9/11 anniversary: Alonso children defined by sports, not mom's death
Victoria and Robbie Alonso were infants when their mother was killed in the 9/11 attacks. Fifteen years later, one is a Division I-bound softball player and the other is eyeing the Special Olympics.
STONY POINT - The past decade and a half feels like a blur to Robert Alonso.
Sunday will mark the 15th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center buildings on Sept. 11, 2001 — the date when his wife, Janet, was taken from him, and when he became a single father to a 2-year-old daughter and a 1-year-old son with Down syndrome.
“Honestly, now that it’s 15 years, not that I don’t think about it, it’s more of, ‘Oh wow, it’s on TV again,’ so I don’t want to think about the actual attack,” Alonso said from his Stony Point home. “I think of my wife every day — of course I do, because I have my kids over there — but as far as the attack itself, I try to put it in its own little box and leave it over there, away, because there’s other things to focus on. I just can’t focus on that every day because it will drive us insane.”
“The actual attack, I put that in the garbage,” he added. “Janet’s glow is always with me.”
The children, Victoria and Robbie, were “in diapers” at the time, but they have since grown into young adults who are embedded in the North Rockland community, Alonso said.
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Robbie, 16, has played in the Red Raiders’ basketball program and has future plans to participate in the Special Olympics, while 17-year-old Victoria has committed to play Division I softball for Manhattan College where she has earned significant scholarship money.
“They’ve tackled the monster of not being a ‘Sept. 11 child,’” Alonso said of his children. “They are their own, and that’s what they want to be. They don’t want no favoritism, no nothing. Throughout this whole recruiting process, we could’ve played the, ‘There’s Victoria, listen, this is what happened, maybe you want to take her because…’ We didn’t play that. You’ve got to get out there and earn what belongs to you, period. You earn it. And if you ain’t earning it, you ain’t good enough.”
‘Nothing is in my way to stop me’
Janet Alonso is the first of 13 names that appear on a plaque in between the baseball and softball fields of North Rockland High School. The plaque is part of a memorial park built by the school to honor those who lost their lives that day.
The park sits approximately 150 feet behind the softball infield, where Victoria Alonso has called home for the past three varsity seasons.
“Every time I go out and play, I try not to think about it that much even though the field that I play on is dedicated to my mom and all the others,” she said, sporting a North Rockland softball jersey. “I try not to let that get in my head a lot because I try to act like a normal kid, that I still have a whole family that loves me.”
Her father is at every game, logging statistics for the team on his iPad. Robert Alonso’s stocky build and beaming smile make him easy to spot on his own, but he is often found among a quartet of fathers — Paul Chiorazzi, John Bertolino and Andy McDermott — a group self-described as, “The Mafia Fathers.”
McDermott?
When asked about how McDermott fit into the mix, Alonso joked, "We brought it to the board of elections and we had to vote him in."
Robbie Alonso spends his time interacting with fellow siblings of the players, as well as their parents, when he’s not watching his big sister in action.
“I definitely think it’s made me stronger because I’ll think about it sometimes and I know that I’ll push myself harder because obviously with what happened, I’m not really like the normal kid,” Alonso said of the tragedy. “I have to prove myself that nothing is in my way to stop me.”
Victoria Alonso, now a senior, was named a co-captain for the 2017 season by head coach Jackie DiNuzzo.
‘I don’t care what could’ve been’
Robert Alonso is a straight shooter. He said that he didn’t sugarcoat anything when his children asked about their mother or 9/11. He has always been realistic about his son’s disability.
Robbie Alonso would never play Major League Baseball, or in the NFL, or in the NBA, or in the NHL, but that has not deterred the 16-year-old from participating in seemingly every sport he can, at some level.
He plays Challenger Little League, he was on the freshman basketball team that won the county championship last year, he is planning to go out for the golf team this year, and he “swims like a fish,” his father noted.
Alonso would only see time on the basketball court when the game was well out of hand, but just being a part of the North Rockland program is more than enough for his father.
“I know come bottom of the ninth, bases loaded, and we’re down by a run, he’s not going to be up at-bat — I know it, and I knew that from the day he was born,” Robert Alonso said. “But with that said, there’s no reason why he can’t be wearing a uniform. There’s no reason why he can’t be on the team bus. There’s no reason why he can’t change and make it to practice. There’s no reason, whatsoever, and by him doing that, satisfies me.”
“The fact that he gets in is icing on the cake,” he added, with a bit of a giddy tone.
When he’s not partaking in his own athletic ventures, Robbie Alonso is at the softball field cheering on his big sister. He has the appeal of a local celebrity, with everyone from parents to fellow siblings of players eager to say hello and make small talk with him.
Robert Alonso said it’s hard not to see his son’s natural athletic ability and ponder.
“I don’t care what would’ve been because I’m happy with what is and what he brings to the table, because he brings a lot to the table,” Robert Alonso said.
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