A woman sitting a few rows in front of us at a Georgia football game several years ago snatched a young man's baseball cap off his head and tossed it on the ground in front of him when he failed to remove the cap for the national anthem.

After the Redcoat Band finished playing, the man picked up his hat and turned to confront the woman. But she didn't back down.

"You should be ashamed of yourself," she said. "I'm sure your parents taught you better."

I've thought about this incident a lot in the last few days in light of the criticism being directed at Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama for his failure to put his hand over his heart when "The Star-Spangled Banner" is played.

It's not that I don't think the criticism of Obama is warranted. I always place my hand -- and my baseball cap -- over my heart while the song is being played, and I never understand why others don't, too.

But Obama, at least in the video I've seen of him, does stand at attention with his eyes fixed on the flag while the anthem is played. I've seen far more offensive behavior from people.

I go to a lot of sporting events where the national anthem is played, and I'm always amazed at the way some people act. They keep moving through the stands looking for their seats. They talk on their cell phones. They chat with their friends. They, like the fellow in Athens, keep their hats firmly atop their heads.

I suppose some of this is only natural. We play the national anthem before the start of virtually every sporting event in this country. Perhaps the national anthem doesn't get the reverence it deserves because we don't treat it with reverence. Perhaps many of us -- like the man in the hat -- are beginning to take the song for granted.

Occasionally, when an incident like the one with Obama comes up, it gets people talking about how we really need a new national anthem. "The Star-Spangled Banner," they say, is hard to sing because of the vocal range it requires, which is true enough.

One of the traditions at Sanford Stadium is that the crowd sings the national anthem, which I always do. But I usually just mumble my way through the high part about the "rockets' red glare" because if I attempt to sing something that high I might hurt something. And when I say hurt something, I mean the ears of the person in front of me.

Apparently, too, the words to "The Star-Spangled Banner" must be hard for people to remember because I've seen enough people butcher the words -- Roseanne Barr and Carl Lewis immediately leap to mind -- that I thought they might change the name of the song to "The Star-Mangled Banner."

What bothers me most, though, is the way some people try to turn the national anthem into their own personal anthem. "The Star-Spangled Banner" is not a hip-hop song. It's not a bluegrass song. It shouldn't be sung so slowly and soulfully that it sounds like a funeral dirge.

Instead, "The Star-Spangled Banner" is an upbeat, uplifting song. If you don't believe me, try listening to the words the next time it's sung. It tells the story of a highly emotional moment in our history when the war with the British was being fought at Fort McHenry and, at the end of the bombing, one man was proud to see "that our flag was still there."

Some people say "God Bless America" or "America, the Beautiful" would make better national anthems. They say those songs are easier to sing, and if we'd change the national anthem, more people would be moved to sing it, and the national anthem would regain the respect and attention it deserves.

I don't buy it. No matter what song we choose to call the national anthem, where we choose to play it or how well any of us can sing it, we should show the song respect. A lot of brave men and women have died fighting for our right to play it.

As far as singing along, we ought to gladly do that, too, the difficulty of the high notes not withstanding.
I don't think Obama or the man in the hat are necessarily un-American because they don't put their hands over their heart or take off their hats. But they aren't recognizing what the national anthem is or what it stands for.

And they should.

Mitch Clarke is executive editor of The Times. His column appears Sundays in The Times. First published March 23, 2008.