Official Redskins Off-Season News & Rumors-Part Trois

[Monkeydad]

KI, read this history of the name. The team's name is not based on race or even meant to describe Native Americans.

The origin of the name ‘Redskins’

And Jim Thorpe coached and starred in a team composed entirely of Native Americans called the Oorang (Ohio) Indians in 1922 and 1923. So it seems unlikely that anyone batted an eye at the name “Redskins” being chosen by Marshall.2 And as the Globe’s article points out, the home stadium for the team was known as the Wigwam (and for a brief period when the baseball Braves were known as the Bees, the “Beehive.”) But that didn’t last long, either, because fifteen days after the name change, the Redskins announced that they were moving to Fenway Park. Here is what the Boston Globe printed on July 21, 1933:

REDSKINS’ FOOTBALL TEAM TO SHIFT TO FENWAY PARK

Fenway Park will be the scene of the home games this Fall of the Boston Redskins, formerly known as the Braves, the local club of the National League of Professional Football, George Marshall, president of the Redskins, announced last night.

In his communication Mr. Marshall emphasized that the change was made solely because of the more intimate advantages of playing in the Red Sox park, where the gridiron may be plotted closer to the grandstand and pavilion seats, and the 5000 temporary field seats are almost flush with the sidelines.

Disassociating the team with the Braves didn’t seem like a good reason to remove the Native American association. Perhaps ‘Redskins’ was chosen instead of ‘Indians’ to make fans think of their new co-tenants, the Red Sox, or perhaps Coach Dietz had some influence on Marshall. I’ll note that in 1980, another account of the situation by the Boston Globe indicates that while the events may have been publicly been announced in that order, the cause and effect may have been reversed:

When the “baseball Braves” hiked the rent for 1933, George Preston Marshall moved his club to Fenway Park and was faced with a dilemma. He didn’t want to give his former landlord the satisfaction of retaining their nickname, but his team’s uniforms were imprinted with Indian insignia.

Marshall solved the problem with a practicality and shrewdness that would become his trademark. He dubbed his team the “Redskins,” a name he kept when he moved his roadshow from Boston to Washington four years later.

So the team was named really to relate to the fans they were playing for, not to take on some Indian-like identity. They had an Indian head logo , but the name Redskins was not meant to describe it at all.

By now, the Fenway and Boston connection is long gone, but the Redskins name is still full of tradition and actually tells the story of how the franchise was born...not a racially-slanderous monicker.

As usual with these kinds of debates, those who don't know the history have no right to be flapping their lips. (not you, the politicians and ignorant whiners about "racism")