The N.F.L. wears patriotism on its sleeve. And its head. And its feet.
At noon in the parking lot outside a Carolina Panthers game in November, Dean Nass, 64, pressed a button on his laptop. “The Star Spangled Banner” began to play. His friends and family — 15 in all — put down their barbecued chicken, potato salad and cans of beer and stood at attention.
How the league and its players express their patriotism became a fraught issue in 2016, when Colin Kaepernick, then a quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, knelt during the playing of the national anthem to raise awareness of police brutality against African Americans . A handful of other players followed his example.
Story continues“The flag should not be used for advertising,” said David Janik, president of the National Flag Day Foundation, an advisory group in Waubeka, Wisconsin, “but the flag displayed in all respectful manners I believe is fine.” The patriotic gestures can even extend to fan-driven actions off the field as well. At a game between the Panthers and the Tennessee Titans in early November, three teenagers dressed in fatigues moved from tailgate to tailgate, collecting donations in a boot for wreaths that would be laid on the graves of war veterans.
At the Panthers game, Bart Bazquez, a Marine, used his phone to take pictures of his friend Thomas Garza, also a Marine, as he posed by a fountain with a Marine Corps embroidered flag. “I think people see football players how they see military,” Garza said, “watching them from a distance, idolizing them.”
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