My first introduction to the Washington Redskins as a young man? Having my face planted into a couch for a good 15 minutes as Joe Theismann broke his leg.
Again.
And again.
…and again.
Since then, through thick and thin, I was a loyal Redskins fan. I rooted for them when Doug Williams scored his four touchdowns during the Super Bowl against the Denver Broncos headed up by a young John Elway. I rooted for them when Mark Rypien led the ‘Skins to a 1991 Super Bowl win over the always-a-bridesmaid Buffalo Bills.
When the Redskins went 3-13? I rooted for them still, remembering how the crowd at RFK Stadium chanted “WE WANT MONK” as Ritchie Petibon refused to play our best WR.
He relented. Monk shined.
When Marty Schottenheimer took over the 0-5 team in 2000, I put down “11-5!” on those little betting tables you passed around the office… and took tremendous pride as the 0-5 Redskins turned into the 5-5 Redskins (they finished 8-8 that year).
During the Norv Turner era, I rooted for the “high-octane” Redskins as they shelved the things that made the Washington Redskins unique: the Hogs, the power running back, the veteran QB.
When Joe Gibbs came back, I was elated. This was the Redskins of my childhood, and though we never got the Super Bowl? You could see the things that made the Redskins the “team of the 80s” with the return of that strong offensive line, the power running back, and just for kicks the ol’ counter trey.
Gibbs’ last game against the Dallas Cowboys? We won.
Let it not be said that the rivalry between the Redskins and the Cowboys was made of thin gruel. This wasn’t just a rivalry, it was the rivalry. Yankees and Orioles? Nothing close. Capitals and Penguins? Pshaw… and do the Washington Bullets — excuse me, Whyzz-arrds (rhymes with Buzzards) — even have a rival?
We Want Dallas.
We Want Dallas.
We Want Dallas.
…and we got Dallas, good and hard.
Washington sports teams have been the victim of the mob in the past. For some reason, the Bullets just didn’t seem to exemplify the best of Washington D.C. (go tell that to our defense contractors). Our Washington Senators were taken from us not just once but twice.
Even the Washington Braves — precursors to the Redskins — are a distant memory. Few Redskins fans will remember the old lines from Hail To The Redskins emboldening us to “fight for ol’ Dixie!” beyond our grandfathers sighing just a bit before cheerfully adopting the new line. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose…
This feels different though.
For millions of fans, the Washington Redskins represented a working-class ethos that is hard to describe to others. Washington’s mood rose and fell in the autumn with every victory and loss — you could feel it and hear it in the voices of cabbies and line cooks, students and ambassadors, congresscritters and on the GPO floor. We bled burgundy and gold; it was our great equalizer.
Perhaps that is why it feels different. Not so much because of the charges of racial overtones, but because for so many Washingtonians the team represented the great equalizer — the working class, blue collar, get-it-done ethos that enjoyed the dirt and muck of RFK Stadium. When the stadium got rolling, it wasn’t because of one of us… it took all of us.
Yes, I can hear the calls from the woke now. We can still get a stadium rocking without the name Redskins. The pearl-clutching Puritans have found their new McCarthyism, and nothing baptized can ever be pure enough for the witch burners and iconoclasts.
But we have lost something, and perhaps like in most things, I am of two minds.
What am I complaining about at the end of the day? A logo, used to sell me things I don’t need, for a sport that is unifies a culture at the basest of levels, in order to plow money and advertising revenue into the pockets of folks who could care less whether or not I existed.
What bothers me — and perhaps most — is that the Washington Redskins (though rented) was ours. The identity transcended race, ethnicity, culture, background, class and all the artificial boundaries we create for ourselves.
Yet here is something to consider.
Perhaps the Redskins unified the D.C. metropolitan area. Perhaps it unified blue-collar Redskins fans across the nation. Perhaps all of the aforementioned reasons are great reasons to preserve the name and the legacy of so many who played for the burgundy and gold: Joe Theismann, Darrell Green, Doug Williams, Art Monk, LaVar Arrington (who notably retired Troy Aikman), Jeff Bostic (I had a plastic cup with #53 on it as a kid), Dexter Manley, John Riggins…
…but the Redskins name is more notable for those whom it did not include.
Other teams such as the Florida State Seminoles brokered deals with the Seminole Tribe for naming rights. Reaching back to Tammany Hall and St. Tamanend might be entirely appropriate for the more jaded and cynical among us, but a bit less tangible when you consider the team’s origins in the Washington Braves.
I’m sure a perfectly androgynous and non-offensive name will be chosen by the apparatchiks and PR firms, with all the appropriate self-flagellation in the public square. Those left behind will be brought along; others will be asked to join them in the new reset (and treated as lepers if they refuse).
J’refuse.
Much like the Washington Bullets, I grew up with the Washington Redskins and will forever remain a fan. Not because I am insensitive to the flaws, but precisely because I am aware of the Redskins’ many virtues as our team. Whatever the new name might be simply will not carry the same loyalties, nor will the sport.
It simply won’t be the banners under which we won, lost, cheered or disappointed ourselves. The rivalries will mean less; the legacy will be shifted.
Perhaps there was a better way?
As of today, we will never know.
To me that seems to be a rather tragic separation — an unfulfilled wish to be better — between past and present which presages a rather dystopian approach to the future of that great democracy of the dead we call tradition.
And slowly answer'd Arthur from the barge:
"The old order changeth, yielding place to new,
And God fulfils Himself in many ways,
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.— Lord Alfred Tennyson, “Morte d’Arthur” (1912)
Shaun Kenney is the editor of The Republican Standard, former chairman of the Board of Supervisors for Fluvanna County, and a former executive director of the Republican Party of Virginia.