A Minnesota high school basketball team is going viral not only for allegedly taking a knee during the national anthem, but for losing by nearly 30 points after doing so.
Most of the Park Center High School basketball team took a knee before a home game against Eden Prairie on Feb. 24. Although the game took place nearly two weeks ago, footage began circulating last week, then took off on social media on Saturday. The clip eventually became one of X’s trending topics.
Park Center lost 87–61 for its fourth straight defeat. The Pirates are at least 5–20, though several games on their MaxPreps page are missing a final score. Park Center High School is located in Brooklyn Park, over 11 miles northwest of Minneapolis.
Although X posts claimed Park Center took a knee during the anthem, the viral videos featured audio of “God Bless the USA” by Lee Greenwood. However, that audio appears to have been edited in, as it does not sound like it came from arena loudspeakers.
Further information about what led to the protest is unclear. Taking a knee during the national anthem became popular in 2016, when then-San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick started the movement to protest police brutality.
A Minnesota high school basketball team consisting of all black players and one White, were all seen taking a knee when the national anthem was playing.
The result? They received massive backlash online and lost to the other team who proudly stood for the national anthem. pic.twitter.com/jsoesHNbJb
— Liberacrat™️ (@ViralVideos) March 8, 2026
Players and teams around the league eventually followed Kaepernick, who never played in the NFL again following that season. Kaepernick’s supporters claimed that the league’s 32 teams colluded not to sign him because they feared a distraction and backlash from their fans.
Kaepernick and former 49ers teammate Eric Reid reached a settlement in a collusion lawsuit against the NFL in February 2019.
Despite Kaepernick’s departure from the NFL, players and teams continued kneeling during the anthem for several years, with some citing President Donald Trump’s negative commentary on the protests as a reason for their actions. Trump infamously said in September 2017 that NFL owners should “get that son of a [expletive] off the field right now” and release any players who protested the anthem.
At no point did teams in any of the four major North American sports leagues — the NFL, NBA, MLB, and NHL — explicitly release players for kneeling during the anthem.
“I respect our teams’ unified act of peaceful protest for social justice and under these unique circumstances will not enforce our long-standing rule requiring standing during the playing of our national anthem.”
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver on teams kneeling, per @TheSteinLine. pic.twitter.com/yw1g4kSEWd
— Front Office Sports (@FOS) July 30, 2020
The anthem protests gained new life in 2020 following the police-involved death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, along with the subsequent protests nationwide. When sports returned in July after months-long pauses during the COVID-19 pandemic, players across all major North American sports resumed kneeling during the anthem, while some NFL players opted to sit or remain in the locker room.
Players across the four major sports typically no longer protest during the national anthem. However, the NFL has continued featuring phrases such as “End Racism” and “It Takes All of Us” at stadiums leaguewide.
Several championship-winning teams, including the gold medal-winning U.S. men’s Olympic hockey team, have since visited the White House following Trump’s return to office following his 2024 election victory over Kamala Harris.
