Oh say can you see

i'd say more times than not while doing high school football color on the rinky-dink radio that we'd get caught mid-stream by the anthem. play-by-play guy always kept on giving the starting lineups, etc. and i always felt a little uncomfortable. so what's the rule with radio? would be great if we could time the ad breaks for during the anthem but that was controlled by an old geezer back at the station.

 

that happened to me several times when I did radio. "Here's the starting lineups for the Bumblefuck Dragon, decked out in their road orange tops with red trim and yellow numbers. At guard, a 4-foot-6 senior ... " Cue NA...

I would just stop midsentence and let the NA play. I usually instructed my producer to go ahead with a break and we'd come back in 2 minutes to cover it up. If the right guy was in the booth, it would be fine. But there was this one kid...

I think that's the best way you can do it if you have the right guy back at the station.

 

Trust me, there's a danger at a prep football or basketball game of letting a PE instructor handle a CD player. I have one school in particular that can never get the damn stereo to work without fiddling with it for five minutes.

These games start late enough on deadline, but after five minutes of fiddling with the damn electronics, let's just say the pledge of allegiance and get on with it.

 

Best description I've heard was Cleveland Cavs announcer Joe Tate, when after the improv anthem was sung in Chicago.
"That was Martha Smith with the National Anthem just about the way you'd expect to hear it at 3 a.m. in a Chicago nightclub."

That being said. I stand. Always have. Always will. You may not like the anthem, and you may not like the rendetion of it. Get beyond that and realize what it means. Hell, I get chills each time I hear it. It makes me proud, and I never was in the service. Respecting the anthem is respecting those who serve for us.

 

I clench my fists, shut my eyes and recite passages from the Quran.

No. No. I just stand and put my hand or hat on my left breast.

Has anyone dealt with multiple renditions at one event? I see that quite a bit these days. I've seen where they'll do back-to-back games and have two anthems for those who didn't attend the first game. I was at a softball game that started an hour before the baseball game. The umps stopped play when the anthem began 30 yards away on the baseball field.

 

I stand. I enjoy hearing the song not necessarily the singers. If I have to be on the phone (scratches for hockey), I tell the guy on the other end to hold on and put the phone down.

 

Ideally, two minutes should be the high end. Ninty seconds would be better. It's a patriotic drinking song ... not a funeral dirge, country ballad or operatic number.

If you must embellish, there can be only one:

 

I hear the damn thing so often I don't even think about it. I'll stand because of habit, but most of the time I won't take my eyes off my computer or the teams to see what they're doing.

I consider myself a pretty good american -- vote pretty consistently, etc. -- but I don't give a shit about the national anthem any more. And I don't care about it before a game. 99 percent of the time, it doesn't mean anything other than habit.

 

A pre-event prayer?

I'd snap if some high school tried that shit.

 

What a good guest you must be.

 

Come to my neck of the woods. If there isn't one, I'm shocked.

 

Obviously, you've never been to a game between two Catholic high schools.
I typically stand. If it's a high school game and they're playing a recording, I'll sing along. If it's a kid, I just listen and pray they don't pull a Robert Goulet.
But then, I was part of a group that sang the National Anthem at high school and college sporting events.
True story: The tape recorder busted at a high school game (thus precipitating the group to sing), and the official scorer led us in the pledge of allegiance.