Remembering Tyler Ugolyn, CC '01, 20 Years Later

Upper West Side NY

14 September, 2021

12:33 PM

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Columbia Daily Spectator BY MILES SCHACHNER SEPTEMBER 13, 2021 Tyler Ugolyn was never late. In fact, he prided himself on remembering little things like what time he was supposed to meet someone and when their birthday was. But on May 16, 2001, Tyler found himself in an unfamiliar predicament: he was running late for his college graduation. As a graduating senior from Columbia College, Tyler stumbled into the Commencement ceremony with his best friend, Zack Schiller, CC '01. After realizing they had been pushed to the front of their entire class, hopelessly out of alphabetical order, Tyler and Zack were descended upon by a sea of photographers. One of the photographers captured an image of Tyler that none of his friends or family will ever forget: Tyler's bright smile shining as he proudly held his new diploma. "You can see him in his entirety in that photo," Schiller said. The picture, in a way, was a perfect summation of the imprint Tyler left on Columbia and the world as a whole. He was a "presence," as one friend called him—a person that changed a room for the better the moment he walked in. Twenty years after his tragic passing during the 9/11 attacks, his memory lives on. ______________________________________________________________________ Even before college, Tyler was the kind of student who was instantly magnetic—a force others strove to emulate. His father, Victor, remembers an intense intellectual curiosity and an innate ability to memorize facts—Tyler never took notes in classes because of his effortless capacity to remember passages. Although his dad admired that uncanny faculty, he told Tyler that he would never get through college that way, especially at a school as academically rigorous as Columbia. At Ridgefield High School in Connecticut, Tyler always stood out from the crowd. Standing at a towering 6-foot-4, he was immediately known to his classmates by his "mile-wide" smile. Perhaps most striking, however, was his love for the game of basketball. Gifted with a silky-smooth shot and explosive athleticism, Tyler dunked basketballs and drained three-pointers with ease, earning a nomination to the 1997 McDonald's All-American team as one of the nation's best 250 high school seniors. But it was Tyler's love for people that made his high school experience so impactful. Filled with endless warmth, he avoided cliques and could always be seen high-fiving classmates. A friend remembers Tyler trudging through a vicious snowstorm for two hours to show up at her house to go sledding. He wrote his college application essay about his summer Amateur Athletic Union basketball coach, David Cooks. One day during the summer following his junior year of high school, Tyler lay in bed, sick with mononucleosis. During a time when Tyler should have been traveling all over the country to attract college coaches' attention at AAU tournaments, he was stuck at home recovering. Cooks showed up at Tyler's house to see how he was doing, and Tyler, miserable about his sickness, asked, "Why do bad things always happen to me just as something important is coming up?" Cooks, who had used a wheelchair since high school, inspired Tyler forever with his response: He told him to push himself and to treat every day as if it was a gift. Struck by his coach's wisdom, Tyler resolved to appreciate the blessings he had been given and promised to use them to help others. As he approached college, a number of schools sought to recruit Tyler to join their incoming first-year classes. A standout shooter on the basketball court and a dedicated student, he impressed a multitude of Division I schools, including the University of Kansas and the University of New Mexico. One game in particular played an instrumental role in elevating Tyler's pedigree among college coaches. In an AAU summer contest, he matched up against Edmund Saunders, a 6-foot-8 forward who was the No. 4 prospect in the nation and would go on to win a national championship with the University of Connecticut. As college coaches lined the stands to see the blue chip prospect play, Tyler scored 30 points while being guarded by Saunders, prompting the five-star recruit to tell Tyler, "Man, you're having a field day against me." Though Tyler had a surplus of options in his college search, Columbia immediately earned his attention. He loved New York City and relished the prospect of working on Wall Street while excelling both on the basketball court and in his classes. After a meeting with former Columbia head coach Armond Hill, Tyler's mind was made up: He would play basketball and go to school in Morningside Heights. ______________________________________________________________________ Schiller's first memory of Tyler is on the sixth floor of Carman Hall, their first-year dorm. From 50 feet away, Schiller and Tyler eyed each other down the hall as Schiller saw Tyler fiddling with a pull-up bar he was setting up in his dorm room. Quickly, the two realized that they would both be playing basketball. Tyler's competitive streak instantly presented itself, Schiller remembers, and as the two introduced themselves, they started a conversation about how many pull-ups they each could do. "He was instantly king of the team and pull-ups," Schiller recalled. "That is forever ingrained in my memory, that image of him smiling down the hall, sort of waving as we became fast friends." As Schiller and Tyler spent time on the basketball team together, their friendship blossomed. Schiller remembers Tyler's eternal competitive spirit—the two constantly bantered about their per-minute production on the court, as Tyler extrapolated his scoring total from the few minutes he would play as a first-year. "Our effectiveness, per minute, was off the charts. It was like he was averaging 45 points per game, if he had played the whole game, but no one ever paid attention to that stat but the two of us," Schiller said with a laugh. That competitive brotherly relationship was one of the hallmarks of Schiller and Tyler's friendship. On a vacation they took to Chichén Itzá in Mexico, Tyler raced Schiller up hundreds of stairs, wanting to get a workout in. When Schiller returned years later, he thought the two of them had been crazy for running up the steep staircase. Their well-intentioned rivalry continued in the classroom. Wanting to prove that they were each good at math, Tyler and Schiller once found themselves in one of the more difficult calculus classes at Columbia. Schiller said the material was so complex that the professor essentially "didn't speak English." Remembering it today, it seems silly, Schiller said. "We were basically like 'What are we doing here? Why don''t we just shake hands and agree that we're both good at math?'" Tyler's competitiveness immediately made an impact on the basketball court as well. An unselfish player and instantly one of the best shooters on the team, Tyler was a bright spot on a Columbia team that was stuck in the doldrums, working to help turn the program around as the squad went 6-8 in Ivy League play during Tyler's first-year season. Assistant coach Lyman Casey was tasked with overseeing the development of the team's younger players and became close with Tyler. "He reminded me a little bit of myself," Casey reflected. "He kept his head down and cheered everyone on, and was vocal on the bench and jumped up and down when people did good things. … He was an ideal teammate." While Tyler's basketball career as a Lion was ultimately hampered by knee injuries, he left his mark on the program through his sportsmanship and capacity to catch fire from the three-point range. Schiller and Casey remember practices and games when Tyler simply could not miss. When he had to guard him in practice, Schiller said he remembers Tyler letting out a little laugh before he tossed up an attempt from beyond the arc—and if you heard his laugh, you knew the shot was going to fall. Casey remembers a contagious energy that Tyler exuded whenever he started making threes, exemplified by a crumpled-up note his father found a few years ago, which read: "Just won the hoops intramural championship. Dropped SEVEN STRAIGHT three-pointers to help out. Cash money baby." Though Tyler loved competition, he was also a profoundly good-natured person. Following the injuries that limited his time on the court, he became one of the founding members of Columbia Catholic Athletes, as well as starting and operating a youth basketball league for children in Harlem. Though practices started at 9 a.m. every Sunday at Levien Gymnasium, and Tyler was often out the night before, he was dedicated to showing up every week. His warmhearted spirit transcended many of the boundaries that often divide college students. His father read a letter sent to him from a student after Tyler's passing that explained that while he was from a decidedly different socioeconomic background than Tyler, he never felt this difference affect their friendship. After the student met Tyler very early on at Columbia, Tyler made sure to say hello to him every time their paths crossed on campus. ______________________________________________________________________ Following his graduation from Columbia, Tyler immediately found professional success. He began working at David Alger Management, an investment firm in the World Trade Center. Just as he had planned when he first committed to Columbia, he found a job on Wall Street. David Alger took such a liking to him that at Tyler's memorial service, his wife said that Alger did not hire but rather adopted Tyler. A quick learner and a natural leader, Tyler was put in charge of the summer internship program that he had been a participant in just a few years prior. His father and Schiller, who both visited him at the World Trade Center, recall Tyler being excited at the chance to start his professional career at David Alger. Such a promising first job seemed to be the first step of a long career for Tyler, who planned to work at the firm for three years to earn the title of CFA and attend business school in the hope of establishing his own investment firm. "I have no doubt in my mind that he was going to be a leader, that he was going to be very successful at whatever he wanted to do, but especially in the finance world," Schiller said. "I'm sure he would have exceeded the highest levels." In a 2002 tribute speech to Tyler at the Investment Company Institute mutual fund industry conference, Victor explained how honored he was that Tyler had also chosen to pursue investment banking. "I kid at Tyler, but his résumé looked better than mine. He loved the mutual fund business. I was thrilled for him, following me in my chosen profession." After the attacks that took Tyler's life at 23, there have been myriad ways those Tyler knew have hoped to honor him. At Columbia, the Ugolyn family sponsors a yearly basketball clinic for young students from Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the Bronx. The clinic, named "Tyler Ugolyn MVPs of Character," has hosted a number of basketball legends, including Earl Monroe in 2007. The Tyler Ugolyn foundation was also created to honor his legacy. The organization sponsors basketball programs for underprivileged children across the country, ensuring Tyler's spirit for community service lives on. Every year at Ridgefield High School, the basketball coach is tasked with awarding one senior the privilege to wear Tyler's number, 34. The honor is not intended for the best player but rather the player that most closely possesses Tyler's ability to uplift their teammates. Another effort to honor Tyler was led by Jeff Pearlman, the Sports Illustrated writer assigned to interview the families of victims following the 9/11 attacks. Pearlman, who has written around 5,000 articles, said this one has stuck with him the most. He called Tyler "a friend you wish you'd met," and following his conversation with Victor, struck up a friendship with him that has continued to this day. In some ways, Tyler and his story seem to follow Pearlman: On a trip to Pennsylvania State University to write an article for Bleacher Report, he stumbled into a coffee shop with only one open chair. After striking up a conversation with the woman he was sharing the table with, he discovered that the woman sitting across from him was Tyler's high school girlfriend. Pearlman said he remembered Victor's description of the first time Tyler took the floor as a varsity athlete at Columbia: He looked up into the stands for his father, eyes wide with excitement and pride, like he had finally made it in the basketball world. Victor said that Tyler had the same look in his eye as he ascended the elevator at the World Trade Center—there, Tyler felt like he had made it into the professional world. As Victor grapples with the loss of his son, he looks back to what Tyler has written. In his 2002 memorial tribute for Tyler, he read a poem that Tyler wrote in eighth grade called "Faith." Initially, Victor couldn't believe Tyler had written the poem—it was too good, too powerful, and too emotional for a 14-year-old to produce. But Tyler had written the poem, and its lessons will stay with his family forever. What follows are Tyler's own words: Painted rose, Of your memories, Holding the candle, Until it burns your hand. Seeing, Until you go blind. Hearing the sounds that drum away your life. Inside of you: bitterness, And on the outside; your fate. The choice you'll never forget, To stay, Just one breath longer. Deputy Sports Editor Miles Schachner can be contacted at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @milesschachner Founded in 1877, the Columbia Daily Spectator is the independent undergraduate newspaper of Columbia University, serving thousands of readers in Morningside Heights, West Harlem, and beyond. Read more at columbiaspectator.com and donate here.