It was a great time to grow up during the 1950s. After a Depression, World War II and a war in Korea, Americans were getting back on their feet and feeling optimistic about their future. Factories were humming and farmers in our heartland — the nation’s breadbasket — spurred a nationwide recovery.

A contemporary movie that typified life in rural America at that time is “Hoosiers.” The David and Goliath sports story showed how a small school basketball team took down a giant city team for the Indiana state basketball championship.

Before the start of the final game, a barbershop quartet sings “The Star-Spangled Banner.” You could hear a pin drop in Indianapolis’ Butler Field House as the quartet finished the final stanza of the anthem.

That kind of respect for the anthem is seldom seen today. The crowd begins cheering and reaches a crescendo to drown out the final words — “home of the brave” — well before the anthem ends.

Since Colin Kaepernick and other athletes began using it as a platform for social injustice — elevating their cause against racism and economic disparity — the anthem itself has become a lightning rod of controversy.

Last week, in the last installment of a series on “Things We’d Change in Sports,” USA Today opined that it’s time to stop playing the national anthem before sporting events. The author, Nancy Armour, writes that playing the anthem before major sports events has become a lazy excuse for patriotism and standing at attention for two minutes no more proves love of country or gratitude for those who serve than wearing an American flag pin does.

After studying the crowd reactions, she determined that while there are some who stand quietly at attention with their hats off, many others are seen texting, taking photos, vaping, talking to their friends, looking for their seats or scanning the skies in anticipation of a flyover during “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

During World Wars I and II, baseball games became venues for large-scale displays of patriotism. By the time World War II was over, the pregame singing of the national anthem had become a baseball ritual, and it spread to other sports.

Armour admits that while the anthem can be a powerful unifier in times of crisis, as it was during the wars and after the attacks of 9/11 in 2001, it will take a lot more than a song to promote national unity and bridge this country’s great divide.

She doesn’t explain how, with all the polarization in America, we can even begin to bridge the divide. We would argue that there has never been a time when our nation has been more divided.

A sports venue is the one place where Americans should be able to put politics aside and unite, at least for the time it takes to play the game. Standing as one for “The Star-Spangled Banner” sets the tone for those few hours of unity.

Twelve days after the 9/11 attacks in 2001, the New York Giants played a football game in Kansas City. Former Giants running back Tiki Barber remembered how moving it was to be in a hostile fan environment and see Chiefs’ fans waving American flags and chanting of “U-S-A!” When players donned FDNY and NYPD hats on the sidelines, the game itself seemed secondary.

Barber later commented that he had been playing sports his entire life and heard the national anthem played many times before games but this was the first time he cried while listening to it.

“I’ve stood for the national anthem for years going back to when I was a kid. I think (after 9/11) I truly heard it for the first time,” Barber said.

If only more in elected leadership could hear the words of the anthem “for the first time,” we might be able to mend some of our differences. At least it’s a starting point to help unite us as a nation.

By Jim Zbick | tneditor@tnonline.com