Washington Federals

COLUMBUS BUCKEYES

Columbus is the oldest team of the inaugural AFL teams, formed by former players of the University of Ohio in 1906, hence why both of them share the same name. They were an independent team for a long while, and joined up in the AA for all three of its seasons before joining the MWFC. They were dominant in their early years, winning 2 out of the 3 AA titles and snagging the first ever Bradshaw Cup in the Championship. Now, UOhio has basically become a feeder team to the pro Buckeyes, but even then that isn’t helping the Buckeyes get back to the top. They have not been contenders lately, and have been living in the basement for some time now, mainly due to the Buckeyes going through 2 ownership changes and several roster rebuilds in order to be relevant once more. Randolf Durant is the 3rd owner the Buckeyes have had since their last championship, and was the final owner approached by Hasenkamp to form the league. Durant believes the exposure that the league will have will help the Buckeyes, but it’s a long road up for them. The Buckeyes’ play out of Buckeye Stadium, sharing it with UOhio, and is the largest Stadium in the league at 66,210 seats.

The Buckeyes are not contenders by any sense. They’ve managed to snag up some younger talent, but their main problem is that the team is old. Third year head coach Leon Maddox has not proven that he is head coaching material yet, as he has failed to bring the team past the .500 mark in his tenure. They have great receiving talent, with WR’s Tony Carroll, Joel Weeks, and Howard Herman all being great receivers who are starting to reach the end of their prime. However, they aren’t being utilized properly within the team’s scheme. The main culprit is current starting QB Morris Cole, who is 37 and lacking the athleticism he had in his prime. Instead of throwing to his receivers, he’s feeding it to young RB Martin Quinn, who hasn’t exactly proven himself as a starter caliber player just yet. TE Ronnie May gets more of the passing targets, even though he’s not the best receiver on the team. Their defense is the weak point of the team. They really only have 1 star player on this side of the ball: LB Christopher Carney. Carney has been the anchor of the defense in his short time with the team, and also pulling the weight of everyone else. Their defensive line is the weakest in the league, with their starters either being old and ineffective or young and unproven. Their secondary is led by DB Gilbert Ferrell, who is almost doing everything in the secondary when Carney isn’t there to assist him.

Their logo is similar to that of the University of Ohio. with a block C instead of an O with a buckeye leaf layed on top of it. They used to be near identical clones to the UOhio Buckeyes, but they changed their uniforms recently to break away from their over-reliance on the university. They switched to a more blue-focused set, but still kept some red in the red pants at home and in the striping.

COLUMBUS TO RELOCATE TO WASHINGTON

The Columbus Buckeyes would be no more after the 1952 season. After a middling mix of results and ticket sales and playing second fiddle to the University of Ohio, owner Randolf Durant decided that Columbus would not last as a professional city for much longer. Durant put the team up for sale after the 1951 season, leaving the team’s future to whoever buys out the team. The winning bid was from Bernard McCullough, a prominent real estate developer from Norfolk, VA. He had built himself up from nothing and his company became the largest real estate firm in the Tidewater region, and had a part-time ownership stake in the Southern Football League’s Richmond Patriots before the entire league went under during the Second World War. Wanting to get back into football, he placed the winning bid on the Buckeyes, and instead of moving the team to his home market, he wanted to move the team to Washington, D.C., and share the stadium with the city’s baseball team, the Washington Senators, which he had also purchased in 1947. The Buckeyes name would be gone, and McCullough wanted the team to undergo a change to better suit the nation’s capital. While he did not have exact details on what the new team would be named, he assured the fans of the new team would not have to wait long to reveal the team that they would root for. The other owners welcomed McCullough to the meetings with open arms, with former owner Randolf Durant saying one last goodbye to the league as he symbolically transferred his position on the Owners Council to McCullough. After the pop and circumstance was over, the owners introduced the main issue on their docket for these meetings.

INTRODUCING THE WASHINGTON FEDERALS

In a private press conference inside the historic Willard Hotel in Washington, D.C., owner Bernard McCollough finally unveiled the name of the new Washington team: the Washington Federals. McCollough wanted the team to have a patriotic ring to it, shortlisting names such as the Nationals, Americans, and the Stars. The original name of the team was going to be the Eagles, but the fact there were two other bird teams in the league made McCollough change the name to the Federals.

The eagle still remains in the logo, with the primary based on the eagle seen in National Recovery Administration posters during the Great Depression. The eagle had symbolized hope for a brighter future during those troubling times, and McCollough chose to use it for a similar reason. Washington had not had a pro team in nearly 3 decades, and the Columbus Buckeyes had struggled for an equal amount of time. McCollough wanted to bring a brighter future to both a tormented franchise and a city that was desperately missing a franchise. The eagle sits between a star and a W, both white outlined in both blue and white while the eagle contrasts in red.

Columbus’s blue and red color scheme was perfect for the nation’s capital, but their color scheme and uniforms were, for the most part, an exact copy of the University of Ohio Buckeyes. These were changed to create a more unique look for the team. The least affected were the colors, with the blue darkened and the red made slightly brighter. The uniforms still remained blue at home and white on the road, but the striping was changed to be more in line with one another, with the road’s striping changed to be more blue focused than red. The red pants were swapped out for a pair of white ones, with a stripe added down the side resembling the ones on the white jersey. The socks remained almost intact, with McCollough keeping them the same to respect the team’s past with the new era. The Federals became the second team to feature some design on their helmets, with the W found in their logo featured on their helmets.

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1950