Thought you'd enjoy this. As more of the American sports media buckles under activist pressure to banish the name and logo of the Washington Redskins from the face of the Earth, you have to hope that someone, somewhere, would have the cajones to stand up to them and call them out for what they are.
And you wouldn't really be surprised - would you? - to learn that Mike Ditka fit the bill.
We can't embed the audio link so you'll have to visit RedskinsHistorian.com to hear the interview. But here's a little piece we've transcribed for your enjoyment:
It's so much horse****, it's incredible. You know what? The liberals of this world run the world, it was said out of reference, out of pride to the American Indian. Even though it's called a Redskin, what are you gonna call it? A brownskin? This is so stupid, it's appalling. And I hope that owner keeps fighting for it and never changes it, because the Redskins are part of football history and it should never be anything but the Washington Redskins . . . It's all the politically correct idiots in America. That's all it is. It's got nothing to do with anything else.
I'd say that pretty much covers it.
Now, you want to lament something: Ditka considered running for the U.S. Senate from Illinois in 2004, but decided not to. He now says he regrets the decision, because he was probably the one Republican who could have beaten Barack Obama. Normally I am not a fan of celebrities playing on their names to attain political office, but if it had strangled the political career of Obama in its crib, it might have been worth it in this case.
Then again, it's entirely possible we would still have ended up with something no better.
Back to the Redskins, though, we learned this week that Phil Simms of CBS and Tony Dungy of NBC have apparently taken some sort of pledge to only refer to them as "Washington" during games and studio segments. And we already know the professional get-offended industry is pressuring teams who host Redskins road games to ban the use of the name or the displaying of the logo in their stadiums.
These movements gain steam because everyone becomes afraid to come under the pressure. No one wants to deal with the demonstrations, the media scrutiny, the possible legal action . . . it just gets to be a huge distraction, so you give the activists what they want and hope they'll go away. But sometimes taking the wind out of their sails just requires the courage of one person who isn't afraid to say they're a bunch of asinine idiots.
Thank you very much, Coach Ditka.
