Watch: Son of 2 Boston Cops Teaches NFL Players What To Do When the Anthem Plays
Remember when the newsworthy stuff during an NFL game used to happen after the national anthem was played? Yeah, me neither.
Even when Whitney Houston nailed “The Star-Spangled Banner” before Super Bowl XXV, Scott Norwood’s dodgy kicking managed to upstage (or downstage, depending on whether you’re a Bills fan) what was arguably the finest rendition of the anthem ever performed at a football game.
But, no, it’s yet another NFL season where what happens on the field is going to take a back seat to whether some Noam Chomsky in shoulder pads decides that he’s going to turn the national anthem into his personal platform to make a statement.
What kind of statement? Well, uh, racial injustice. Donald Trump is bad. Something something privilege, blah blah blah, and therefore, America was never great.
Well, whatever. Thankfully, there are still people out there who know what the national anthem means to patriotic Americans, particularly those who have served. And some of them are barely even out of diapers.
Take this video of Garrett, who’s the son of two Boston police officers. He was at a Patriots game recently — and, unlike a lot of the other players, he knew how to properly honor the flag and the anthem:
Watch as Little Garrett, the son of two Boston Police Officers, sings along with Officer Kim Tavares to the National Anthem! Little Garrett may have what it takes for a call to back up in Cop-Pool Karaoke! pic.twitter.com/WblD8Zr77C
— Boston Police Dept. (@bostonpolice) August 17, 2018
“Little Garrett may have what it takes for a call to back up in Cop-Pool Karaoke!” the tweet from the Boston Police Department read.
And, as Independent Journal Review pointed out, Garrett had a lot of fans:
Love it , great job parents !
— Mennes (@Mennes13) August 18, 2018
https://twitter.com/md_steeler_fan/status/1030957423908020227
Heck, even I like this kid, and he’s a Patriots fan. (I won’t say who I root for outright, but I’ll just point out that I made the Norwood reference and my wife had to talk me out of getting a personalized license plate that read “18-1.”)
Of course, this is the kind of thing we should be talking about these days — cute kids singing the anthem, and not in politicized terms.
We should be talking about great players making great plays, not their political opinions.
We should be talking about sports uniting us, not being used as a platform for formless political ideas.
We should be talking about amazing moments like this (if the video doesn’t start, click on the YouTube link):
https://youtu.be/U10h0YTmxjQ
Wait, what? How did that get in there? Talk about lax editorial control…
Alas, that was a simpler time — a time when we just talked about a guy making an amazing catch to win the Super Bowl. (And then later talked about him shooting himself in the leg in a nightclub, but hey.)
Now, we talk about the anthem. Not the play on the field, just the mere fact of asking rich athletes to give some love to the country that’s made them so rich. At least this kid knows how to pay proper respect to his country.
The good thing is that there are plenty more like him.
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