123 Dallas Texans - NFL

Sports' Forgotten Heroes

In the 1940s and into the 1950s, the NFL had a troubled franchise. Originally known as the Boston Yanks, the team played in Boston (with a slight detour in 1945) from 1944 through 1948. They relocated to New York for the 1949 season and renamed themselves the New York Bulldogs. In 1950, they called themselves the Yanks and after the 1951 season, they called it quits. Now, the NFL could not move forward with an odd number of teams. So, they found themselves a buyer and took a chance on an entirely new region of the country, the Southwest. A hotbed for college football, the NFL thought it was a no-brainer. So, the Yanks moved to Dallas and became the Dallas Texans where they would play in the 75,000-seat Cotton Bowl. Well, it didn't go well. The first-ever game attracted just under 18,000 fans. They never reached that number again. Professional football in Dallas - at that time - was a colossal failure. In fact, it was so bad, the Texans didn't finish the season in Dallas. After four home games they had to relocate, and I get into that fiasco, among many other incredible and fascinating stories about this doomed franchise with my special guest, Mike Cobern. Mike stumbled across the Texans story and decided to dig deeper. In the end, Mike took all the information he could find, conducted some terrific interviews and authored a terrific book, "“Wards of the League, The Untold story of the first NFL team in Dallas,” which is due to hit the book stores this summer (July 2024). On this episode of Sports' Forgotten Heroes, we take a look back at an incredible story of an NFL team that so many - even in Dallas - have never heard about and why it was doomed before the team ever played its first game.