The winter sports season at the regional high school recently ended its run, which means Star-Spangled Banner season has also finished for Mary MacDonald.
Ms. MacDonald has been singing the Star-Spangled Banner at the boys and girls home basketball games for about 10 years. At approximately 20 home games per season, that puts her at easily over 200 performances.
“It’s a hard song,” she admitted, now in off-season mode back home in Oak Bluffs. “I’m an alto, so I have to start low in order to hit the high notes later. If not, it isn’t pretty.”
Ms. MacDonald grew up on the Island (maiden name McCarthy), graduating from the regional high school in 1975. She was a multi-sport athlete and member of the high school choral group the Minnesingers, so the marriage of music and sports could be chalked up to a natural progression. But her first performance was done on a whim. At the time she was a guidance counselor at the regional high school and coach of the girls basketball team. She led the team from 1996 to 2006, and retired from her guidance counselor position in 2019.
“I just wanted to surprise my team,” she said of the first time she sang the song in the gym. “They didn’t know I was going to do it. I just grabbed the mic before the game and surprised them.”
Ms. MacDonald sang a few more times that season but quickly realized the dual role of coach trying to get the team ready for the game, and singer of the Star-Spangled Banner was too much for her nerves.
“My stomach was in my throat the whole time,” she said.
It wasn’t until about 2013 that she stepped back into the role, singing for all the home boys and girls basketball games. Part of her reason for becoming the go-to performer was expediency. She was already in the gym, not as coach now but as the announcer and keeper of the 30-second clock. Her brother Mark McCarthy is the athletic director and was forever trying to line up singers, who often fell through at the last minute.
“So I figured it was easier for me to just do it,” Ms. MacDonald said.
She has also moonlighted at the occasional football and soccer games, and a few hockey games but realized she didn’t like singing in the cold. And for the last six years she has sung the national anthem at the Island’s Veterans Day service.
But basketball season brings with it a regular gig, singing a few days a week at times, sometimes to nearly empty stands, particularly early in the season. But when a team makes a run and surges in the playoffs, like the boys basketball team did this year, it’s a full house.
“I don’t typically get nervous anymore because I’ve done it so much, but when the gym started to fill up for the playoff game, I started thinking, oh man, there’s a lot of people out there. I started drinking a lot of water.”
Her husband Russell MacDonald feels that she sings best when the gym is packed. And he should know, having witnessed nearly every one of his wife’s performances, in close proximity. Mr. MacDonald is a retired physical education teacher at the regional high school and he keeps score at all of the home boys and girls basketball games.
“There’s a difference between when there’s two people in the crowd and when it’s full,” he said. “She takes the energy from the crowd.”
When asked if she checks out celebrity performances to get any tips, Mrs. MacDonald shook her head.
“I have tried to vary it sometimes but mostly I don’t want to get fancy,” she said. “It’s a great song, but I have my good days and my bad days.”
But for her husband, there are no bad days.
“She still brings tears to my eyes,” Mr. MacDonald said.
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