How an 11-Year-Old’s National Anthem Stumble Became a 250th Birthday Moment

Published: July 2, 2026

pexels-sawyersutton-973049 — Photo from Sawyer Sutton via Pexels

By Movieguide® Staff

When Ford Burget’s microphone glitched mid-verse at an Oklahoma Sooners softball game this spring, the 11-year-old was sure he’d ruined the National Anthem.

“An entire stadium chose encouragement over criticism, unity over division, and that’s a beautiful reflection of the country we love,” said Bill Abbott, President and CEO of Great American Media.

Ford stopped singing when the sound cut out during the first verse of “The Star-Spangled Banner” in Norman, Oklahoma, convinced he’d lost his place for good ahead of the Sooners’ matchup with Michigan. He didn’t get the chance to spiral for long. Players, coaches and thousands of fans in the stands picked the song back up and carried it the rest of the way, according to ABC News.

The clip made its way to David Muir’s ABC WORLD NEWS TONIGHT days later, airing as part of the broadcast’s recurring “America Strong” segment. It’s the kind of moment that tends to get labeled “viral,” a word that usually undersells what actually happened: a crowd of strangers decided a scared kid wasn’t going to finish alone.

Ford has performed the anthem at other events before this one and gravitates toward pop and Christian music in his spare time, iHeartRadio reported. His mother, Taylor Burget, a dance team coach at the University of Oklahoma, told the outlet it meant something to watch her son sing at a place so tied to their family.

Great American Family noticed too. The network has now tapped Ford as the first featured voice of “America Sings the Anthem,” a campaign built around America’s 250th birthday, and his newly recorded rendition will air July 4 at 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. ET.

Movieguide® reported in April when Great American Media first launched the initiative, inviting churches, schools, choirs, veterans, first responders and everyday families to submit their own renditions of the anthem. Submissions opened April 9 and closed May 25, and organizers spent the weeks through mid-June combing through entries before choosing Ford to open the celebration.

Great American Family already opens every broadcast day with the National Anthem, a callback to the era when local TV stations used to sign off each night the same way. Ford’s performance becomes the first in what the network says will be a rotating lineup of anthem clips throughout the year, spotlighting regular Americans instead of professional singers.

It fits the pattern Great American Media has built its identity around: faith, family and country, offered as entertainment rather than a lecture. The company, founded in 2021 by Abbott and a group of family offices, points to its earlier “America Reads the Bible” project, which reached millions of homes with something as simple as Scripture read aloud, as evidence the audience wants more of it.

Great American Media’s roster now includes Great American Family, Great American Pure Flix, Great American Faith & Living, and the GFam+ streaming app, all built around the same faith-and-family pitch. America Sings the Anthem is meant to be the next piece of that puzzle, a yearlong series rather than a one-off stunt.

Ford didn’t set out to be a symbol of anything. He just wanted to finish the song. That a stadium full of strangers wouldn’t let him finish it alone says something worth sitting with as the country turns 250 — that grace still shows up in the ordinary moments, even the ones that end up on live TV.

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