Mark Bingham died Sept. 11, 2001, while saving countless lives. Just how many will never be known.

The openly gay rugby player was one of the heroic passengers who led a revolt against the terrorists on United Airlines Flight 93. The hijackers planned to slam the plane into the White House or the U.S. Capitol, according to the 9/11 Commission Report. Instead, the plane crashed into a field near Shanksville, Pa., killing the terrorists and passengers – but nobody else.

The most visible torchbearer of Bingham’s legacy is Alice Hoagland, his mother. After losing Bingham -- her only child -- Hoagland became a tireless advocate for issues that were important to her son. Now 61, the retired United flight attendant is a proponent of aviation safety, a spokesperson for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community, and an avid supporter of rugby.
 

Flight 93 passengers learned from cell phone conversations that the World Trade Center and Pentagon had already been attacked. Bingham – along with Todd Beamer, Tom Burnett, and Jeremy Glick – formulated a game plan of sorts to overtake the hijackers, according to accounts from the phone calls. All four men were athletes.

 

Bingham stood 6-foot-4, weighed roughly 225 lbs., and played rugby. Beamer was 6-foot-2 and was a former basketball player. Burnett, 6-foot-3, played quarterback in high school and college. And Glick, also 6-foot-3, was a national collegiate judo champ. Hoagland is convinced that their ability to think quickly, coupled with their physical strength, made a difference in stopping the plane from hitting one of its targets.

“Competitive sports and athletic ability really made a difference for America on that day,” she says.

 

That’s one of the reasons Hoagland has become the spiritual force behind the Bingham Cup -- a rugby tournament that’s become the “World Cup of gay rugby,” as she describes it. Hoagland feels the sport helped shape her son into the person he became, and she  wants others to enjoy the sport as much as Bingham did. The cup started in 2002 with less than 10 teams. Now, 40 to 50 teams participate in the biennial event, which alternates between happening in the United States and the United Kingdom.

Members of the San Francisco Fog, a club that Bingham helped found in 2001, gave Hoagland a team jacket bearing the nickname “Mom” embroidered across the front.

“I may have lost a son but I’ve gained a very huge family and it makes me feel good every time I see them,” she says.