Over the weekend, I attended the NBA’s first outdoor game, held in Indian Wells, CA just a few miles east of Palm Springs. The game featured an utterly boring preseason match between the Phoenix Suns and the Denver Nuggets. Although it was fun to see Steve Nash and Shaq, basically no one showed up fro the Nuggets mostly due to injuries. No Carmelo Anthony; no Allen Iverson; no Marcus Camby. And on the Phoenix side, Amare Stoudemaire is still recovering. What can I say? Oh, and the temperature plummeted to a brisk 50 degrees, making it feel more like a Pittsburgh Steelers game than an NBA one.

All that being said, something special happened. Before the game, a massive American flag was brought out and held over most of the court. I’m talking about a basketball court-sized flag. That’s big. That’s really big. It’s not uncommon to see these types of flags at professional sporting events, particularly tennis (which was actually the venue for the outdoor stadium). The special thing that happened was that I got chills during the national anthem. I’m entirely sure why. Maybe it was something as obvious as the sheer cold and wind that felt worse while standing up. But I think it was a visceral reminder that patriotism and national pride still exists. Perhaps I was alone in my feelings, but I don’t think this is the case. I bet others out there got chills as well.

These weeks leading up to the election have been filled with lots of smear politics. Whatever. Some folks are saying that the America’s youth have no national pride. I disagree. I think teens and young adults have been given little be proud of. Let’s pretend someone is 19 and voting for the first time. They have vague recollections of Bill Clinton and they were probably in 6th grade when September 11 happened. They have had the misfortune of associating the presidency with GW43. If a young adult only is aware of politics from a macro level, the things that come to mind are a president who is a poor public speaker, a failed war in the Middle East, and inability to catch the mastermind for arguably the worst unprovoked attack in American history, a devastated economy, rising food and gas prices, and total disrespect towards our nation on the international stage. But at least the Redeem Team earned us a Gold in basketball in Beijing. My point is, despite all the macro-level failures of our political leaders this century, I still argue that there is a deep-rooted believe that we can still be the greatest nation in the world. I don’t think we are right now. I think we’re like that 2004 basketball team in Athens that thought  we could dominate anyone and then lost in the first round to Puerto Rico en route to a bronze medal. Americans want America to be great again. There are still chills when we see the flag because it’s like our long forgotten friend. It’s a symbol of struggle and overcoming that struggle. It’s a reminder of the sacrifices people before us have paved so that we could have an easier way of life. It’s a reminder that our best days are still in front of us. And it’s a hope that temporary shortcomings will ultimately just be an irrelevant bleep in our nation’s history.

The desire to want to be more is not something that can be attained by watching political chatter on CNN or FOX News. It’s not even something teachers can impart to impressionable elementary school students. It’s something you pick up along the way in everyday life. As a country, we are tired of what’s been happening. Lots of folks are disagreeing these days on the solutions to the problems, but the consensus seems to be that WE CAN BE BETTER THAN WE ARE, AND WE WILL BE!