ESPN honored the sacrifice of the American military on Monday by broadcasting shows from the US Naval and Merchant Marine Academies, plus the Armed Forces Classic basketball game from South Korea. They also highlighted the relationship between military personnel and sports in a promo for the Veteran’s Day edition of Monday Night Football.
ESPN commentator Kevin Blackistone, on the other hand, has a different take on that relationship. Blackistone lamented the playing of a “war anthem” before sporting events last week on Around the Horn. The host of that show, Tony Reali, expressed “surprise” at Blackistone’s take on the issue then tweeted a link to a column Blackistone wrote over two years ago for AOL on the same subject.
The column elaborates on the themes Blackistone highlighted in an ESPN appearance last week:
O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming? And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,"' a phrase from the National Anthem, has absolutely nothing to do with sports but everything to do with war. But we want those who play, coach and comment on sports to be sensitive at a time like this when nearly 6,000 U.S. men and women have been killed fighting wars in Iraq, where the last U.S. troops aren't scheduled to be withdrawn until this year's end, and in Afghanistan, where any withdrawal of U.S. troops isn't scheduled to begin until this coming summer.
Blacksitone concludes the column by comparing the playing of the National Anthem to alcohol consumption:
Interestingly, the few people who elevate the National Anthem to any relevance in sports are those who've gotten into trouble for understanding and respecting its imagery enough to employ it as backdrop for protest against war and oppression. A small college women's basketball player, Toni Smith, was ridiculed for doing so a few years ago, and Tommie Smith and John Carlos were blackballed for famously demonstrating with the anthem at the '68 Olympics.
Otherwise, "The Banner" has had no real reason in sports, unless you account for it being based on an old English song about boozing, which, of course, is another mindless ritual of the games we watch.
Anyone who remembers the late Whitney Houston’s performance of the "Star Spangled Banner" before the Super Bowl in 1991, when America was engaged in the first Iraqi conflict, would have no trouble differentiating the acknowledgement of our unity as Americans before a contest built on artificial divisions.
The a cappella rendition by those in attendance at the Boston Bruins hockey game following the bombing of the Boston Marathon also might be able to note the power of patriotism before sporting events.
But according to Blackistone, they might as well have been mindlessly chugging a beer. One thing in this story does seem thoughtless. But it isn’t the national anthem.