Riggo's Rag
FanSided

A story of lifelong Washington Redskins fandom

By Tim Meek

BALTIMORE, MD - AUGUST 30: A Washington Redskins helmet sits on the grass before the start of the Redskins and Baltimore Ravens preseason game at M&T Bank Stadium on August 30, 2018 in Baltimore, Maryland. (Photo by Rob Carr/Getty Images)
BALTIMORE, MD - AUGUST 30: A Washington Redskins helmet sits on the grass before the start of the Redskins and Baltimore Ravens preseason game at M&T Bank Stadium on August 30, 2018 in Baltimore, Maryland. (Photo by Rob Carr/Getty Images) /
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BALTIMORE, MD – AUGUST 30: A Washington Redskins helmet sits on the grass before the start of the Redskins and Baltimore Ravens preseason game at M&T Bank Stadium on August 30, 2018 in Baltimore, Maryland. (Photo by Rob Carr/Getty Images)
BALTIMORE, MD – AUGUST 30: A Washington Redskins helmet sits on the grass before the start of the Redskins and Baltimore Ravens preseason game at M&T Bank Stadium on August 30, 2018 in Baltimore, Maryland. (Photo by Rob Carr/Getty Images) /

My Redskins fandom has been a big part of my life. And here’s the story of how it all came to be and some of my best Redskins-related memories.

I’m just a fan, a fan of our Washington Redskins.  Sounds simple enough, right? But like many of you, my fandom is far more complex.

Everything starts at the roots, mine began as a young kid growing up in Minnesota.  My fandom was passed down from my father, just like many of you.  It began in the ’80s, yes, the Glory Years of Redskins football.

As a kid, I played youth football.  Back then, we were issued plain white helmets, not just my team, but every player in our eight-team league wore white helmets.  On any given game day, there were 240 kids parading around our football complex, all wearing those plain white helmets. Sure, we had different color jersey’s, but there were no names on the back, only numbers.

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Parents would scramble to find their kids in a sea of white helmets.  But not my parents, I was easy to spot because there weren’t 240 plain white helmets in our Rochester Youth Football League, there were only 239!  Yours truly wore his Washington Redskins Football helmet in the games.

And after those games, I’d take my Redskins helmet and scrape it on the concrete parking lot to try and replicate the scratches that Dave Butz had on his helmet.  I wore 44 on my jersey for my idol John Riggins and I played running back.

Later in life, I convinced myself that it wasn’t my lack of speed & athleticism that kept me from being a great RB, it was because opposing defenses could easily spot me with my Redskins helmet I wore.  That’s my story, I’m sticking to it!

While my days of playing running back didn’t last, my love for the team certainly did. My body never grew to be a giant like Dave Butz or Dexter Manley, but my love for the team grew more every year.

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