Ol' Ricky's Redskins Tales

Now Ol’ Ricky isn’t going senile. He knows this topic was briefly mention a couple paragraphs in a recent RFK Stadium memory. But let’s break it all down today on why the stadium is named for slain president contender Robert F. Kennedy rather than the man he might have replaced – Lyndon B. Johnson.

Let’s go back to 1960 when O’ Ricky was gumming his food. John F. Kennedy needed a running mate from a state he wouldn’t have otherwise won in the presidential election and chose LBJ, who was the Senate Majority Leader from Texas. It was a political marriage with the Kennedys and Johnsons not big fans of each other.

LBJ became president when JFK was murdered in 1963. Brother Bobby Kennedy remained LBJ’s attorney general for another 10 months before becoming New York’s U.S. Senator. Johnson and Kennedy hated each other and when RFK was assassinated in June 1968, Johnson first tried to block Kennedy’s burial by his brother at Arlington National Cemetery. He then wouldn’t pay for the marble area by the grave, leaving that cost in successor Richard Nixon’s budget.

The key here is there were many Kennedy loyalists remaining in Johnson’s cabinet. He couldn’t disperse Camelot. When seeing how badly LBJ disrespected RFK in death, they decided to get even. A Georgetown dinner party hatched a plot to rename D.C. Stadium after RFK just to annoy Johnson, who wanted it named for himself after leaving office in Jan. 1969.

Secretary of the Interior Stuart Udall controlled the land and didn’t need anyone’s permission to name the stadium. But, the new regulations weren’t adopted until the final hours before Johnson’s presidency ended. They even called Johnson while en route to Richard Nixon’s inauguration (Johnson had one of the earliest car phones) and taunted him of the change because he couldn’t do anything about it.

It’s the perfect Washington political payback story.

Today, there’s still a Robert Berks’ bust of Kennedy by the front gate of the stadium. Whenever the stadium is demolished (maybe next year) that statue will surely be relocated somewhere prominent (unlike the nearby George Preston Marshall marker that’s probably headed to some city storage shed.) The name RFK will likely be included in the next venue.

Who says politics can’t be fun?

Tomorrow: Ol’ Ricky remembers some rookie hazing stories. Lots of stories in my book and these are the types of tales I’ll tell on my future “Pizza and Pigskins Tours.”

Rick Snider is an award-winning sports writer who has covered Washington sports since 1978. He first wrote about the Redskins in 1983 before becoming a beat writer in 1993. Snider currently writes for several national and international publications and is a Washington tour guide. Follow Rick on Twitter at @Snide_Remarks.