SAN JOSE, Calif. – Before Pat Tillman was hailed as a national hero for leaving the NFL to fight and die in the mountains of Afghanistan, he was a local high school football star with a bright life ahead of him.

Friends, family and other admirers gathered Monday to mourn Tillman in his hometown – to remember a man so moved by the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that he walked away from a multimillion-dollar contract with the Arizona Cardinals to join the Army.

Tillman, 27, died April 22 in a firefight near the Pakistan border as he was leading his team to help comrades caught in an ambush. The Army gave few details of how Tillman was killed, but said he was fatally shot while fighting “without regard for his personal safety.”

NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue and Hall of Famer Gene Upshaw, executive director of the players’ union, were among those who attended Monday’s public memorial at a municipal rose garden here. Police said 2,000 people had gathered before the ceremony began.

“The underlying thing was his courage and selflessness on the athletic field, in his community and now as a soldier,” Tagliabue told reporters before the afternoon service.

Last week, the military posthumously promoted Tillman, a member of the Army’s elite Ranger unit since 2002, from specialist to corporal. He also was awarded a Purple Heart and Silver Star.

Tillman attended San Jose’s Leland High School and was drafted by the Cardinals after starring at Arizona State University. He became the Cardinals’ starting safety and broke the franchise record for tackles in 2000.

Though he never publicly offered reasons for his decision to join the Army, several friends have said the terrorist attacks affected him deeply.

Tillman was assigned to A Company, 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, and was based at Fort Lewis, Wash.

His death was one of about 100 U.S. soldiers to have been killed in Afghanistan since the United States invaded in 2001. That made him the first National Football League player killed in combat since Buffalo offensive tackle Bob Kalsu died in the Vietnam War. Nineteen NFL players were killed in World War II.

“I came to pay my respects,” said Joel Cascio, a San Jose resident who served two years in the Navy during the mid-1960s. “He put his career aside. That’s a courageous thing to do, no matter what walk of life.”

-Associated Press