Never Say Never

" I'll never, ever change the name of my football team." Washington owner Dan Snyder. 

 

As the old saying goes, never say never.

 

After years of pressure from Native American groups and attempts at rescinding the patent on the logo in court, it finally came down to the almighty dollar-actually losing lots of them-from sponsors. FedEx, Nike, Pepsi and Bank of America all lined up against the name, which was given to the franchise in 1933 when the team was still based in Boston.

 

BTW, the team was called the Boston Braves back then, and after just one year as the Braves, the franchise was renamed to the Redskins in 1933, four years before the team moved from Boston to Washington. The reason for the name change was simple: Boston's new coach, Lone Star Dietz, and several of his Native American players disliked the name Braves and lobbied for the team to change its name to the Redskins, a name the players felt denoted courage and strength.

 

Joe Podlasek is the CEO of the Trickster Gallery, a Native American cultural center in Schaumburg, Illinois and for the past ten years has built a working relationship with the Chicago Blackhawks, that has become a template for other teams to follow when it comes to Native American mascots. In full disclosure, I add my 7 cents worth as well, in regards to an "empirical study" that concluded that all mascots (even the positive ones) are harmful to Native American youth. I wonder what Jim Thorpe would think of that.  

 

"Potter's Wheel" written by Bill Danoff, performed by John Denver.