Sure, it seems unnecessary, but give the average fan a billion dollars and he’ll paint his dog in team colors.
Every few months, controversy over the questionable nature of the Washington Redskins’ name pops up and team owner Dan Snyder stamps his foot and reiterates that he has no plans whatsoever to change the name — even under pressure from the White House. Snyder has been cast as an insensitive boogeyman by most critics, an owner deaf to the wishes of the fans.
But after Sarah Kogod of DC Sports Bog received a tip from a reader, she located this burgundy and gold colored basketball court on Snyder’s property in Maryland that may paint a different picture of the embattled owner.
Snyder grew up a diehard Redskins fan in Silver Springs, only 20 miles away from FedEx Field — then named “Jack Kent Cooke Stadium” after former owner Jack Kent Cooke — and this basketball court seems like the move of a typical superfan. Who knows what else Snyder has in burgundy and gold, but if he’s willing to shell out enough to customize an entire basketball court, it’s safe to say Snyder has more than one pair of Redskins socks.
In the latest episode of controversy around the Redskins’ nickname, Snyder has been vilified as an insensitive, stubborn and out-of-touch billionaire, but this Skins court paints a much more human portrait of the embattled owner as a devoted fan of his childhood team. Granted, the average fan can’t re-brand basketball courts according to his favorite team’s colors, but maybe Snyder isn’t the unfeeling racist he’s made out to be.
Maybe he’s just a fan of the team he grew up watching.
