Filed under: NFL
On Capitol Hill one June day in 1955, moments after what was dubbed as a premiere of The Pledge of Allegiance set to music, House members in attendance and gallery spectators looking on engaged in a rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner."It wasn't planned for our national lawmakers to sing the United States' anthem that day. It never is.
Sports, however, have and continue to ritualize it with barely a shred of relevance.
It was, no doubt, Christina Aguilera's fault that she flubbed the National Anthem's lyrics at the Super Bowl on Sunday. But if our lawmakers don't sing it every day to begin the country's business, spectators of a mere sporting event shouldn't be forced to sit through it, either, especially during the time we are living through right now.
There are, after all, a lot of people out there who argue that they don't want politics to have anything to do with sports. They accuse coaches, athletes and media of disrespecting service men and women in battle by using war metaphors to describe how touchdowns are scored, come-from-behind victories are achieved and adversity is fought through to win a game.
Yet, those same people don't see a contradiction at rising to their feet at every sporting event to mouth (a 2004 Harris Interactive poll showed most U.S. citizens don't know the National Anthem's lyrics) words that came to Francis Scott Key as he watched U.S. soldiers at Baltimore's Fort McHenry raise a huge American flag to celebrate surviving bombardment from British forces during the War of 1812. Instead, they hoot and holler, sometimes with an American banner turned into a bandana on their heads, when military jets swoop overhead as the color guard prepares to relinquish the field of play to the opposing sports teams.
Goodell Pittsburgh Steelers NFL Players Association Mike Tomlin Super Bowl
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