This article was written by Karen Crouse and published on Sport & State, a new media company founded by Clay Travis that is built around sports, culture, original voices, and live conversation.* * * * *
Players for the Atlanta Dream and Golden State Valkyries will walk the carpet and strut their fashion choices ahead of Monday’s Game 2 of the WNBA Finals in a show produced by E! and USA Network. But when it comes to the more time-honored pregame ritual of standing for the national anthem, neither team can be bothered with that.
It’s mutually incompatible for the players to embrace their abilities to express their personalities through their wardrobe choices while rejecting the musical expression of the sacrifices and value system that make possible the basic freedom of expression that is dressing however one pleases.
To borrow from William Shakespeare in Hamlet’s first soliloquy, Sanctimony, thy name is Women’s National Basketball Association.
The practice of WNBA teams skipping the national anthem can be traced back several years, to the 2020 season, played amid the sometimes-violent reverberations from George Floyd’s death. I’ve seen it described in passing in stories from the distant past as a silent protest for social justice.
But if the league’s players were so keen, so committed, to literally turning their backs on the national anthem, and the history and unity and shared values it represents, why did they not insist on a rule change, to make the playing of the national anthem optional, in their new collective bargaining agreement this year?
As noted by Outkick reporter Dan Zaksheske, the 2026 WNBA rulebook describes the protocol for players, coaches and trainers during the playing of the national anthem. They are to stand and line up in a dignified posture along the sidelines or foul line while the anthem plays.
The WNBA’s own rulebook says players, coaches and trainers are to stand and line up for the national anthem.
Both Finals teams left the court before the Game 1 anthem and returned seconds after it ended.
We asked the league and both teams to explain.
None answered. https://t.co/yrmyYXgD6D
— Dan Zaksheske (@RealDanZak) October 19, 2026
If they aren’t on the court, is the rule null and void? I’ve heard that argument, which is akin to explaining to the police officer who has stopped you for speeding, “My car is self-driving, so you can’t give me a ticket because I was technically not the one speeding.”
What WNBA officials or administrators for both Finals teams have to say about this practice is anybody’s guess. Despite several inquiries, they have remained mum. I emailed representatives from both the Dream and Valkyries to ask them for comment and joined a growing list of journalists who received no response.
The Dream and Valkyries open the WNBA Finals by heading for the exits during the national anthem https://t.co/oCWRl9x6eq
— OutKick (@Outkick) October 17, 2026
If they think the questions will go away if they continue to ignore them — which seems to be their default approach to most inquiries, including what the “W” in WNBA stands for — they have badly miscalculated the reverence many people aside from them have for the national anthem.
Anthem History Lesson
Perhaps a short history lesson is in order. According to Marc Ferris, author of Star-Spangled Banner: The Unlikely Story of America’s National Anthem, the earliest documented performance of it at a sporting event was during the inaugural baseball game played at Union Base Ball and Cricket Grounds in Brooklyn, New York, on May 15, 1862. But because it was expensive to hire a band to play the anthem, it was reserved for holidays and special occasions like opening day.
Then came the 1918 World Series, between the Boston Red Sox and the Chicago Cubs, which was due to start a little over a month after World War I erupted. Out of respect for the soldiers who had already been deployed, baseball officials discussed canceling the series.
The decision was made to go ahead with it after American troops fighting in France conveyed that hearing the Series’ results gave them something to look forward to and brought a comforting piece of home to the battlefield.
In its dispatch from Game 1, The New York Times led with the playing of the national anthem, writing, in part: “First the song was taken up by a few, then others joined, and when the final notes came, a great volume of melody rolled across the field. It was at the very end that the onlookers exploded into thunderous applause and rent the air with a cheer that marked the highest point of the day’s enthusiasm.”
Because of its patriotic beat, the anthem was played regularly during NFL games as World War II raged. After the war ended, the NFL commissioner at the time, Elmer Layden, call for the league’s teams to continue playing it because, as he explained, “We should never forget what it stands for.”
Patriotic Family Ties
One would think that Golden State forward Kayla Thornton would be cognizant of what the national anthem stands for. Thornton was born on a US military base in Frankfurt, Germany, where her father, Lewis Thornton, now retired from service, was a US military officer.
Ditto Atlanta forward Naz Hillmon, whose great grandfather on her mother’s side served in the US Army and whose grandfather was in the US Air Force. Or her teammate, the guard Allisha Gray, whose father, Allen Gray, has been in the US military.
Oh, brother, shouldn’t the national anthem also mean something a little extra to Atlanta’s Te-Hina Paopao, whose brother Kyle is the quarterbacks coach for the US Coast Guard Academy’s football program, and Golden State’s Kiah Stokes, whose brother Darius was an assistant coach for the United States Military Academy’s men’s basketball team in 2023-24?
Then again, A’ja Wilson, the reigning league MVP from Las Vegas, got her middle name, Riyadh, in honor of her mother’s older sister Janne who was stationed in Saudi Arabia during Operation Desert Storm, and the Aces were another team in the postseason that made themselves scarce during the national anthem.
Wilson’s aunt, the student-athletes coached by the brothers of Paopao and Stokes, the fathers of Thornton and Gray and the forebears of Hillmon all served so the rest of us can take for granted such freedoms as dressing however pleases us, pursuing whatever romantic partners make us happy, and engaging in whatever work fulfills us. Would it be so hard to pay them back by standing tall, hand over heart, while the national anthem plays?
.png)
.png)
