Celebrating Independence Day - My 5 Favourite American Sporting Experiences

It’s the 4th of July, the day the United States of America signed it’s Declaration of Independence, which remains, to this day, one of the most historically important documents in the world. In honour of this important day, here, in no particular order, are five can’t-miss American sporting experiences:


A Yankees Game in the Bronx

Regrettably, a visit to Yankee Stadium in the Bronx no longer means visiting the ground graced by baseball legends like Joe DiMaggio, Babe Ruth or Lou Gehrig. The old Yankee Stadium was demolished a few years ago, in favour of a new venue that at least tries to copy the charm of the old field whilst catering to corporate types, whose facilities in Old Yankee Stadium were far behind other Major League venues.

So, Yankee Stadium is the House that Jeter Built, but the Yankees, as an organisation, have done a good job memorialising some of their – and baseball’s – biggest names. Visit Monument Park, an open-air museum  beyond the centre-field fence, a wonderful place to enjoy and discover the rich history of the Yankees that contains a collection of plaques, monuments and retired numbers honoring so many legends. It’s an honour unlike many others in baseball, perhaps second only (for Yankees, anyway) to being inducted into the Pro Baseball Hall of Fame.

College football at Michigan Stadium

You haven’t seen college football until you’ve see it at Michigan Stadium! The Big House, as it’s colloquially known, is America’s largest sporting venue holds more than 113,000 souls on game days each fall, and is one of the most recognisable sporting cathedrals. It helps that the tenants, the University of Michigan Wolverines, are one of the nation’s most successful Division 1 football programs.

Even in the years when the Wolverines aren’t doing that well, seeing a game up in Ann Arbor is still one of the great sports experiences you can have. Michigan takes the usual colour and tradition that’s become synonymous with college football and raises the bar. Their student section is immense, their marching band extraordinary and their pre-game ceremony is as good as anywhere else in the country.

Michigan’s century-long tussle with Ohio State brings what is simply known as The Game to the Big House once every two years, and if you’re lucky enough to be at one of these heated contests – as I was last year – it’s a day you’ll never forget.

Any Event at Madison Square Garden

The World’s Most Famous Arena is home to an NBA franchise (the Knicks), an NHL team (the Rangers) and a WNBA outfit as well, and although both the Rangers and Knicks are perennially under-achieving and a source of great frustration to their long-suffering but rusted-on fans, simply being inside Madison Square Garden to watch a sporting contest is a must-see experience in one of America’s must-see cities.

Sitting on Broadway, right in the heart of Midtown, a circular cake tin-like structure that rises above the immense Pennsylvania Station, the Garden is crammed in with more sporting (and showbiz, for that matter) tradition than you can poke a stick at.

Yes, the moniker ‘The World’s Most Famous Arena’ is a publicist’s creation, but there’s an element of truth to it. There’s been epic boxing title fights, Michael Jordan dropped 50 on the hardwood, Wayne Gretzky lit up the ice in the latter years of his career and for so many New Yorkers the memories of the Rangers memorable run to the 1994 Stanley Cup Final will not fade anytime soon.

It almost doesn’t matter what you watch at the Garden – and there are some wonderful college hockey and basketball events sandwiched around the busy schedules of the pro teams who call the Garden home – because of the tradition. Even the most ardent, perpetually-disappointed Knicks or Rangers fan will tell you that the Garden is a magical place.

The Indianapolis 500

Yes, IndyCar racing’s national popularity has slipped into the abyss since the disastrous war for the fans between the Indy Racing League and the ChampCar World Series, from which a now-unified IndyCar Series is struggling for real prominence in the face of the NASCAR juggernaut, but there’s no mistaking the importance, tradition and continuing international impact of the Indianapolis 500, held at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, formerly a brick pit, each May on the Sunday before Memorial Day.

There’s nothing like seeing thirty-three cars lined up in eleven rows of three coming off the final corner and down the front straight at Indianapolis, over the symbolic yard of bricks beneath the flag stand, ready to take the green. Actually, maybe there is: the moment soon after, when those cars dice and overtake heading into a tight Turn One, with fans on both sides, a veritable canyon of humanity. It’s jaw-dropping.

Although the Speedway has never published attendance numbers, best estimates from those in the know suggest that crowds on race day are upwards of 200,000 people, including permanent seating and campers spread around the 2.5-mile superspeedway on the corner of 16th and Georgetown in Speedway, Indiana. That figure, even if it’s out by a couple of thousand, still leaves the Indy 500 as the world’s biggest single-day sporting event.

Then there’s the immense tradition and prestige of winning the Indianapolis 500. Some of racing’s biggest names have triumphed at the Speedway: American icons AJ Foyt and Mario Andretti amongst them.

High school football

I’d argue that there isn’t a more quintessentially American experience than heading out on a cool Friday night to a high school to watch a game under those bright lights, sitting on cold, uncomfortable bleachers – or standing, as most people seem to do – eating a hot dog and sipping a Coke that you bought from the canteen staffed by volunteers trying to raise some more money for their school. I’ve been a part of it three times: in Virginia, Idaho and Michigan. There’s nothing like it.

In some ways, the nation’s obsession with high school football is a little weird – these are young kids we’re talking about, with enormous pressure heaped on their young shoulders – but the idea of Friday nights on the gridiron is a part of life, and it always will be.

This is particularly so in football-mad Texas, where the acclaimed and impossibly brilliant television show Friday Night Lights wasn’t exaggerating the importance of high school football in the Lone Star State, and it’s the same up in Ohio. If anything, FNL probably undersold the rabid fascination for a bunch of young kids playing on Friday nights.

In both Texas and Ohio, it isn’t uncommon for crowds that rival the size of NFL or college attendances – 40,000 and above – to turn out to high school contests.

Celebrating Independence Day - My 5 Favourite Songs About America

Another Independenc Day and, specifically, the Facebook and Twitter posts that have dominated my timeline today - fireworks, Budweiser, road trips and lake-side cabins - got me thinking about some of my favourite songs about America. 

Then, in my head, I tried to rank them in a Top Five. Mostly, it was unsuccessful, because, amongst a heap of epic, well-written tributes to the good (and bad) of America, putting my five favourites in any particular order isn't easy.

First, some honourable mentions:

Toby Keith - "American Soldier"
Halestorm - "American Boys"
Kenny Chesney - "I Go Back"
Kid Rock - "Born Free"
John Mellencamp - "R.O.C.K. in the USA"
Uncle Kracker - "My Hometown"
Richie Sambora - "Made In America"
Lynyrd Skynyrd - "Sweet Home Alabama"
Eric Church - "Springsteen"
Alabama - "Dixieland Delight"

Alright, here in no particular order, are my Top 5 favourite songs about the USA. Happy Birthday, America!

Toby Keith - "Made in America"

Key Lyric:  "He's got the red, white, and blue flyin' high on the farm, Semper Fi tattooed on his left arm"

The country artist from Oklahoma is famous for his staunch patriotism and the conflict that sometimes follows with his fellow artists (most famously, the Dixie Chicks), so it made sense that Toby would honour America with a fist-pumping anthem that was the lead single from his 2011 release, Clancy's Tavern.

A sure-fire crowd-pleaser wherever Keith plays, the song strays towards the sort of arena rock, albeit with a slight country leaning, and tells the story of a farmer (a United States Marine Corps veteran) and his wife, a schoolteacher, who are fervent American patriots, bemoaning the lack of American-made products available, in comparison to imported goods.

Bruce Springsteen - "Born in the USA"

Key Lyric: "Got in a little hometown jam, so they put a rifle in my hand. Sent me off to a foreign land, to go and kill the yellow man"

Not the pro-American anthem that most people thought it was, the title track to one of Springsteen's most popular and highest-selling albums the Boss, America's favourite working-class hero, would ever release, and certainly one of the more angry tracks on an otherwise upbeat and positive 1985 release, particularly in comparison to his previous release, the dark Nebraska.

Despite it's fist-pumping chorus (that's been used out of context ever since) "Born in the USA" is an angry song about the affects of the Vietnam War on those who went over...and those who came back from that ugly, faraway conflict a different person, unrecognisable to their friends and families. Springsteen's powerhouse delivery is as good as it gets in music.

Neil Diamond - "America"

Key Lyric: "Every time that flag's unfurled, they're coming to America"

Otherwise known as "They're Coming To America", this bombastic (as only the Hot August Nights singer can sing) ode to the hundreds of thousands of immigrants who led so much strife and hardship in their own countries (particularly in Europe after the two World Wars), seeking a new beginning in the USA, which was very much seen as the Land of Opportunity in those days. Unlike some other songs on the subject, this is a positive one, with soaring choruses and strong verses. Hard not to think of Ellis Island when I listen to this one.

Arguably the most patriotic song Neil Diamond has ever written, America was originally recorded for the 1980 remake of the The Jazz Singer, and incorporates the traditional patriotic song "My Country, 'Tis of Thee" at the end.

Following the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Centre, Diamond modified the lyrics to the song when he performed it live. Instead of singing, "They're comin' to America" near the end of the song, he now sings "Stand Up For America".

Brad Paisley - "Southern Comfort Zone"

Key Lyric: "Oh, Dixie Land, I hope you understand. When I miss my Tennessee Home, and I've been away way too long, I can't see this world unless I go, outside my Southern Comfort Zone"

I don't mind a bit of modern country, but Brad Paisley - also, a fantastic guitarist to rival anyone else going around in any genre of music at the moment - is about the furthest from modern country as there is in Nashville, so I'd never heard this song until a friend from Tennessee set me onto it. 

Through an impressive video clip that takes him to a lot of places far from his southern comfort zone, Paisley spins (somewhat clichéd, but certainly still true) imagery of the southern states of America and all the things that make it so unique a sort of homesick homage from someone who's departed their southern comfort zone. 

Ironically, so has the friend who turned me towards the YouTube clip. Written as a love letter from a southerner far away from everything he knows, I can see how it might make her feel. 

Rodney Atkins - "It's America"

No political motivation here, just a good, anthemic song, with an electric banjo backing that was Atkins' fifth #1 hit on the Billboard Country Charts, the song, written by Brett James & Angelo Petraglia, features Atkins talking about all the things he loves about small-town America, from kids selling lemonade from a stand outside their house, to prom nights, Chevrolet muscle cars and, of course, everyone's favourite American musical hero, Bruce Springsteen.

Yeah, maybe it's formulaic and not a particularly adventurous track lyrically, but it paints a nice picture of the best things about America, particularly in small towns from coast to coast, and is a staple on radio at this time of the year.