The League

"It was clear that he [George Preston Marshall] needed to try a different approach in his second season, though, and, always unafraid of making big changes, he moved his home field to Fenway Park. That ended his association with the [Boston] Braves, so he also needed to change the team name. Keeping with the native American theme, he selected Redskins....

July 6, 1933, Marshall said, 'The fact that we have in our head coach Lone Star Dietz, an Indian, together with several Indian players, has not, as many suspected, not inspired me to choose the name Redskins.' He just wanted to avoid any confusion with baseball's Braves, he said. He may also have selected Redskins to achieve a connection with the Red Sox, who also played at Fenway Park." John Eisenberg's The League: How Five Rivals Created the NFL and Launched a Sports Empire.

Had a sneaking suspicion that the Washington based Marshall was creating the origin of the Washington Redskins. In comparison Marshall's views on race and segregation make later Red Sox owner Tom Yawkey look positively progressive.

The League

"In a widely lauded speech in New York in January 1922, Fielding Yost, head coach at the University of Michigan, said that paying men to play football 'robs the great American game of its greatest character-building qualities. The ideals of generous service, loyalty, sacrifice, and whole hearted devotion to a cause all are taken away. The game is robbed of the exhilarating inspiration of achievement merely for achievement's sake.'"

This quote seems quaint given the spectacle of Lane Kiffin abandoning Ole Miss in the midst of the school's greatest achievement to sign a $13 million per year contract with LSU. And Kiffin lacks the achievement of either SEC or national championships.

"At his [George Halas] suggestion, the APFA [American Professional Football Association] changed its name at an owners' meeting in Cleveland  on June 24, 1922. 'I lacked enthusiasm for our name,' Halas wrote, because the word 'association' connoted minor league status in baseball. He suggested National Football League, explaining that baseball's National League was the sports most established, respected circuit. The other owners approved unanimously."

Some history I did not know. From John Eisenberg's The League: How Five Rivals Created the NFL and Launched a Sports Empire.