The Maryland Terrapins will wear football uniforms inspired by the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Baltimore and the writing of The Star-Spangled Banner when it hosts West Virginia at Byrd Stadium on Saturday at noon. The Terps will wear uniforms with the cursive script of Francis Scott Key’s poem “Defence of Fort McHenry,” which later became the national anthem, emblazoned on its helmets and jersey sleeves.
The school even did a product rollout photo shoot at nearby Ft. McHenry, and you can see some of the photos from that below. Note the helmet logo, which is the shape of the Fort, and also resembles a turtle at the same time.
Here at The Sports Bank, you get much more than just mindless copying and pasting. You get facts and history. Here are five things about our national anthem, the Star-Spangled Banner, that you didn’t know.
5. It’s author was an ancestor to F. Scott Fitzgerald
Yes, Francis Scott Key was a distant cousin and the namesake of F. Scott Fitzgerald, whose full name was actually Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald. So Fitz came from a family of some distinction and fame. It’s clear from visiting his boyhood home in Minnesota, and from all the Fitzgerald biographies that Scott emerged from a conflicted station in life. That ambivalence towards class and social status dominates all aspects of his writing.
And in his own life. He had the money and connections to get to Princeton, but he wasn’t old money like his classmates. Upon dropping out he had no money at all. And after achieving riches and fame on his own accord, he died at the age of just 44, desperately in need of money during the last years of his life. The man who’s famous quote “there are no second acts in American life” is probably the most iconic and significant of all American writers. “The Great Gatsby” embodies the catch-phrases “the great American novel” and “the American dream.”
4. The Star-Spangled Banner melody comes from an old drinking tune of England
Key wrote a poem “Defence of Fort McHenry.” The melody was taken from “To Anacreon In Heaven“, the official song of the Anacreontic Society, an 18th-century gentlemen’s club of amateur musicians in London. It’s attributed to the composer John Stafford Smith.
3. It’s not the only patriotic American song taken from a British anthem
You may have heard the England national anthem “God Save the Queen” during the World Cup. (not a whole lot though, as England crashed out badly from the tournament) You noticed that it’s the exact same song as “My country ‘Tis of thee.” The Brits adopted their tune in 1745, ours came along in 1831. It served as our national anthem before the Star Spangled Banner earned the role.
2. It proves that lawyers can actually write something catchy and appealing
There is nothing more painful on this Earth than reading a legal document. That’s intentional.
Lawyers don’t want you to read anything that’s composed in “legalese,” and it shows (Apple and their Itunes agreement is a perfect example). No human being can consume that horrible endeavor. However, Francis Scott Key was indeed a lawyer by trade and he just happened to be on the right battleship at the right time in American history when he got inspired.
This proves that lawyers can actually write something inspiring and compelling- when they wanted to.
1. It’s adoption as the national anthem was indirectly due to “Ripley’s Believe it or Not”
In 1929, Robert Ripley created a cartoon in Ripley’s Believe it or Not!, stating “Believe It or Not, America has no national anthem”. In 1931, John Philip Sousa publicly advocated for the Key’s tune, saying “it is the spirit of the music that inspires” as much as it is Key’s “soul-stirring” words. President Herbert Hoover then signed a law in 1931 declaring that ” The Star-Spangled Banner ” would be adopted as the national anthem of the United States of America.
Paul M. Banks owns and manages The Sports Bank.net, in partnership with Fox Sports and Yahoo. Read his feature stories in the Chicago Tribune RedEye edition. Listen to him Tuesdays on KOZN 1620 The Zone. Follow him on Twitter (@paulmbanks)