Chaplain Emeritus Richard McBride does not remember the exact words he spoke. What he does remember is seeing a student in uniform standing in the audience before him as he bowed his head in prayer.

"The only theme I can remember saying was let us not be caught up in the animosity and anger this represents," McBride said.

Fifteen minutes earlier, McBride had been one of hundreds gathered at a special College Coffee prior to the first home football game in the new Rhodes Stadium. The morning was Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001.

"The band was marching, players were coming in their jerseys, we were ready to host a celebration," he said.

The news that a plane had struck the World Trade Center first began to spread around the edges of the group.

"The band was still playing," McBride said. "There was an odd dissonance between it and what folks were learning."

McBride was one of the few then called into President Leo Lambert's office. Within five minutes, McBride was reciting his prayer.

"What prayer has meant to me is the most basic form of speech, the most honest speech, simply giving voice to what is really happening," he said. "There's a verse of scripture that says the words will be given in the moment you need them, it's sort of a faith posture. And so that's how I launched into it."

In the days and weeks following, McBride was on the front lines of counseling services offered to students. Many students, he said, turned to more personal relationships with family or groups of friends, what he called "huddles" during the immediate grieving process.

"As we broke up after College Coffee, you could see cell phones come out and calls being made home, whether it was to the impact area or not," he said. "I would wager that 90 percent called home because we all have the need to feel some sense of security and contact with those we love."

An administrator consulted databases to find students in the zip codes surrounding the areas that had been attacked.

"There were uncles, friends, lots who knew someone who had died but not too many actual family members," McBride said. "There was outreach so they'd have a place to go if desired."

It would be some days before the horror truly set in and more individuals paid visits to the Truitt Center for Religious and Spiritual Life. "There is not a lot you can say, but you make yourself available to that person for whatever they're feeling," he said.

Anger was a common emotion, but even more so fear.

"You offer what counselors call a non-anxious presence," he said. "That's a hospitality for that person and whatever they're feeling. You accept it without trying to change it."

While the response from the administration at College Coffee was swift, McBride said changes to protocol on campus did come as a result of the attacks.

The university developed a more comprehensive crisis response plan tied to the National Incident Management System that includes the integration of personnel and departments across campus, according to Jana Lynn Patterson, assistant vice president for Student Life.

"The system is used by government agencies and states across the nation and is tied to resources with local, state and federal agencies," she said.