The Story And Significance Of George Marshall - Founder Of The Washington Football Franchise

George Preston Marshall was an American businessman who was the founder of the Washington Football Team of the National Football League, previously known as the Washington Redskins. He founded the team in 1932 as the Boston Braves and was its controlling owner until his death in 1969. Marshall, a supporter of racial segregation, was the last NFL owner to integrate African Americans onto a roster, only doing so in 1962 under pressure from the federal government who threatened to block the use of D.C. Stadium, which they owned, unless he did.

Marshall was born in Grafton, West Virginia, where his parents, Thomas Hildebrand ("Hill") Marshall and Blanche Preston Marshall, owned the local newspaper. When he was a teenager, his family moved to Washington D.C. after his father bought a laundromat business there. He attended Friends Select School, where he played baseball, and then briefly attended Randolph–Macon College before quitting school at age 18. He pursued acting and was an extra for a local theater but this pursuit was interrupted in 1918 when he was drafted into World War I, although he did not leave the country. He was discharged from the army in December 1918. Upon his father's death in 1919, he took over the 2-store laundromat business. In 1926, he financed the Washington Palace Five basketball team. The team folded in 1928.

In 1932, he and three other partners were awarded an NFL franchise for Boston. The team was known as the Boston Braves, as it played on the same field as baseball's Boston Braves. After the team incurred a $46,000 loss in its first season, Marshall's partners sold their interests to him.
In 1933, he moved the team from Braves Field to Fenway Park, which the team shared with the Boston Red Sox. He hired coach "Lone Star" William Henry Dietz, who claimed to be part Sioux and changed the team name from the Braves to the Redskins. Marshall said that he chose the name so that the team could keep its Native American logos.

In 1936, the team won the Eastern division and hosted the 1936 NFL Championship Game, which Marshall moved from Boston to the Polo Grounds in New York City. After a lack of support by fans despite winning the division title, he moved the team to Washington, D.C. for the 1937 season.
At the time, college football was more popular than the NFL. Marshall saw the NFL as not just a sport but as a form of entertainment and incorporated elements of college football, including gala halftime shows, a marching band, and a fight song, "Hail to the Redskins".

To increase scoring, along with Chicago Bears owner George Halas, Marshall successfully suggested allowing a forward pass to be thrown from anywhere behind the line of scrimmage, rather than at a minimum of five yards behind the line. He also suggested moving the goal posts from the end line to the goal line, where they were in Canadian football, to encourage the kicking of field goals. This change remained in place for about four decades until NFL goal posts were returned to the end line in the mid-1970s as part of an effort to lessen the influence on the game of kicking specialists.

Marshall also pushed to standardize the schedule so that each team played the same number of games, the teams were split into divisions with the winners meeting in a championship game, and game gate receipts were split between the home team and the visitor using by either a 60–40 split or a guaranteed amount of money, whichever was larger.

During the 1937 season, Marshall rented a train and brought 10,000 fans to New York City to watch the team play the New York Giants. In 1946, he sold the laundromat business, having grown it to 57 locations. 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. Marshall was extremely frugal and did not let the team spend money on travel expenses and salaries. He once berated Pittsburgh Steelers owner Art Rooney for driving up salaries by signing University of Colorado star Byron White for $15,800, the highest contract in football in the late 1930s. One sportswriter referred to Marshall as "the last of the small-time spenders.

He was elected to the inaugural Pro Football Hall of Fame class in 1963.