by Robert Hill
The April 19, 2026, report that the Washington Commanders organization has added a spear to the logo of its NFL professional football team opens old wounds regarding the entity formerly named the Washington Redskins. This latest kerfuffle is yet more evidence that race-based disrespect for Indigenous people still must be grappled with in 21st century American sports. The pervasive historical habits of major professional and college sports teams branding their organizations using racist Native American references—not uncommonly in caricaturist ways—come to mind.
In 2022 the Washington Redskins became the Washington Commanders after decades-long pressure by Native activists for teams to stop disrespecting a people with whom the organization had no history that justified claiming a traditionally Caucasian team as the namesake of a people, using a reference regarded as racist.
ROBERT HILL
After the segregated Washington team gradually integrated with Black players, even winning the 1983 Super Bowl with Black quarterback Doug Williams (the first African American quarterback to win a Super Bowl), the Indigenous/Washington Redskins issue still persisted. In 2026 the use of the spear on the helmet and its use on the uniform—as well as in planned merchandise—apparently revive the age-old stereotype.
In 1994, high-profile NCAA Big East college basketball powerhouse St. John’s University changed from the Redmen to the Red Storm. Disconnecting it from Native people, the school retained the dominant red school color; so red without the “men” was not especially disruptive and is more respectful. The St. John’s mascot became officially Johnny Thunderbird in 2009.
Even earlier, in 1978, as the anti-discrimination official at Syracuse University, I was challenged by Native American SU students (mainly members of the Onondaga nation, which was within walking distance of campus.)
The city of Syracuse in Onondaga County, New York was Salt City in the way that Pittsburgh was the city of steel, football and ketchup. Since 1931, the Syracuse University mascot was the Saltine Warrior: Caucasian Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity members, replete with feathers, headdress, ‘’war paint’’, stereotypical apparel and shirtless presentation of selves.
The Caucasian fraternity men (college fraternities and sororities were mainly racially segregated on American campuses nationwide then and still are today) ran around Syracuse University’s Archbold football stadium in home-game booster support of the football Orangemen. For decades, this behavior was not merely tolerated, but celebrated unchallenged…..then the Onondagans visited me.
This African American was told by Syracuse University students from the Onondaga Nation that the Saltine Warrior was ignorant, offensive, disrespectful and void of knowledge of Native culture. The students wanted the university to ban the Saltine Warrior mascot, because it was a racist symbol.
I replied that no harm or offense was intended. The young men were showing enthusiastic booster support of SU Orangemen athletics.
The Onondagans’ response was swift, direct, powerful. ‘’What if they wore an Afro wig, black-face paint, giant lips, and ran around the stadium yelling nonsensical yelps?”
“The Saltine Warrior is gone,” I pledged. Syracuse University Chancellor Melvin A. Eggers made a 1978 final decision to end the Saltine Warrior mascot insult for the Orangemen (orange being the dominant school branding color) athletic teams.
Ferocious animals, ambient weather and the inanimate are not racially disrespectful mascots for professional and college athletic teams—or any athletic organization for that matter. Thus, team branding using the names Mets, Cardinals, Dolphins, Hurricanes, Bears, Lions, Pistons, Storm, Steelers, Eagles, Bengals, Heat, Orioles, Thunder, Jets, Panthers, Rockets, Rams, Colts, Bulls ,Tigers, Nets, Wolverines and the like are controversy-free insofar as ties to Native American names and symbols are concerned; and should be.
American athletic teams do well to avoid charges of racism based on names, mascots and/or symbols, as well as on human beings as mascots. Fair enough. But, at least since 1995—having rid itself of the Saltine Warrior pest—Syracuse University Orangemen now have Otto the Orange. Syracuse University has the only high profile athletic-team mascot that officially is named for a piece of fruit.
(Robert Hill is an award-winning Pittsburgh writer and communications consultant)