WASHINGTON — Sixteen tons of steel taken from the ruins of the World Trade Center towers sat idly on the back of a flatbed truck Tuesday, held in place by industrial strength cording.

On Sept. 11, the once straight, solid beams eventually gave way to the stress from the collapsing towers. The only menace the twisted metal beams now posed was as a painful reminder of what happened that day.

The steel is traveling across the country as part of a tour to promote "Freedom’s Flame," a proposed memorial to the 71 law enforcement workers who died in the collapse of the twin towers in New York.

The World Trade Center steel was on display across the street from the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Park during a brief midday ceremony in which organizers placed a wreath next to the inscribed names of the officers who died that day.

The organizers, from Southern California, hope to build a memorial in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., that incorporates the steel and later construct a duplicate memorial to be donated to New York City. They estimate construction of the two memorials will take three years and cost $9 million.

"We could have just taken this metal and shipped it on a train back to California, but that’s not the point," said Chuck Williams, director of the project. "The purpose of Freedom’s Flame is to remind people to never, never, never, never forget. We have too much forgetting in this country."

People nationwide saw the terrorist attacks unfold on their television screens, Williams said, "but when they actually see that twisted steel, they understand the power of what the terrorists did on American soil to the people in those buildings."

The design proposed by architect William Lecky, who was involved in the creation of the Vietnam Veterans and Korean War Veterans memorials, has 30 7-foot figures ascending and descending a staircase that wraps around a giant stainless steel flame.

Survivors would be shown rushing down the stairs and leaving the scene, while police officers and firefighters rush up the stairs to help others.

The flame and the base would form a sundial charting each tragic event of Sept. 11, from the time the first plane hit to the time the second tower fell. The time of each event would be carved into the base of the memorial.

The stainless steel used to build the memorial would be cast in gray to mimic the ash and smoke that covered Ground Zero. The steel beams currently touring the county would be used in the memorial’s inner structure.

The memorials would also include a fragment of limestone from the Pentagon and "something from Shanksville," Lecky said, referring to Shanksville, Pa., the crash site of the fourth hijacked plane.

Tuesday was the second day of the 11-day cross-country tour that will wind up in Southern California on Independence Day. A charter bus trailing the flatbed truck carried a message in 5-foot-tall white letters on its sides.

The sign read, "Let’s Roll," words said by Todd Beamer of Cranbury, N.J., who with other passengers challenged the hijackers of the airplane that went down near Shanksville. The nation has embraced those words as an expression of determination.
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© 2002, McClatchy/Tribune Information Services

WASHINGTON — Tiger Woods may have held off Phil Mickelson and Sergio Garcia at Bethpage Black, but he’s no match for Britney Spears.

Woods finished second to the 20-year-old dance-pop sensation in Forbes magazine’s annual ranking of the 100 most powerful celebrities. Twenty-four other athletes made the list, but Michael Jordan is Woods’ only company in the top 10, coming in at No. 9.

Woods also was ranked second last year, finishing behind actor Tom Cruise. Jordan dropped three spots from his No. 6 ranking in 2001.

The rankings are based on earnings, Web hits, press mentions, major magazine cover stories, and TV and radio appearances over the last 12 months. Predictably, money is the biggest factor in the financial magazine’s rankings, but it’s not decisive.

"The power ranking underscores more than just the amount of money a celebrity earns, but the extent to which they capture the public imagination," said Forbes Senior Editor Brett Pulley.

Even though Woods earned $70 million compared to Spears’ paltry $39.2 million, Spears won out by drawing 617,000 more Web hits and gracing seven more magazine covers.

While Woods was edged out in the last round, Pulley sees him topping the list for years to come.

"The amazing thing about Tiger Woods is that he got $62 million this year, but only nine or 10 million of that money came from golf," Pulley said. "At this rate, he’s on track to earn a billion dollars by the time he’s 35."

In addition to a mega-deal with Nike, Woods also locked up endorsement deals with Disney and the Upper Deck trading card company.

"I can’t imagine him going anywhere for a while," Pulley said.

The same may not be said for His Airness, who barely snuck into the top 10 after heading the list in 1999. While Forbes ranks Woods fourth in money earnings, Jordan is listed 28th and he probably would have finished even lower in the overall rankings if not for all the attention garnered by his return to the NBA with the Washington Wizards, Pulley said.

The next highest athlete on the list is Formula One driver Michael Schumacher, who netted $67 million from a two-year deal with Ferrari. Schumacher was at the center of controversy recently when Ferrari ordered another of its drivers to let Schumacher win a race.

Three-time NBA champs Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant come in at Nos. 30 and 31, while Mike Tyson fell from 11th last year to 35th this year. He earned $23 million but most of it went to pay off debts, according to press reports.

Lennox Lewis is ranked three spots behind Tyson in the Forbes power rankings, but he showed his power when he knocked out Tyson on June 8.

Baseball stars Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter, Sammy Sosa, Manny Ramirez and Ken Griffey Jr. also made the list, and four other NBA players are included — Kevin Garnett, Grant Hill, Scottie Pippen and Alonzo Mourning.

Four of the five tennis players on the list are women, which says something about the lack of star power on the men’s tour right now. Venus Williams and Martina Hingis ranked 60 and 64, respectively.

Cover girl Anna Kournikova finished at No. 67 on the Forbes list — three spots ahead of Jennifer Capriati and five in front of Serena Williams — despite being ranked only 55th in the world by the Women’s Tennis Association.

Kournikova has never won a singles title, but makes up for her mediocre play with plenty of endorsements. Capriati has won three Grand Slam tournaments and Serena Williams has won two, but Kournikova had more than twice as many Web hits as the two combined.

Andre Agassi was the only male tennis player on the list at No. 53. Particularly glaring is the absence of any NFL stars on the list. St. Louis Rams quarterback Kurt Warner has won two MVPs in three years but is nowhere to be seen in the Forbes power rankings.

Another quarterback, Peyton Manning of the Indianapolis Colts was ranked No. 60 last year, thanks to an $8.4 million signing bonus.

"Peyton Manning is the NFL’s top endorser," Pulley said, "but in general football players are more anonymous when they’re on the playing field. It probably does take a little bit more" for football players to get good endorsement deals.

Other sports figures on the list are: No. 56 Jeff Gordon, NASCAR driver; No. 65 Arnold Palmer, golfer; and No. 74 Jacques Villeneuve, Formula One driver.

The Forbes Celebrity 100 issue hits the newsstands Monday. The magazine bases its earnings estimates on confidential sources with knowledge of celebrity finances.
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© 2002, McClatchy/Tribune Information Services