Quote:
Originally Posted by Chihuahua
They were only the Braves for one season. George Marshall changed the name as there was already another team named the Braves (baseball?) and he didn't want people confusing his team with any other teams. Then head coach Lone Starr Dietz supposedly chose 'Redskins' as the name. I'm going off of memory but I believe that's more or less the story behind 'Redskins'.
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You have it pretty much correct. I was a long time Redskins fan. My father had season tickets at RFK Stadium since 1962 and a few years at FedEx Field. I've probably seen 40+ games at RFK from the late 1960s through time the Redskins moved to FedEx Field, 1989 IIRC. For a Washington DC (DMV) resident, it was considered "privileged" to have Redskin season tickets.
The controversy about the Redskins name is not recent, it goes back to the 1980's. Interested in the political side of it, my research on the subject is what you have said. To add a bit of detail, what became the Redskins football team originated in New Jersey. It was there for about 4 years then moved to Boston in the 1932 as the Boston Braves. As you stated correctly, there was a Baseball team named the Boston Braves (now the Atlanta Braves) and to avoid conflict between the games (back in the 1930's baseball and football were played during the same time of the year), the team name was changed to the the "Redskins". The detail that you left out was the coach,
Lone Starr Dietz, was a Native American, and he did choose the name Redskins because before all the political correctness shit (by liberal white people) "Redskins" was a name of honor among Native Americans. Go out west and you'll find several high school football teams on Native American reservations named Redskins, which use the NFL Redskins logo. In 1933, the Redskins moved to DC. The team was the last to "integrate" with the inclusion of American black players, which is why George Preston Marshall's statue (the owner who moved the team to DC) at RFK was cancel cultured this year.
The Redskins website used to have the detailed story as I reprised it above, but has since simplified the story of the history of the team.