Doug George-Kanentiio: So you want to honor Native people?

Tuesday, November 26, 2013  

So you want to honor our Native people by keeping the Washington Redskins? Answer these ten simple questions first.

1. The Washington DC area is the homeland of which native nations?

2. Which of the four major sports were invented by Native people?

3. Which football teams played the first game in which the forward pass was legal?

4. Who was the quarterback that invented the spiral pass?

5. Who was the first president of the National Football League?

6. Which pro football player also played professional baseball, was a two time Olympic gold medalist and the most feared running back of his time?

7. Which Native athlete was the true "greatest" of all time?

8. Who was the first Native quarterback to win two Super Bowls? Bonus: Which team did he beat in his last Super Bowl win and by what score?

9. Against which team did this Native quarterback complete a 99 yard touchdown for a team record?

10. Which NFL All Star preferred the Native game of lacrosse to football?

Bonus: Who was the last Native to win the Heisman Trophy?

Answers:

1. The Pamunkey and Piscataway nations: both of which have thriving cultures and communities in the US capital region.

2. Ice hockey, a winter form of the Native game lacrosse invented by the Iroquois and basketball taken from the Mayans of Central America.

3. Villanova versus the Carlisle Indian School, September 26, 1906.

4. Hawley Pierce, Seneca Nation, Carlisle Indian School, 1902.

5. Jim Thorpe, Sac and Fox Nation, voted president on August 20, 1920.

6. Jim Thorpe; he played baseball or the New York Giants, Cincinatti Reds and Boston Braves. As a player-coach-fieldgoal kicker and running back led the Canton Bulldogs to three national titles: 1916,1917 and 1919. In the championship game of that year he kicked a football 95 yards downfield.

7.Jim Thorpe. No athlete has ever come close to winning both the decathalon and pentathlon in the same Olympics but Thorpe did. He also was an exceptional lacrosse and basketball player with his own traveling team of Native All Stars in the 1920's. And he did hit the curveball.

8. Jim Plunkett, 1970 Heisman Trophy winner, Super Bowls XV and XVIII. Plunkett defeated the Washington Redskins by a score of 38-9.

9.Jim Plunkett, October 2, 1983 against the Washington Redskins.

10. Jim Brown, Syracuse Lacrosse All American 1956.

Bonus: Sam Bradford, Cherokee Nation, Heisman Trophy winner 2008.

Doug George-Kanentiio, Akwesasne Mohawk, is a former member of the Board of Trustees for the National Museum of the American Indian. The author of "Iroquois on Fire" among other books he resides in Oneida Castle, NY with his wife the singer/composer Joanne Shenandoah.

More from Doug George-Kanentiio:
Doug George-Kanentiio: Mohawks and Battle of Crysler's Farm (11/15)