"He instinctively can find the shining greatness of our American culture and does a good job of highlighting it (although he also does have those rare lapses when he writes about hockey, but that is something caused by impurities in the Eastern waters or something)." Erik Keilholtz
Under the patronage of St. Tammany
Mark C. N. Sullivan is an editor at a Massachusetts university. He is married and the father of three children. Email
Washington, D.C. Aug. 28, 1937: He-man exercise took the place of calisthenics today as the Redskins, Washington's entry in National Professional Football League, started training. The boys "flying thru the air" are, left to right: Millner (Notre Dame), Rentner (Northwestern) and Peterson (West Virginia Wesleyan)
According to Redskins Encyclopedia author Mike Richman:
Here's what I know about the selection of the nickname Redskins: The franchise was called the Boston Braves in its first season of existence in 1932. Owner George Preston Marshall chose that nickname to match with the National League baseball team; both teams played at Braves Field. (The NFL was only 12 years old, and it wasn't unusual at the time for a new football team to copy the nickname of the city's existing baseball team, i.e., Brooklyn Dodgers, New York Giants, Pittsburgh Pirates.)
Following the 1932 season, Marshall moved his team across town to Fenway Park, home of the American League's Boston Red Sox. He renamed his team the Redskins, pulling the "Red" from Red Sox and using "Skins" to maintain the Native American theme he had with the Braves. [That way he could keep using the team uniforms ~ Ed.] It's my understanding that Marshall didn't have any racist motives by selecting the nickname Redskins.
Around the same time, Marshall hired a new coach in William "Lone Star" Dietz, a part-blooded Native American. Dietz recruited six players from the Haskell Indian School in Kansas, where he'd once played with the great Jim Thorpe. Also, the players got a full makeover before the season-opener, wearing burgundy and gold uniforms and Indian war paint. Marshall was an entertainer at heart, and he wanted his squad to have its own uniqueness.