What Are You Doing for Your Chief Zee?

We talked a couple weeks ago about the Washington Redskins, and the fact that decades of fan loyalty are being strained at the moment by team policies and actions that don’t put the fan at the center of what the team is doing.

And if you need to know why that’s important, meet Chief Zee.    His real name is Zema Williams, and he’s absolutely nuts for the Redskins.  In fact, this NBC Washington article calls him the team’s “unofficial mascot” who has been coming to see his beloved team for three decades.

But there’s a problem, and here’s a key tidbit:

“He’s the team’s unofficial mascot, and recently he’s hit some economic hard times.

In the past year, the chief has lost a steady paycheck, been denied unemployment assistance, and seen medical and personal bills begin to stack up.”

Translation: he can’t buy his season tickets, which of course have gotten more and more expensive over the last few years, despite the team’s really poor performance on the field.

That’s the bad news.  The good news is that current and former Redskins players threw him a fundraiser, and I suspect that the Chief will be in his seats for the season.

And while that’s sort of a feel good story and shows you that the players get the value of a fan like Williams, it also begs a very simple question:

Why did the team let it get to this point?

A fan like this, who becomes so well known as to be the ‘unofficial mascot,’ becomes part of the show, part of the reason to go to the stadium, and a validation of the idea that the Redskins are really worth devoting a lifetime of enthusiasm to.

Why in the world would the Redskins not reach out to him to make sure he could make it to the game?

Way back in 1988, the Chicago Cubs baseball team added lights to its ballpark, Wrigley Field.  They were the last holdouts to have all their games under natural light.  This was a big deal.  So to mark the occasion, they let 91 year old fan, Harry Grossman, turn on the lights as an acknowledgement of his decades of loyal attendance.

In other words, they realized that Grossman, who was famous for his religious adherence to the Church of the Cubbies, was an asset to the team.

Chief Zee is a marketing asset for the Redskins, but they don’t get it.

In fact, the only assets they REALLY have are fans.  The love and support of fans.  And if the rest of the fans get the sense that Redskins organization couldn’t be bothered to find a way to make sure that the number one fan gets into the stadium for the games, it’s pretty easy to figure out how they feel about the rest of the fans.

Seriously, guys, comp him into his seats.  Feature him during the game.  Name the section he sits in after him.  Make sure he comes to the game in full regalia.  Dedicate a game to him.  Make it clear that the Redskins (not the individual players, but the organization) love Chief Zee.

And if you don’t have love in your heart for him, why not?  Are you sure you’re in the right business?  Fans like Zema Williams really, really care about the team.

Does the team really care about him?