Country-Singing Football Player’s National Anthem Is One of a Kind [Watch]
Jackson Dean sounds like a budding country music singer—because he is. The Maryland high schooler took the field for his team's final regular-season football game, but first delivered a one-of-a-kind National Anthem.
The video has gone viral with nearly 100K views on YouTube in a week and nearly a million on Facebook. It's not your traditional version of the "Star Spangled Banner." Dean (whose real name is Jackson Dean Nicholson) brought an acoustic guitar and picked through the anthem like it was a dark country ballad.
Most often, radical remakes of the National Anthem are met with skepticism or worse; however, the response to the Arundel High School senior's version has been largely positive.
He tells the Capital Gazette he'll graduate in January and then focus on his dream of becoming a country star. He's been back and forth to Nashville over the years and has had a few positive meetings that he couldn't talk about. Needless to say: This may not be the last time you'll hear this 18-year-old's name.
This is the second straight year Dean has performed the anthem to close the football team's season. Thus far the singer has enjoyed the response. "It’s definitely been a buzz and it’s kind of been crazy," he tells the Washington Post. "I changed it so it fit me to where it would sound good... I did it the way it allowed me room to sing."
What do you think of his version? Keep tabs on Dean via his YouTube page (above) or through Facebook.
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