Here is why the embattled ‘Star-Spangled Banner’ should remain a part of American sports | Opinion
You thought kneeling during the national anthem was controversial?
How about eliminating the national anthem? Erasing its place at sporting events altogether?
It is a conversation we will be having. The signs already are here. A debate will arise from the ongoing nationwide movement for social justice and against police brutality and racial inequality in the wake of the killing of George Floyd and others.
Symbolism matters in all of this. It is why Confederate statues are toppled and why Aunt Jemima got retired. It’s why we leaped to a false conclusion over the noose in Bubba Wallace’s garage. Sometimes, overreaction is better than no action at all.
Now, the maelstrom of conscience the nation is in will lead some to wonder what the “Star-Spangled Banner” has to do with games, anyway? It already has. And if you ever doubted that we are polarized, far more divided than united, all the evidence required is that even the national anthem might be seen as a lightning rod of controversy.
Former U.S. men’s national soccer team coach Bruce Arena, to ESPN’s Taylor Twellman: “I think it puts people in awkward positions. We don’t use the national anthem at movie theaters and on Broadway, other events in the United States, and I don’t think it’s appropriate to have a national anthem before a baseball game, an MLS game.”
This week we saw the first team to take Arena up on his suggestion.
The Tulsa Athletic of the lower-tier National Premier Soccer League announced it no longer would play the national anthem before matches, and would replace the “Star-Spangled Banner” with another patriotic song, Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land.”
What sports will be this summer in its restart from the coronavirus/COVID-19 delay could be the excuse sports needs to move from the national anthem as an every-game routine. No fans in the stands would be that excuse. MLS already has said it would not play the anthem before games in empty stadiums.
Whether this becomes any sort of trend, we shall see.
I hope it does not.
Unlike many of my media brethren, I support continuing to play our national anthem before sporting events.
I also continue to strongly support the right of Colin Kaepernick and others to kneel during the anthem as a personal expression of a demand for change.
I like that our anthem is a palette for both patriotism and protest — a symbol of our freedom of expression. That is one big reason to keep it.
I also like that sports is about the only place the “Star-Spangled Banner” is played. Sports has always wrapped itself in the flag. Why do you think there are military flyovers before football games? Soldiers honored before Miami Heat games? Mom, apple pie and baseball, right?
It is because sports are so intertwined with Americana — flag, anthem, military — that sports provide absolutely the perfect pulpit for activist athletes such as Kaepernick, LeBron James and Megan Rapinoe to be loud. And heard. May they keep talking. Shouting. May we keep listening. Or start.
My standing for the anthem, as I will continue to do, is not at odds with my also standing in support of why protests and marches are happening coast to coast.
(Just as my being against the scourge of police brutality that got us to this place does not mean I am anti-cops in general).
When the anthem begins and I rise from my seat, I am standing for an ideal — for what my country should aspire to.
I can bemoan what I see of the state of America. I might not like a particular president. I am not always proud of my country. Sometimes I barely recognize my country.
But, for me, the flag and national anthem are constant reminders, symbols that America, 244 years after its founding, though deeply flawed, is still aspiring to get it right. To be better than it is. To live up.
The notion of patriotism, of pride in one’s country, is a good thing.
May the United States of America never stop aspiring to inspire such feelings, to earn them.
