I support those people who lobby and fight for the Washington Redskins to change their nickname. I just can't stand that this team continues to call itself the Redskins.

Of course, I am not a politically correct person, and I am on the record as opposing the NCAA's campaign against Native American-related mascots. I do understand that "Redskins" is somewhat more racially insensitive than "Seminoles," but I'm still not offended by the name.

I want the Redskins to change their name for the sole reason that it would be easier for me to cheer for them.

See, back when I was like 9 years old, I watched my first Super Bowl. It was Super Bowl XX (oh my gosh--are we up to Super Bowl XL now? Super Bowl history has doubled?), when the Bears beat the Patriots. I don't remember if I decided I would cheer for the Bears before the game started, but by the time it was over, I had made a firm decision that I would be a Bears fan.

And I was. I got myself a Bears garbage can for my room, and hung a Bears pennant on my wall. I followed the team, and knew the players (this was in the days of Walter Payton, Jim McMahon, and Refrigerator Perry, so that wasn't too hard, I guess).

And the next two years in a row (if memory serves me well (I'm too lazy to look up such meaningless details as facts--this post is about my feelings, not about football history)), the Bears were knocked out of the playoffs by....the Redskins.

Since that time I have harbored an unnatural dislike toward the Redskins. It's been tempered somewhat from my tender years, when it was an outright hatred such as I currently feel for the Los Angeles Lakers. But even now, when I don't really care at all about the Bears and couldn't name you a single person currently on the team, when I don't follow the NFL hardly at all, I still get a queasy feeling in my stomach when I think about the Redskins.

I want to like the Redskins. I want to be able to cheer for the football team of my newly adopted hometown. I've thought about taking up the cause of the New England Patriots, after having watched them win the Super Bowl twice in my three years living in the Boston area. But living in Boston is a brainwashing experience that makes even a baseball hater like me into a Red Sox fan, and I can't justify cheering for Boston teams in two of the three major professional sports (after last year, hockey doesn't count anymore) just because I lived there for three years of my life and got out as soon as I could. I need a team from DC.

I can't cheer for the Wizards; I'm a die-hard Jazz fan. I can't cheer for the Nationals; Red Sox Nation did its work on me. That leaves only the Redskins.

But I can't get over my childhood hatred for them.

The only solution I can think of is for the Redskins to change their name. If we renamed them something like the Washington Dingoes or the DC Destroyers (nothing could be worse than nicknames like Capitals or Nationals--what's a National? It's an adjective, not a noun! That's like naming a team the New York Bustlings, or the Denver Highs, or the Los Angeles Way Too Big and Smoggies), they wouldn't be the Redskins, and they wouldn't conjure up the bad taste they left in my mouth when I was a child.

So as long as I'm in DC, I guess my interests are unfortunately aligned with those who have nothing better to do with their time than be outraged that a professional sports team calls itself after a group of people.

In the meantime, go Seahawks.