When Colin Kaepernick began kneeling during the national anthem in the final exhibition game of the season on September 1st 2016, the reaction was swift, and vicious. Every talking head sports show, media personality, D-List celebrity and presidential hopeful had a strong opinion on the matter. People (as we tend to do on nearly every topic these days) immediately split into two camps, with no grey areas allowed in between.
Either you were aware of the fact that what Kap was doing had very little to do with the flag and was really a means to protest social justice issues. Or you believed that he should stand to support the troops, and be grateful for the freedom he enjoys in the USA as a professional athlete playing a game for a living.
We all know what happened next. Colin was essentially blackballed from the league. Although the NFL staged a dog and pony show in terms of a pro-day workout for Kaepernick after being ousted, no team wanted to take the risk to sign him and possibly alienate a portion of their fanbase. To this day even mentioning Kaepernick immediately gets people’s backs up as you see them mentally running to their “Pro Kap vs. Pro America” corners of their minds.
Which is what makes what is happening in Dallas (not exactly the most Liberal leaning of the 50 states to begin with) right now so interesting. As you’ve likely seen by now, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban has elected to forgo playing the national anthem before each home game. Not only that, but he doesn’t plan to reinstate the anthem before any future home games either. Tim Cato (Mavericks reporter for The Athletic) appears to be one of the first to mention this fact on Twitter on Feb 9th. And once again, the opinions on the matter range from disgust to indifference.
In the span of 15hrs, that lone tweet pointing out that Dallas had scrapped the anthem generated over 25k likes/retweets/comments. A figure that, when compared to Tim’s usual impression per tweet of roughly 50, shows just what a powder keg anything related to the flag or the anthem truly is.
What’s ironic however (as Tim points out in a subsequent tweet), is that no one seems to have noticed this was happening through the Mavs first 13 home games (preseason included). Furthermore, per ESPN “No players, coaches or staffers from other teams have mentioned the change, according to a team source”.
According to the NBA rule book, players are required to stand during the national anthem. NBA commissioner Adam Silver has largely declined to enforce this rule over the years, as evidenced by the Black Lives Matter and Social Justice protests players and teams displayed during the Orlando bubble last year. But nowhere in the rule book does it expressly say that the anthem itself needs to be played at all.
All of this is a fairly abrupt change of stance on the part of Cuban as well. As recently as 2017 Mark had come out in favour of players standing for the anthem. Recent events seem to have changed his mind on the matter, and he appears to now be firmly behind player expression moving forward. Perhaps seeking to take the issue off the table entirely is what led to the organization removing it from their usual pre-game routine.
Yet all this debate about what amounts to a 2 minute formality makes you wonder, why do we play the anthem before sporting events anyways? How did this even become a thing? To answer that you’ll need to go all the way back to game 1 of the 1918 World Series between the Red Sox and the Cubs. During the 7th inning stretch, a military band played the song, and evidently the fans went bonkers for it. So, seeking to “give the people what they want”, they played it again for the next two games as well.
Fast forward a few years, and Major League Baseball decided to move the song to the beginning of the game instead. This led the NFL to create a policy that it would be played before every kickoff in 1945. From there it spread to virtually every other professional and amateur league as well.
What sticks out about those dates, for anyone with a passing knowledge of high school history, is that they coincided with both World War 1 and 2. So the anthem was a way to show national pride and support to the troops who were overseas fighting. In fact many of the players in the major sports leagues actually WERE overseas fighting at that time as well (Ty Cobb, Yogi Berra etc.). Hence where we get into the messy military & freedom debate when it comes to the Star Spangled Banner.
That being said, to say that things in society haven’t changed in the last 80+ years is the equivalent to sticking your head in the sand. There are far more factors at play with the anthem controversy than just “supporting the troops” and to argue otherwise is taking a willfully ignorant approach to the situation. If it were that black and white, you’d have the backing of veterans around the world in unanimous support of the anthem. Instead, we see former Green Berets, Purple Heart recipients, Navy SEALs and more retreating to the same corners as the rest of the civilian population. Some in favour of the anthem, others siding with the peaceful protesters.
Whatever your stance, the situation in Dallas bears monitoring as this is likely just the tip of the iceberg we’re witnessing. Will other teams begin to adopt similar policies? Or will the league intervene and mandate the anthem before all NBA games? Heck, we just had the Super Bowl this past weekend where betting on the anthem length was one of the most heavily wagered aspects of the game.
Personally I’d like to see the anthem moved to international competition only. Olympic qualifiers, international friendlies, events where athletes are representing their countries and not just a regional amateur/pro sports franchise. Do you have to agree with me? Absolutely not, nor am I asking you to convert to my way of thinking. What everyone should be doing however, regardless of which side of the fence you fall on, is at least taking some time to think critically about the situation before jumping to conclusions. There’s been far too much division across the globe this past decade, where people think they have no common ground with the other side.
So buckle up for a fun news week ahead. This headline will likely be making the rounds on every sports media talk show, and opinion section in North America at some point. At least after reading this you know what’s going on in Dallas and the facts behind how anthems and sports got intertwined. What you choose to do with them is ultimately up to you.
-Kyle Skinner
Twitter: @dynessports