One of the podcasts I listen to regularly is a weekly NPR commentary on sports by Frank Deford. He chooses topics well, uses words wisely, and has a very good voice. But this one, I thought, was really bad: Deford argues that the national anthem shouldn’t be played before sporting events. His reasoning seems threefold: 1) We don’t do it before Broadway shows and other events, so why sports? 2) It’s “forced patriotism.” 3) It would be more meaningful if we did it less often.

But I would wager that the reason why so many Americans know the words to the national anthem is because we’ve heard it played so often — at sporting events. If we only played it once or twice per year, it would slip out of public memory and be forgotten, or at best dimly recollected. Sports is an important part of our culture, and playing the national anthem before sporting events is the vehicle through which we transfer one element of our patriotism.