Walter ‘Blackie’ Wetzel created the famous symbol 50 years ago. His son is on a quest to use it to help his community
Don Wetzel traveled all the way to the US capital from Montana last month to meet with politicians and to take in a Washington Football Team home game. As he moved through the crowd outside FedEx Field, he could not help but notice that more than half the fans were wearing something with the team’s former logo.
That logo, the profile of a Native American trimmed with a circle of life and two eagle feathers, was especially familiar to Don Wetzel because his late father, Walter S “Blackie” Wetzel, had designed it 50 years ago, then gave it to Jack Kent Cooke, the team’s owner. The logo stayed on Washington’s helmets until last year, when the team’s racist nickname was ditched.
The Washington Football Team declined to comment for this article.
