Athletic Aesthetic author Luc Anthony dislays his croon power at an Express game in Carson Park.

There have been many legendary sportswriters throughout history. However, not many can claim to have sung our country’s national anthem at a sporting event. Have you seen Frank Deford belting out on the field before a baseball game? Sid Hartman gracing the Target Center court with his dulcet tones? Ron Buckli getting the North-Memorial football crowd revved-up with his rendition of the anthem? While I may not yet have approached the status of “legend” that the aforementioned writers have achieved, one feat for which they can collectively look up to me is the singing of The Star-Spangled Banner at a game.

In addition to churning out this Volume One column and otherwise serving as a radio personality and an area pseudo-mini-celebrity, I sing. I’ve been in organized choirs almost every year of my life since middle school. Naturally, a few years ago, I pondered singing the anthem for the Eau Claire Express, and they signed me up to sing for them before one of their games. Several years and several anthems later, I still haven’t screwed up the words or gotten too pitchy, as Randy Jackson would say.

Singing the national anthem is a critical element of sports in our (or any) culture. Not only does the national anthem give fans the opportunity to pay respect to the home nation of the team involved, but it serves as a launching pad to the commencement of the match.

Since the odds say that you likely never have and never will sing the national anthem during a sporting event, this column will provide insight into the experience. My most recent example involves the 2009 season opener for the Express at Carson Park.

This may be the one song you cannot mangle; after all, the song is about our country. I would be more easily forgiven for mixing-up the words to Happy Birthday than The Star-Spangled Banner. Complicating the matter, the anthem is not the easiest song to sing, between a melody covering one-and-a-half octaves, and lyrics that can be easy to swap (gleaming and streaming, light and fight).

When the time comes to sing, I walk through the mini-tunnel past the Express dugout and get handed a wireless microphone. Up the steps to the warning track, and the waiting begins. I’ll spend some of those 10 or so minutes singing the anthem out loud on the field – there is enough ambient noise that only I can hear myself sing. I keep reminding myself of the logical order of the words, the “story” of the song.

Walking out to the field at Carson Park, the PA announcer introducing me, I see the baseball players lining each foul line, caps at their chest, with the umpires straddling home plate. I stand behind the umps, locking my vision on the American flag. This is a good point of reference, not only to remind myself of what I sing about, but also to keep my focus on a successful sing-through. I sing the first note away from the microphone to make sure I have the right pitch, then bring up the mic to start. It’s showtime.

At one point, I catch myself over-thinking what I’m singing, and there is a brief moment of panic: Do I know the next phrase? The difficult section of memorized lyrics is finished once I get to “the rocket’s red glare,” and the rest of the song is smooth sailing. The feeling of being in command of the song in front of a stadium’s worth of fans and players is truly awesome.

I finish. The applause starts. A few of the field personnel give congratulations as I walk off and down the stairs by the dugout. This is when I can relax, the anthem having been done right. No worries about a video clip of my rendition joining the likes of Roseanne Barr and Carl Lewis on YouTube.

Singing the national anthem may be as close as I get to being in the field action in a game. Yet it is a critical ingredient, one in which I am honored to have taken part. It is only appropriate that this sportswriter provide the aesthetics for the athletics.