George Preston Marshall

The NFL has always been filled with characters that have interesting stories. George Preston Marshall and the story of the origin of the Washington Commanders franchise is one of those tales that we need to address further.

In 1932 a group headed by George Preston Marshall that included Vincent Bendix, Jay O'Brien and Dorland Doyle were given the remnants of the defunct Newark Tornadoes that folded at the end of the 1930 season according to the SportsTeamHistory.com website. 

The professional rights of the franchise go further back than that even. According to Wikipedia, in 1929 Ole Haugsrud, the owner of Duluth Eskimos, sold his NFL franchise rights for the Eskimos to Piggy Simandl, a wholesale meat salesman and sports promoter from Orange, who named his franchise the Orange Tornadoes. The team struggled to a 3-5-4 record and then decided to move to Newark for a fresh start. The next season the team received more bad breaks as head coach Jack Depler left the team to buy the Dayton Triangles and promptly moved them to become the Brooklyn Dodgers, raiding many of his former players of the Tornadoes to fill his roster. The Newark squad went through three different head coaches in 1930. 

Now back to the Boston group receiving the old Newark team remnants, well none of the Tornadoes team members ever joined the Braves that didn't start playing until a couple of seasons removed from the Jersey-based twisters team. The team lost $46,000 in revenue of that first season hence all of his partners bailed on the team leaving Marshall as the sole owner. George at his very core was a showman, and he loved the attention and having the spotlight shine on himself. The group originally named the team after the Boston Braves baseball team that played there.

The following year Marshall hired as his head coach Lone Star Dietz, a Native American, as well as many other Native-American players. The Native-American players disliked the name Braves so Marshall abandoned the name in favor of "Boston Redskins." On opening day in 1933, there were reports that the entire team lined up for the team photo in war paint, feathers, and some even in full headdresses.

In 1936 as the team was on its way to its first Eastern crown, Marshall raised ticket prices on game day from 50 cents to 75 without advance notice. This upset both the public as well as the media and although the team was winning, the crowds boycotted the games and picketed in protest outside. The lack of support by both the fans and the media really came to a head when Marshall noticed that a local field hockey team was getting more press coverage than his beloved Redskins.

This angered Marshall. Set to host the NFL Championship Game, he instead moved it to New York City, where his “home” Redskins lost 21-6 to the Packers marking the first NFL championship held on neutral ground. Marshall owned a chain of laundries in the Washington, D.C. area, and the following year because of the problems he encountered in Boston, he moved the club to his hometown and retained its nickname.

This infuriated Marshall so a change of surroundings seemed to be in order and the move to the Nation’s Capital changed the course of the franchise as they were crowned the NFL Champions in their inaugural year in DC. It is for good reasons that the NFL does not consider the Redskins to be a continuation of the Tornadoes, just as it does not consider the Tornadoes to be a continuation of the Duluth Eskimoes. 

In the 1950s, Marshall was the first NFL owner to embrace television. He initiated the first network appearances for any NFL team and built a television network to broadcast Redskins games across the Southern United States.

In 1960, Marshall opposed the addition of the Dallas Cowboys to the NFL, ending his team's stature as the only team south of the Mason–Dixon line. He only agreed to the addition after a rival acquired the rights to the fight song from the writer of the music and threatened to prohibit the team from playing it at games.

In November 1960, Marshall sold 25% of the team to Jack Kent Cooke for $350,000. George Preston Marshall left this earth in August of 1962 during an emergency hernia operation. The Pro Football Hall of Fame inducted George Marshall in 1963.

The banner photo is of George Preston Marshall at work in his office in 1937. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons and taken by the Harris & Ewing, photographer.

A Very Special thanks to information obtained from the following brilliant internet sites: Bleacher Report, Sports History.com, On This Day Sports, the Sports Reference's family of website databases & Stathead.com