I have to assume that most of you reading this are sports fans, as this is the sports section. As sports fans, I assume that you’ve attended several live sporting events and watched more on TV.

You’ve probably realized that one commonality among almost all professional events (or at least the important ones) is the singing or playing of our national anthem. It’s been sung by pop stars, opera singers, Girl Scout troops, the latest “Idol” winner, little Billy who overcame lupus, and countless others.

Sometimes it seems like a mere formality, something perceived as necessary but essentially meaningless like a non-religious family say- ing grace before dinner. People lower their voices a bit and continue their chit-chat. And then they cheer—not for America’s anthem, but because it’s over and the game is starting. Other times, at the Army vs. Navy football game, for example, you have thousands of people intensely fixated on Old Glory, and not one word is uttered for two and a half minutes. Either way, I’ve always assumed that the “Star Spangled Banner” was a staple of American sports and American life in general, which is why a recent discovery of mine was so astounding.

I’ve come to understand that a cross-section of a typical American college is not exactly representative of the overall makeup of the United States. It’s younger, hipper, drunker, more technologically savvy, more liberal, and more arrogant. That’s pretty much common knowledge. From my three years at Pomona I’ve also learned that this cross-section is not even reflective of your average university. Everyone thinks they’re the cat’s pajamas, intellectually speaking. When some- one says “green” they don’t mean red’s complementary color, and Men’s Blue & White draws a larger, more raucous crowd than men’s basketball. It’s just different, and

I figured that our being different was a logical explanation for why many Pomona students admitted to not knowing the words to our national anthem. So I decided to do a little research.

The first time it came up in conversation I was talking to a couple girls, so I thought maybe it was a girl thing. Perhaps men are just more patriotic by nature. That must be it, I thought. Later on, however, I found a few boys who didn’t know the words either. Maybe not learning the lyrics was just some liberal hippy propaganda that hadn’t reached me yet. Whatever it was, it seemed to be pretty widespread across campus. For once I felt like I knew something that a lot of Pomona students did not (besides knowing what “juking” is and how to do it).

I called my house the other day, eager to expose my findings and try to make sense of this disturbing reality. I told my teenage sister and cousin in a can-you-believe-that sort of way. Turns out that they didn’t really know the words either. I was baffled at first, but then things snapped into focus. This wasn’t a Pomona or liberal or gender- specific phenomenon at all. It was sports-related. (By the way, it was comforting to know that Pomona is relatively normal after all. We just like to exaggerate our differences, even though we drink beer and rabble-rouse just like other college students. But that’s neither here nor there.)

Sports fans sit through the National Anthem before every game, so we all know the words. But when not watching sports, how often do we really hear the “Star-Spangled Banner?” All this time, I had thought that the lyrics to the National Anthem were seared indelibly into the memory of every man, woman, and child in America. But no. Evidently a large portion of the population—regardless of education level—has no idea what the words are.

Suddenly, my life didn’t make sense. Everyone knowing the words had always been a given, a sure thing in my mind. Do people actually hate apple pie, too? I had no idea how to respond to this. This wasn’t like when I admitted that I’d never seen “Titanic” or that time fresh- men year when I confessed that I had no idea who the band Dispatch was (people were stunned). This was the National Anthem, all that is good and right in the world condensed into eight lines of melodic perfection. And to find out that it had been reduced to a theme song was heartbreaking. No wonder so many performers forget the words. Outside of the sporting world, the significance of the National Anthem is almost nonexistent. Ipso facto, not liking sports is not only dumb, it’s un-American.