Ernest R. Davis was an American college football player for the Syracuse Orangemen who won the Heisman Trophy in 1961. He was the award's first African American recipient. Davis was selected by the Washington Redskins with the first overall pick of the 1962 NFL Draft, but was almost immediately traded to the Cleveland Browns. He was diagnosed with leukemia that same year, and died shortly after at age 23 without ever playing in a professional game. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1979 and was the subject of the 2008 film The Express: The Ernie Davis Story.

George Preston Marshall was an American football executive who owned the Washington Redskins of the National Football League (NFL). He founded the franchise as the Boston Braves in 1932 based on the remnants of the Newark Tornadoes, a defunct franchise which was sold back to the league in 1930. Marshall renamed the team "Redskins" in 1933 and relocated them to Washington, D.C. in 1937. He was its controlling owner until his death in 1969.