How does that United Center star spangled banner yet wave?

By Susan S. Stevens

The American flag begins blowing gently—indoors—as if a peaceful breeze buffeted it each time the national anthem starting the Bulls and Blackhawks games at the United Center reaches the verse: O say, does that star spangled banner yet wave O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave Ever wonder how that happens? A man, a switch, and two electric fans are responsible for waving the flag at the appropriate moment.

Brady Tieman, the United Center’s technical productions coordinator, hits the switch most of the time.

“We made sure to get black colored electric fans, so they are hard to see from the seating area,” said Tieman, who has been on the job since the United Center opened in 1994. He, too, is hidden from the spectators. Tieman operates the fans, which are about 18 inches in diameter, by remote control from downstairs in the laser control room on the seventh floor.

“He hits the button and triggers the fans,” said Ben Broder, Blackhawks game operations director. Tieman also creates the light show that puts lasers on each player as he enters the ice or court and produces elaborate logos in the center of the playing area.

“They have done the flag thing every time since the building opened,” Broder said. “It is a tradition that was brought from across the street.” The custom began sometime in the distant past at the old Chicago Stadium.

At the United Center, “we mounted two fans in the catwalk” for that purpose, Broder said. “Basically, those fans go on only for about five seconds.”

When the United Center opened, the electric fans waved the flag throughout the Star Spangled Banner at Blackhawks games at the team’s request. Tieman volunteered to begin waving it at the end of the anthem at the Bulls games. The Blackhawks liked that more subdued wave and requested the same treatment.

Tieman hits the switch when he hears the song approach the right words. The waving flag triggers enthusiasm in the seats, he said, noting, “The cheering from the audience does seem to pick up when the flag starts waving.”

Francis Scott Key wrote the words of the national anthem in September 1814 after he saw the U.S. flag still waving following the British bombardment of Fort McHenry. Key’s poem later was set to music, and Congress proclaimed the song the national anthem in 1931. The Fort McHenry flag still hangs in the Smithsonian Institution’s American History Museum.

The indoor flag at the United Center waves electronically.