Hail to the Redskins

By Tom Callahan

A rivalry that affects the towns as much as the teams

Nothing else about the makeshift football season was as well arranged as last week's championship match in the National Football Conference, the Dallas Cowboys vs. the Washington Redskins, one of sport's liveliest running arguments, where the score (31-17, Washington this time) is never really final. The grudge between these Cowboys and Redskins traces to historical events other than the familiar differences between cowboys and Indians.

When the Dallas team was formed in 1960, it was granted life in the National Football League above the objections of George Preston Marshall, who possessed the Redskins and had designs on the South. Marshall imagined a sprawling Southern TV football network with his Redskins installed, in the Confederate sense, as "America's Team." With this in mind, Marshall, who also owned a linen business, had kept the Redskins as white as percale. Shirley Povich of the Washington Post occasionally referred to the team colors as "burgundy, gold and Caucasian."

In the dim first days of the Dallas franchise, when the Cowboys waited until their second season to win their first game, the Redskins were scarcely better. By that second year, Dallas tied the Redskins. Come the third season, the Cowboys massacred them in Washington, 38-10. Football fans in the capital began to be annoyed.

To get even more even with Marshall, Dallas Owner Clint Murchison obtained a piece of the copyright on Washington's cherished fight song, Hail to the Redskins, played for a galling time at his sufferance. So half-time shows joined the area of dispute. One Sunday early on, commandos from Dallas, or maybe Fort Worth, smuggled scores of chickens into the Washington stadium as part of a scheme to disrupt the marching band. Though the chickens were discovered in time, and distributed to needy families in turn, the incident left a bitter taste.

This rivalry slices deeper than most, affecting the towns as much as the teams. Washington-based Columnist Art Buchwald, who bows to no one in his disdain for the Cowboys, has smoked seven cigars in a single Dallas game and does not remember exhaling. Speaking as a Texan (Spur, Texas; pop. 1,690) living in Washington, Writer Aaron Latham describes the ill feelings he harbors toward the Redskins: "It's a gut reaction. I distrust and dislike Government, and that's what the city is all about."

This impression of the Redskins as a personification of Government was helped hugely by the hiring of Coach George Allen in 1971, when Washington began to fight back. To the citizens of Dallas, Allen came to be known as "Richard Nixon with a whistle." Both saw service with Whittier College's rugged football squad, the Poets, and just as Nixon habitually spoke of world calamities in the idiom of sports, Allen regularly referred to football games in terms of Armageddon. There were other similarities.

Allen, who came to Washington from the Los Angeles Rams, brought along a history of controversial dealings with Dallas (charges of spying and other dirty tricks). Allen's disdain for the Cowboys prohibited him from calling one of his own players, Defensive End Dallas Hickman, by his first name. "George Allen never used to say 'the Dallas Cowboys,' " recalls John Wilbur, a Redskins guard of that time. "It was always 'the goddamned Dallas Cowboys.' " In a ringing inaugural address, Allen pledged never to lose to them. At Dallas that first October a Redskin runner named Charley Harraway ran this-and thataway, every which-a-way, and Allen's credibility was established, 20-16. The very next year, Washington beat Dallas in the National Football Conference title game, 26-3, and ascended to the 1973 Super Bowl.

"It's the Cowboys' uniform," says Wilbur. "It strikes hate and loathing in my mind, almost in a Pavlovian sense." It is not only the Cowboys' metallic blue uniforms. After Marshall died in 1969, Dallas in many ways achieved the Redskins owner's dream of a national team, a New York Yankees of the N.F.L. Beyond sports, the Cowboys may have some culpability in the entire Texas wave the country has suffered, from that cheesy show on television, Dallas, to the Lone-Star cafes, pointy boots, ten-gallon hats, all the trappings of the urban cowboy.

Both cities emphasize football. The year that Allen arrived in Washington, baseball withdrew; the Senators moved to Texas. By the time he departed in 1977, Washington was entrenched as a one-sport town. Even in its championship season of 1978, the Washington Bullets professional basketball team attracted only polite support. Enthusiasm for the local hockey team, the Capitals, and various college teams in the vicinity is also meager. In contrast, the Redskins have sold out 122 consecutive home games, the league record by far. Meanwhile, Texans wholeheartedly embrace only two sports, as Jones Ramsey, the venerable University of Texas promoter, pronounced some years ago: "Football and spring football."

The Dallas distaste for the Redskins seemed to have been diluted recently by greater dread of other teams, particularly the Pittsburgh Steelers, but also the Philadelphia Eagles. The sourest personal feuds had dried up and blown away. Diron Talbert, a singularly unruly Redskins tackle, especially had it in for Cowboys Quarterback Roger Staubach. Both are retired now. The Cowboys had won the last six Washington-Dallas games, including a 24-10 victory last month. But then this season bloomed for the Redskins into the most blessed of all their 46 years. During the eight-week strike, most of their tough games were canceled. The Redskins began to speak of destiny.

When the last barrier left between Washington and the Super Bowl turned out to be Dallas, the only team that had beaten them all year, it was perfect. At half time, it seemed even better than that. Not only were the Redskins ahead, 14-3, but Cowboys Quarterback Danny White was knocked out. For a nervous time in the second half, Washington cursed a new name: Gary Hogeboom. But after the Unknown Quarterback threw two touchdown passes, he threw two interceptions. The Redskins were champions, but the chant that shook R.F.K. Stadium was not "Super Bowl." It was "We beat Dallas." -- This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.