darkest days in American history.
So Los Gatos athletic director Ken Perrotti, with the help of Congressman Sam Liccardo’s office and contacts in Sacramento, reached out to the Air Force to see if a military flyover was possible to honor the 25th anniversary of that brave act before the Wildcats’ game against Clovis.
Somewhat surprisingly, the answer was a resolute yes. And as the jets roared over the same campus whose halls Bingham and Beamer once walked, the story of their sacrifice was renewed for a group of football players who weren’t yet born in September 2001.
“We learned about the risk they took and the acts of heroism that they performed in times where they knew other people were in need of help,” senior linebacker Jared Newman said.
Earlier Friday, Los Gatos Lions Club member Walker Pearce-Percy, an Air Force Reserve pilot, talked to the school’s students during lunch about what took place 25 years ago.
This included Beamer’s famous “Let’s roll” rallying cry before storming the cockpit, a slogan that became a national motto emblazoned on the wings of fighter jets, Navy ship decks and referenced by President George W. Bush during a State of the Union address.
Major General Kent Hillhouse, a Vietnam War veteran and longtime Silicon Valley resident who worked in the wing of the Pentagon that was hit but retired shortly before that day, also spoke to the group.
It’s an education that those at Los Gatos take seriously given the school’s institutional connection to the tragedy.
“It’s incumbent upon us older folks, if you will, to not let it be forgotten,” Los Gatos coach Mark Krail said. “The events of that day and the thousands of people that lost their lives, and they were sons and daughters and husbands and wives.”
The two sons of Los Gatos who died that day had previously been memorialized with a plaque displayed within the school’s redwood grove. It was relocated to a new spot in front of the school to increase its impact on the students and community members who pass by.
Beamer’s jersey is also hung prominently outside the doors to Helm Gym, where he played basketball during his time at the school.
There’s little doubt that Friday’s festivities furthered the cause of remembering. Liccardo made a brief speech to the raucous crowd before the game, noting how Bingham and Beamer “gave their last full measure” to protect those who could have been hit by the hijacked plane.
“It was the best for so many of us in America when, for a moment, we remembered that we are indeed a United States of America,” Liccardo said. “So let’s embrace their noble example.”
Friday night football games have always had a mystique in Los Gatos, but the events this weekend took it to a new level.
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Traffic snarled in the school’s narrow parking lot over an hour before the game, as fire trucks, a fleet of police cars and a flood of automobiles jockeyed for space near the stadium.
They met with a capacity red, white and blue-adorned crowd on the Los Gatos side that filled in well in advance of the 7 p.m. start, anticipating the flyover and pregame ceremony with chants of U-S-A.
“It was absolutely unreal,” Newman said. “I mean, if that doesn’t get you going. I don’t know what else will, because that was just a one-in-a-million experience. I’m glad I got to be a part of it.”
First responders were honored before the game – a fitting gesture not only given the occasion, but especially as paramedics both helped injured Los Gatos player Nico Flores off the field and assisted a fan who had a medical issue during the fourth quarter.
It was further recognition of all the lives touched by 9/11 – the first responders who rushed in to save lives at the World Trade Center and Pentagon, the heroes on Flight 93 who prevented further carnage and the military personnel who defended the homeland abroad during the ensuing conflicts in the Middle East.
Then the fighter jets took off from Fresno Air National Guard Base, just an 11-minute drive from Clovis High in the Central Valley and streaked across the sky, screaming over the Los Gatos hills at 6:55 precisely.
They cleared the field and then quickly banked right to head home.
The job was done. The legacy had been renewed. And it was time for football.
Three hours later, after Clovis prevailed 24-7 over the host Wildcats, there was time enough after the game to reflect on the magnitude of the 25th anniversary, and how Friday’s purposeful remembrance kept the gravity of 9/11 alive for a new generation.
Krail recalled his experience at Pioneer High on that day as shocking and awful, starting with questions when the first tower was hit in New York and ending with the grief of processing the succession of Twin Towers attacks alongside the attack on the Pentagon and the crash of Flight 93.
“It was just kind of like, ‘Wait, what just happened?'” he said. “And then the world kind of stopped. It was obviously one of those moments where the world changed a little bit. And hopefully, we don’t ever experience that again.”
Twenty-five years later, Los Gatos’ resolve to continue paying tribute resonates with Newman.
“Everyone knows the stories because it’s just essential to our community, essential to who we are as people and understanding what they went through,” he said.
If Friday’s mission was to carry on the memory of that day and the arm-in-arm patriotic unity is inspired, consider that mission accomplished.
“It was epic,” Krail said. “This town, like so many towns, was affected by what happened on 9/11, and so it definitely hits home. I’m proud of this town and this community, and hopefully we never forget what happened that day.
“And Congressman Liccardo said it well. We have to be United States of America, and I think that’s important today.”
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This story was originally published September 13, 2026 at 4:29 PM.