I’ve never been through SE DC until today. Getting lost upon exiting the city, I had to circle the RFK Stadium. In doing so, I saw a large plaque with the name __ Preston Marshall. I forgot the first name. Anyone know who he was? Not a sports buff
George Preston Marshall, former owner of the Redskins who moved them to DC from Boston.
He was very slow to integrate his team and toward the end of his ownership, Washington was really bad. It took Jack Kent Cooke and George Allen to make the franchise respectable again in the early 1970s.
What was the former name of the Wash REdskins when they played in Boston? -Jinx
They were known as the “Boston Redskins”.
NFL teams had a predilection for picking team names that were close to the name of the baseball team in the area.
So Boston had the Redskins and Braves, Chicago had the Bears and Cubs.
New York just used the Giants twice. Although later there were teams called the New York Yankees and the Brooklyn Dodgers.
The Arizona/St. Louis Cardinals actually started in Chicago and just picked their name because of their uniform color.
Apparently they were the Braves for 1 year:
According to this article, the memorial for Marshall was removed from RFK stadium.
http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/archives/cheap/2002/cheap0329.html
Stewart Udall does not have fond memories of George Marshall. Despite signing Bobby Mitchell, the Redskins of the early 1960s were pretty bad.