Redskins: It's time to board the name-change bandwagon.

The uniforms may not change much, but Washington's team could be re-branded.

You've probably heard the fight song somewhere along the way.

"Hail to the Redskins!
Hail Victory!
Braves on the Warpath!
Fight for old D.C.! …"

That little ditty was penned around 1938, a year after the NFL franchise moved to the nation's capital from Boston. The team was actually founded here as the Boston Braves in 1932 and played at Braves Field (now Boston University's Nickerson Field), but moved to Fenway Park the next year, prompting team owner George Preston Marshall to change the name to "Redskins," which they have been ever since.

The Washington Redskins' logo.

But I have a feeling that the Redskins' run will end in 2020. And I'm finally prepared to get on the bandwagon of the name change.

I've long been an opponent of the move toward political correctness in sports-team nicknames. In my 41-year tenure as a sportswriter and columnist that covered the NFL and had my work distributed widely via the Internet, I wrote several columns objecting to the changes that were being forced upon high schools and colleges by activists that worked overtime to find something offensive about their nicknames. And those columns drew plenty of ire -- not just from Native American groups that called me a racist, but from many of my friends with liberal leanings who believed that I subscribed solely to the liberal agenda as well.

Well, I'm still not sold on political correctness. I see nothing wrong with the Atlanta Braves, Kansas City Chiefs and Chicago Blackhawks, the Florida State Seminoles and the King Philip Warriors (more on that later).

But I've got to admit, my leanings where the Redskins are concerned have changed somewhat over the years. A quick check of the Internet archives confirmed that I most recently came out in favor of changing the Redskins' name six years ago, while still a columnist for The Sun Chronicle.

I wrote the following on Aug. 24, 2014:

"When I write about the Redskins, as I had to when the Patriots had joint workouts with them, I mean no disrespect to anyone. It's just a team name to me, and not a political statement.

"But I have to admit, I'm feeling more and more conflicted over it.

"I'm not in a position to be personally offended because I don't have any Native American ancestors. I'm far more offended by what the Olive Garden has done to Italian cuisine. But I do admit to having felt a little pique over the stereotypical intent behind the nickname of the short-lived XFL's New York-New Jersey Hitmen. Not all of us Mediterranean types have relatives that are Mafia assassins, you know.

"It's just getting far more difficult to defend 'Redskins.' Bottom line, it was regarded as a slur by a lot of people long before it became trendy and cool to be offended. It's silly to extend that blanket of outrage over far more benign team names with Native American roots, but I admit I absolutely could not defend using other well-known ethnic or racial slurs as nicknames if I couldn't use them in everyday discourse."

And that's the point. I certainly would not be happy with a team called the "New England Dago Wop Guinea Greaseball Goombahs." And to many people of Native American heritage, "Redskins" carries as much of a sting as the N-word does to Blacks.

This isn't new. Only maybe now, there's finally enough awareness to actually do something about it.

Many years ago, when the irascible Dan Snyder assumed ownership of the Washington franchise, he took to social media to announce that he would "NEVER" (he used the capital letters) change the franchise name. Snyder has been quite arrogantly steadfast about it even in the face of rising criticism, yet in the wake of the social upheaval of the last few months that has led many to take more serious looks at what's appropriate in today's culture and what isn't, maybe he can no longer avoid it.

Such was the case in the nearby town of Walpole recently; the town's school committee voted unanimously to eliminate the high school's "Rebels" nickname, in place for more than a half-century, because it was a direct reference to the Confederate States of America.

Walpole's Rebels will be known as something else in 2020.

The nickname was adopted because of the background of the school's successful football coach, John Lee (known far and wide as "the General"), who was from Newton originally but spent 12 years as a coach in Tennessee and brought the imagery of Southern football back with him. Lee was one of the most successful coaches in the commonwealth before his retirement in 1992, and Walpole High embraced the Confederate flag and the band played "Dixie" as part of the intimidating imagery of success.

But in the early 1990s, school administration started to step back from the Confederate identity. The Battle Flag of Northern Virginia was banned from display at games and was no longer allowed on uniforms (although one abutting neighbor to Turco Field continued to fly the banner in defiance right to his death a few years ago). And finally, following the recent murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police and the wave of protest that followed, a pre-existing movement within Walpole to change the nickname was finally taken seriously enough for the school committee to take action.

It's fair to say that Walpole's case was one of justifiable political correctness. Natick may have also done the right thing when it changed "Redmen" to "Redhawks" many years ago, although that decision remains controversial within the town. Not long ago, Tewksbury rejected a petition to change its "Redmen" nickname. And the beat goes on.

Locally, three of our schools use Native American imagery for their sports teams. Seekonk, King Philip Regional and Foxboro are all "Warriors," and all three use some sort of Native American representation as part of that identity.

Seekonk (whose name is a Native American word for goose or duck) has a decal on its helmets that features an arrow tipped with a stone arrowhead. King Philip (the Anglicized name of the chief of the Wampanoag tribe in the mid-1600s, Metacomet) also uses a spear or arrow decal on its helmets.

The Redskins' logo is embraced by Foxboro High.

Foxboro may face a thorny problem if the Washington Redskins abandon their livery, because the school has embraced its use of the Redskins' Indian-head logo as pictured above in this post. Not only does it adorn the football helmets, but it also is used in a smaller, embroidered fashion on some school uniforms and even appears on signs outside the high school building.

The logo is licensed to NFL Properties, and the NFL is usually quite vigorous in protecting the copyrighted usage of its logos. But when it comes to youth sports organizations or high schools, the league doesn't send out a rash of cease-and-desist orders to schools that have adopted their logos as long as it doesn't become a matter of abuse. Indeed, it would be quite something if the NFL came down hard on a team in the host community of one of its 32 franchises, even though the logo in question is not the one used by the local team. Foxboro would probably be more at risk of running afoul of copyrights if a major college was involved, as they are known to protect their licensed images far more aggressively than the NFL does when it comes to youth programs or high schools.

However, some awareness of potential disputes was apparent in Foxboro a few years ago when the school committee decided not to have the Redskins logo woven into the artificial turf installed at Sam Berns Community Field on the high school grounds. That field is not presently used as the Warrior varsity football team's home (it's still Jack Martinelli Field at the Ahern School, where the team has played since the early 1960s), although presumably a change will be made at some point. Blue and gold letters "FHS" serve as the permanent logo on the turf field -- and my guess is that if the Washington Redskins abandon their trademarked logo, Foxboro High will be prodded to seek another identity for itself shortly thereafter.

King Philip's arrowhead helmet logo.

Foxboro has been the "Warriors" since the late 1940s. Seekonk and King Philip came on board in the 1960s. And you would think that King Philip would be looking at a double-whammy where the politically-correct zealots are concerned, as the three-town school district not only appropriated the Anglicized name of a native chief who was persecuted by English settlers, but then added the offensive-to-some "Warriors" monicker on top of it.

I still believe it's a measure of overreaction to look at every single nickname with Native American connotations as offensive. Hollywood has made millions of Americans think of Italian-Americans as Mafia thugs in the wake of successful films like "The Godfather," "Goodfellas" and anything with Joe Pesci in it, but should I be outraged to the point of wanting such works of fiction banned because of it? Fuggeddaboutit.

In fact, some of the complaints are just ridiculous. A few years ago, Holy Cross beat back a student-generated attempt to eliminate "Crusaders" as the school nickname because it was supposedly offensive to those not of Christian beliefs. Holy Cross is a Catholic school, as if you didn't know.

But corrections are being made that should be made. The Cleveland Indians surrendered their "Chief Wahoo" caricature a few years ago, and now are going to take another look at their name -- which, if legend is true, was chosen by fans more than a century ago as a means of honoring Louis Sockalexis, a member of the Penobscot tribe who starred for the Cleveland Spiders at the turn of the 20th century.

So, it appears the time has come for "Redskins" to ride off into the sunset.

There is no shortage of suggestions for replacements, the most intriguing of which is "Red Tails," which honors the squadron of African-American World War II fighter pilots called the "Tuskegee Airmen," who painted the tails of their P-51 Mustang aircraft a distinctive red.

"Redhawks" is also gaining momentum, and the wisecrackers out there seem to want "Sentinels," after the fictional team from the 2000 movie "The Replacements," which featured Keanu Reeves as the quarterback and Gene Hackman as the coach of a team of strike-breakers.

Given that Washington itself has a large African-American population, and that Snyder wants to relocate the team to a new stadium on an in-city site currently occupied by the team's former home, RFK Stadium, it wouldn't surprise me to see Snyder drop his objections if the city ponies up a lot of money to make the new stadium a reality. That wouldn't be the best of solutions for the District of Columbia's underrepresented taxpayers -- no wonder why they want statehood! -- but at least it would facilitate the dawning of a new era of awareness for the Washington football franchise.

But I'm starting to get the feeling that moves will be made before any stadium deal can be made. There is a lot of momentum building, and you'd have to be completely blind and tone deaf not to recognize it.

It should be "Hail and farewell to the Redskins."

Now, can we PLEASE talk about the "Fighting Irish" of Notre Dame?