Runners starting out on Linden Lane. Lacrosse teammates are in red and white T-shirts. Photograph: Lee Pellegrini

At 7:30 in the morning on Saturday, October 25, runners began collecting race bibs and red bandanas in Lyons Hall for the 10th annual Welles Remy Crowther Red Bandana 5K. Some said they had risen early to watch the 2011 ESPN documentary about Crowther, of the Class of 1999. An equities trader on the 104th floor of the South Tower on September 11, 2001, Crowther covered his mouth and nose against the smoke with a red bandana and rescued a dozen people from the World Trade Center before he died in the building’s collapse.

The race, organized by the Volunteer and Service Learning Center (VSLC), has swelled from 202 runners in its inaugural year to 1,800 students, alumni and their families, friends and family of the Crowthers, and local runners this year, 400 more than last year’s record turnout. It is by far the largest fundraiser for the Welles Remy Crowther Charitable Trust, which Crowther’s parents, Alison and Jefferson, founded in late 2001 to support scholarships for high school students and programs for youth in the Northeast.

As they waited in the brisk air, runners traded stories of where they were on September 11 (when the freshmen were five). Some predicted their finish times—one asked Siri “What’s the 5K world record?” Others said they hoped “to finish.” The 55-strong men’s lacrosse club team formed a circle and stretched; they wore white jerseys with #19 on the back, Crowther’s number when he played. Counselors from the boys’ camp in the Berkshires that Crowther attended each summer stood in gray Camp Becket T-shirts. Boston College Army ROTC cadets wore their bandanas beneath camo-print boonie hats. Runners who had collected kerchiefs at past years’ 5Ks, or at the Athletics Department’s annual Red Bandana football game in Alumni Stadium in September, wrapped them around both elbows and ankles. Three black Labradors trotted around in red bandana collars. Undergraduate Big Brother and Big Sister volunteers prepared their Littles for the longest run of their lives (3.1 miles). So did Tracey McDevitt ’97, MBA’02, who, in from Texas, was running with her sandy-haired nine-year-old son, Welles, named for Crowther (whom she hadn’t known).

When Jefferson and Alison Crowther and VSLC director Dan Ponsetto strode up the steps of Lyons at 8:30, the crowd before them filled Gasson Quad and spilled into O’Neill Plaza. Ponsetto described Crowther as an exemplar of the University’s tenet to cultivate “men and women for others.” Both Crowthers fought tears as they described the activities for disadvantaged youths the Crowther Trust helps fund. Between registration fees and donations from sponsors (Verizon, Shake Shack), the race raised $50,000.

After the Acoustics sang the national anthem a cappella, the Crowthers and mascot Baldwin (larger than life) led everyone to the starting line on the Gasson Hall end of Linden Lane, under a canopy of still-green leaves. Jefferson Crowther bellowed “3, 2, 1, go!” through a megaphone. Trailing a Newton Police motorcyclist, the group ran to Cleveland Circle along Commonwealth and back via Beacon. Some 50 student VSLC volunteers offered water, and student emergency medical technicians were on hand with first-aid kits along the way. A turn down College Road, and the runners returned to campus through the main gate, finishing at the start and passing once again the Memorial Labyrinth on the Burns Library lawn, engraved with the names of the 22 alumni who died on September 11.

Eric Mendoza, MA’09, finished in 16:17, his fourth win in four years. Then members of the track team charged through. And then the fencing and softball teams; the all-male step dance troupe, running in jeans; a woman with a camera mounted atop a baton; parents pushing jogger strollers. As 25, 30, 45 minutes passed, Alison Crowther continued waving on the runners at the finish line with a red bandana. Many joined in with their sweat-stained bandanas, and the last ones to finish received the biggest applause.

Read more by Zachary Jason