The Washington Commanders have done yeoman’s work rebuilding the franchise’s relationship with alumni since Josh Harris bought the team, and that all started when team president Mark Clouse decided he wanted to try to start the process – and got an overwhelming, if not all positive, response.
“I think most things in life are built to a certain degree on a foundation of trust, and I remember when I first got this role, I said, ‘let’s bring the legends back,’ and I’m thinking I’d get five or six people in a room – I had 60 people show up and got an earful, appropriately, of what the team wasn’t doing and needed to do,” Clouse told BMitch & Finlay on Thursday. “It became very clear to me that we needed to really re-establish that these are the folks that built this place, and are what our fans react to and remember.”
The announcement Thursday that they will retire John Riggins’ No. 44 in November just further proves that success, even if something that is long overdue and well-deserved wasn’t an easy process to get to.
“I like the fact that when you’ve got these legends around the franchise, it signals that we’re trying to do things the right way – but in fairness, people want to see it,” Clouse said. “As we started to plan our goal of celebrating our past with our present, we thought Darrell (Green), Art (Monk), and John represent the foundation of the greatest era of football our franchise has played. But, for guys like John and some others, they needed to really feel comfortable that the things Josh and I have been saying were for real, and I think that takes a little bit of time.”
Now speaking of a not easy process, there’s still (and probably always will be) talk of a rebrand in some way, with perhaps at least the old Redskins logo making its way back into the brand somehow…and Clouse didn’t say yes, but also didn’t seem to close the door on the idea?
“I’m asked this a lot, and there’s nobody that is prouder and happier to celebrate the heritage of this team than Josh and the entire ownership group – I think it’s important to focus on the things I can control and make those as positive as possible,” Clouse said. “There continues to be a lot of emphasis at looking at things in our past iconography that we can celebrate, so hang in there; we’re going to continue to look for ways to do that while we can continue to build the Commanders brand and bring these two worlds together in ways the fans can feel.”
And maybe that progress will continue to come as the new RFK stadium site, which Clouse says is ‘on track,’ continues to progress as well.
“Progress has been steady, and remain on track and on plan. There are a lot of adjacencies around the stadium we have to work on; I’m really excited about the plan Metro put together on enhancing our station at the Armory and opening up a lot more parking in the city,” Clouse said. “All of those areas are progressing, and we are actually in the ground working with the city on the necessities of infrastructure, and still right on track to break ground officially next year…maybe right around the Draft!”
