ram29jackson
10-18-2013, 11:26 PM
Hail To the Redskins: NFL Must Save Name, Image, Legacy (http://www.coldhardfootballfacts.com/content/hail-to-the-redskins-nfl-must-save-name-image-legacy/25861/)
What do the Boston Tea Party, Valley Forge, the Declaration of Independence, Fenway Park and New York City's famed Tammany Hall have to do with the percolating controversy over the Washington Redskins?
It was common at the time for teams in the upstart NFL to adopt the names of the more established local baseball teams, especially since the baseball clubs often hosted the NFL teams’ home games.
•Chicago was home to baseball’s Cubs. So combative George Halas one-upped them and renamed his young team the Bears in 1922.
•New York City in the 1920s was home to three baseball teams, including the National League Giants. The Mara family adopted the name Giants when they founded their NFL franchise in 1925. Both teams played in the same famed Polo Grounds.
•The NFL’s Pittsburgh Steelers began life as the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1933.
The new NFL team in Boston in 1932 followed that tradition when it adopted the same name, same red color scheme and same feathered Indian head logo of Saint Tammany, while playing in the same Braves Field.
The Boston Football Braves lasted only one year. They moved to Fenway Park, the home of the American League’s Red Sox, the following season.
The young NFL franchise suddenly faced a branding conundrum, an indentity crisis.
They could no longer keep the name Braves. Yet they wanted to continue the tradition of red in the Boston uniform, now dating across two sports, three sports leagues and more than five decades. They wanted to keep alive the franchise’s Native American heritage and image. And they wanted to pay tribute to their new home-field hosts, the Red Sox.
The name Redskins was a perfect fit on every front: tradition, history, patriotism, home-team tribute and even color scheme. It also afforded the franchise an opportunity keep alive the distinctive Tammany Hall Indian head logo. (You can see the evolution of Redskins logos here at Chris Creamer's SportsLogos.net.)
Hell, the name Redskins was not just perfect. It was brilliant. The name was seen at the time (and is still seen by the American public in general and the Native American community in particular) as all sports names are seen: as a tribute, not an insult.
Critics of the Redskins name routinely point out that team owner George Preston Marshall was a racist. Evidence seems to indicate he was. And they use this fact as the foundation of their belief that the name Redskins must also be racist. But as a friend posted on Facebook: "Someone please tell me a SINGLE good reason a team would select a derogatory name to call themselves. There isn't, they didn't, get over it."
Boston didn’t quite work out for the team, of course. Marshall moved the franchise to Washington D.C. before the 1937 season. They drafted an amazing ballplayer out of TCU that year named Sammy Baugh, the Pigskin Messiah.
The Redskins won the NFL championship that very same 1937 season and began a long, storied history in the nation’s capital – a history under assault right now.
The Redskins are the only team in the nation's most popular sport that pays tribute to the original Americans and to the history and spirit of a forgotten figure in our national history. It's a tribute everytime the Redskins take the field to a “sainted” Native American holy man beloved by the young nation in our struggling early days.
It’s only fitting that the Redskins play today it in the nation’s capital, in the city named for the Father of His Country: the words Washington Redskins joined side by side, much the way Americans saw themselves at the nation’s founding, a unique blend of transplanted European and native American forging a new culture and a new kind of nation on the world stage.
It's important that Americans rally to support the Redskins, to keep this legacy alive.
Hell, if we change the name of the Redskins, we might as well change the name of Washington D.C.
What do the Boston Tea Party, Valley Forge, the Declaration of Independence, Fenway Park and New York City's famed Tammany Hall have to do with the percolating controversy over the Washington Redskins?
It was common at the time for teams in the upstart NFL to adopt the names of the more established local baseball teams, especially since the baseball clubs often hosted the NFL teams’ home games.
•Chicago was home to baseball’s Cubs. So combative George Halas one-upped them and renamed his young team the Bears in 1922.
•New York City in the 1920s was home to three baseball teams, including the National League Giants. The Mara family adopted the name Giants when they founded their NFL franchise in 1925. Both teams played in the same famed Polo Grounds.
•The NFL’s Pittsburgh Steelers began life as the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1933.
The new NFL team in Boston in 1932 followed that tradition when it adopted the same name, same red color scheme and same feathered Indian head logo of Saint Tammany, while playing in the same Braves Field.
The Boston Football Braves lasted only one year. They moved to Fenway Park, the home of the American League’s Red Sox, the following season.
The young NFL franchise suddenly faced a branding conundrum, an indentity crisis.
They could no longer keep the name Braves. Yet they wanted to continue the tradition of red in the Boston uniform, now dating across two sports, three sports leagues and more than five decades. They wanted to keep alive the franchise’s Native American heritage and image. And they wanted to pay tribute to their new home-field hosts, the Red Sox.
The name Redskins was a perfect fit on every front: tradition, history, patriotism, home-team tribute and even color scheme. It also afforded the franchise an opportunity keep alive the distinctive Tammany Hall Indian head logo. (You can see the evolution of Redskins logos here at Chris Creamer's SportsLogos.net.)
Hell, the name Redskins was not just perfect. It was brilliant. The name was seen at the time (and is still seen by the American public in general and the Native American community in particular) as all sports names are seen: as a tribute, not an insult.
Critics of the Redskins name routinely point out that team owner George Preston Marshall was a racist. Evidence seems to indicate he was. And they use this fact as the foundation of their belief that the name Redskins must also be racist. But as a friend posted on Facebook: "Someone please tell me a SINGLE good reason a team would select a derogatory name to call themselves. There isn't, they didn't, get over it."
Boston didn’t quite work out for the team, of course. Marshall moved the franchise to Washington D.C. before the 1937 season. They drafted an amazing ballplayer out of TCU that year named Sammy Baugh, the Pigskin Messiah.
The Redskins won the NFL championship that very same 1937 season and began a long, storied history in the nation’s capital – a history under assault right now.
The Redskins are the only team in the nation's most popular sport that pays tribute to the original Americans and to the history and spirit of a forgotten figure in our national history. It's a tribute everytime the Redskins take the field to a “sainted” Native American holy man beloved by the young nation in our struggling early days.
It’s only fitting that the Redskins play today it in the nation’s capital, in the city named for the Father of His Country: the words Washington Redskins joined side by side, much the way Americans saw themselves at the nation’s founding, a unique blend of transplanted European and native American forging a new culture and a new kind of nation on the world stage.
It's important that Americans rally to support the Redskins, to keep this legacy alive.
Hell, if we change the name of the Redskins, we might as well change the name of Washington D.C.