CFZ The very first NFL team that came to Dallas

CCBoy

Well-Known Member
Messages
46,795
Reaction score
22,477
The very first NFL team that came to Dallas was in 1952. It was called the Yanks prior to moving to Dallas, and then renamed the Dallas Texans. It survived a partial season, ended up 1-11 and then moved to Baltimore and then became the Colts and a Johnny Unitas led team there allowed by George Halas.

The team had been part of the American Football Conference, before landing in Dallas. The Colts won the 1958 NFL Championship Game five years later!

Clint Murchison, Sr. was estimated with a fortune of around $300 M. He was friends with J. Edgar Hoover, FBI. His second son, Clint, was a 130 pound halfback with MIT.

H.L. Hunt was another oilman and wealthy. Lamar Hunt was his son. Both Lamar Hunt and Clint Murchison both wanted intensely to participate in professional football.

George Halas, the owner and coach of the Chicago Bears was the most powerful man in the NFL. He was the chairman of the Expansion Committee and had no plans on expanding to a 13th and 14th team.

Lamar Hunt decided that he wasn't going to wait and in 1959 founded the American Football League with it's opening season in 1960. That forced Halas to reconsider and to offer Clint Murchison a franchise in Dallas with the rights to the Washington Fight Song as blackmail against a non-vote. Then the price tag was $6,000,000.

Murchison hired Tex Schramm as his General Manager. He was only a sports writer in Austin at the time. Schramm then hired Gil Brandt, who was at that time a professional photographer. Brandt and never before played or coached football before that ... but he had done some scouting.

'When in 1965 Joe Robbie bought the Miami Dolphins, Jerry Jones tried to purchase a minority ownership. He was no able to accomplish that.

A year later there was a legitimate chance for Jerry Jones to purchase the San Diego Chargers for $5.8 M, but he couldn't quite handle the loan requirements then.

Jerry was lucky as a wildcatter and built his own monies up from there.

In 1987, Bill Walsh offered to Jerry to fully explain finances, workings, and how to run an NFL organization from top to bottom. Jerry spent a lot of time learning the franchise necessary perspectives and caught up completely with the NFL at that time. This included scouting, player management, and evaluations determined by Head Coach directions in changes.

Jerry stretched everything, especially finances that carried a cost of $160 M and took him to task trying to stay ahead of Turk who was head of collections for the Dallas Cowboys even then.

It was Jerry who provided the opportunity to both Jimmy Johnson and players alike.



Information taken from 'American's Team' by Jeff Sullivan.
 
Last edited:

big dog cowboy

THE BIG DOG
Staff member
Messages
101,158
Reaction score
110,261
CowboysZone ULTIMATE Fan
'When in 1965 Joe Robbie bought the Miami Dolphins, Jerry Jones tried to purchase a minority ownership. He was no able to accomplish that.

A year later there was a legitimate chance for Jerry Jones to purchase the San Diego Chargers for $5.8 M, but he couldn't quite handle the loan requirements then.
Had either of those 2 things happened it makes you wonder what the post Bum Bright era would have looked like.

fkec754aoo3khvunhm6f.jpg
 

joseephuss

Well-Known Member
Messages
28,041
Reaction score
6,920
Murchison hired Tex Schramm as his General Manager. He was only a sports writer in Austin at the time. Schramm then hired Gil Brandt, who was at that time a professional photographer. Brandt and never before played or coached football before that ... but he had done some scouting.
Wasn't Schramm working for CBS at the time? This after working almost a decade with the LA Rams as an executive, eventually becoming their general manager. He was sports writer in Austin prior to joining the Rams.
 

CCBoy

Well-Known Member
Messages
46,795
Reaction score
22,477
Wasn't Schramm working for CBS at the time? This after working almost a decade with the LA Rams as an executive, eventually becoming their general manager. He was sports writer in Austin prior to joining the Rams.
He was hired by Murchison and moved on from there. As per the Sullivan book America's Team. (50th Anniversary)
 

joseephuss

Well-Known Member
Messages
28,041
Reaction score
6,920
He was hired by Murchison and moved on from there. As per the Sullivan book America's Team. (50th Anniversary)
Obviously Murchinson hired Schramm. My point is that Schramm wasn't a sports writer in Austin at the time. He was working with CBS directly before the hire. And before that he worked his way up the executive ranks with the Rams. The excerpt "He was only a sports writer at the time" isn't accurate from what I recall ever reading and also downplays what he had already accomplished in the NFL before joining Murchinson hired him for the Cowboys. It also seems to downplay Brandt a little. Brandt was a professional photographer, but he was also a part time scout for the Rams for a few years and a full time scout for the 49ers for a couple of years before joining Dallas.
 

TexasBoys2288

Well-Known Member
Messages
1,815
Reaction score
2,605
I thought the Dallas Texans moved to Kansas City and became the Chiefs. I'll have to go back and look into that.
 

CCBoy

Well-Known Member
Messages
46,795
Reaction score
22,477
I thought the Dallas Texans moved to Kansas City and became the Chiefs. I'll have to go back and look into that.
We are talking about a ten year difference there. 1952-53 and 1960 for the AFL.

The referenced statement was involving the NFL back when there were but 12 teams.
 

CCBoy

Well-Known Member
Messages
46,795
Reaction score
22,477
Wasn't Schramm working for CBS at the time? This after working almost a decade with the LA Rams as an executive, eventually becoming their general manager. He was sports writer in Austin prior to joining the Rams.
Brandt worked as a photographer who specialized in new-born babies and was employed as a part-time scout for the Los Angeles Rams based on a recommendation by Elroy Hirsch.[2] In 1958, he was hired as a full-time scout by the San Francisco 49ers.

He served as the Dallas Cowboys' chief talent scout since the club's inception in 1960. He had served as a part-time scout for the Los Angeles Rams under General Manager Tex Schramm in the 1950s. When Schramm took command of the newly formed Dallas franchise in 1960, Brandt was one of the first people he hired. Schramm, Brandt and Coach Tom Landry formed the triumvirate which guided the Cowboys for their first 29 years.

He helped pioneer many of the scouting techniques used by NFL clubs today,[3] such as:

  • Creating a new scouting and evaluation system for prospects, which would later spread throughout the NFL. In the NFL Films' documentary series Finding Giants, Ernie Accorsi mentioned how then-general manager George Young built the New York Giants scouting process based on the Cowboys system.[4]
  • Using computers for scouting and talent evaluations. To achieve this level of automatization, the Cowboys had to systematically define which were the traits, measurable qualities and skills that could be expressed into numbers and formulas in order for a computer to understand them.[5] Different traits were prioritized for different positions.[6]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gil_Brandt
 

CCBoy

Well-Known Member
Messages
46,795
Reaction score
22,477
In late 1959, when it became apparent that the NFL was intent on expanding to Dallas, Schramm told his friends in football that he was interested in running the team. Chicago Bears owner George Halas introduced Schramm to Clint Murchison Jr., who had tried to bring the NFL to Dallas several times in the past. Murchison hired Schramm as the general manager for a potential Dallas team, which became a reality when the league awarded a franchise to the city on January 28, 1960.[citation needed]

In 1960, Schramm hired head coach Tom Landry and chief scout Gil Brandt. By the mid-1960s, the three men had built the Cowboys into an elite team. The Cowboys, despite two consecutive losses to the Green Bay Packers in the NFL Championship Game in 1966 and '67, had 20 consecutive winning seasons, and won the most games of any NFL team of the 1970s. They appeared in five Super Bowls that decade, winning Super Bowls VI and XII, and losing Super Bowls V, X, and XIII by a combined 11 points. The Cowboys became a marquee NFL franchise, their popularity inspiring the nickname "America's Team".

In 1966, Schramm met secretly with American Football League (AFL) founder Lamar Hunt to begin the negotiations that led to the 1970 merger of the NFL and AFL, as well as the first Super Bowl in 1967.

Schramm was known as the most powerful general manager in the NFL. The Cowboys' owners during his tenure, Murchison (1960–84) and Bum Bright (1984–1988), largely left day-to-day operations in his hands. Schramm represented the Cowboys at league meetings and exercised the team's voting rights, something normally reserved for team owners.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tex_Schramm
 

CCBoy

Well-Known Member
Messages
46,795
Reaction score
22,477
“Clint Murchison, Sr. was estimated with a fortune .He was friends with J. Edgar Hoover, FBI. His second son, Clint, was a 130 pound halfback with MIT.


One can only wonder if Clint and J Edgar ever wore the same dress by accident on their weekend romps
Clint loved football. Jerry was an offensive lineman at about 189 pounds at Arkansas. They loved football and over coming to achieve. If they were looking for fun in sport, they would have played baseball instead.
 

CCBoy

Well-Known Member
Messages
46,795
Reaction score
22,477
hey, if he can engage in a gunfight in pumps, hes capable of anything
Oh, I'm sure they played outside with the Texas Rangers as well, about the time of the Kennedy Assassination and shooting of Texas Governor John Connelly there in Dallas...it wasn't safe for a woman on the streets after dark hardly.

Were the pumps pink?
 

CCBoy

Well-Known Member
Messages
46,795
Reaction score
22,477
Part of the view was that the sport developed at the professional levels and and people of wealth were attracted as much by sport as by the gamble of building an industry and the constant Vegas advertisement and gambles. It was tough to overcome and full out never unending development and work.

Dallas was at the focus of much of the changes starting in 1960 until recently.

That direction and quality of break down in franchise has returned.
 

Aerolithe_Lion

Well-Known Member
Messages
11,683
Reaction score
12,796
I thought the Dallas Texans moved to Kansas City and became the Chiefs. I'll have to go back and look into that.
There are two different versions of the Dallas Texans. That was the second one.

The Colts aren’t technically the same team as the first one, they just acquired the balance sheet, equipment, and roster of the Texans when they folded, but are otherwise regarded as an expansion team that didn’t exist before becoming the Colts (kinda sorta like the Ravens)

“As a result, the Texans are officially recognized by the NFL as being the League's last team to date to permanently cease operations and not be included in the lineage of any current franchise.”

Then after that, a new Texans started, and became the Chiefs a few years later
 
Last edited:

Established1971

fiveandcounting
Messages
5,780
Reaction score
4,306
The very first NFL team that came to Dallas was in 1952. It was called the Yanks prior to moving to Dallas, and then renamed the Dallas Texans. It survived a partial season, ended up 1-11 and then moved to Baltimore and then became the Colts and a Johnny Unitas led team there allowed by George Halas.

The team had been part of the American Football Conference, before landing in Dallas. The Colts won the 1958 NFL Championship Game five years later!

Clint Murchison, Sr. was estimated with a fortune of around $300 M. He was friends with J. Edgar Hoover, FBI. His second son, Clint, was a 130 pound halfback with MIT.

H.L. Hunt was another oilman and wealthy. Lamar Hunt was his son. Both Lamar Hunt and Clint Murchison both wanted intensely to participate in professional football.

George Halas, the owner and coach of the Chicago Bears was the most powerful man in the NFL. He was the chairman of the Expansion Committee and had no plans on expanding to a 13th and 14th team.

Lamar Hunt decided that he wasn't going to wait and in 1959 founded the American Football League with it's opening season in 1960. That forced Halas to reconsider and to offer Clint Murchison a franchise in Dallas with the rights to the Washington Fight Song as blackmail against a non-vote. Then the price tag was $6,000,000.

Murchison hired Tex Schramm as his General Manager. He was only a sports writer in Austin at the time. Schramm then hired Gil Brandt, who was at that time a professional photographer. Brandt and never before played or coached football before that ... but he had done some scouting.

'When in 1965 Joe Robbie bought the Miami Dolphins, Jerry Jones tried to purchase a minority ownership. He was no able to accomplish that.

A year later there was a legitimate chance for Jerry Jones to purchase the San Diego Chargers for $5.8 M, but he couldn't quite handle the loan requirements then.

Jerry was lucky as a wildcatter and built his own monies up from there.

In 1987, Bill Walsh offered to Jerry to fully explain finances, workings, and how to run an NFL organization from top to bottom. Jerry spent a lot of time learning the franchise necessary perspectives and caught up completely with the NFL at that time. This included scouting, player management, and evaluations determined by Head Coach directions in changes.

Jerry stretched everything, especially finances that carried a cost of $160 M and took him to task trying to stay ahead of Turk who was head of collections for the Dallas Cowboys even then.

It was Jerry who provided the opportunity to both Jimmy Johnson and players alike.



Information taken from 'American's Team' by Jeff Sullivan.
what I want to find out are the dates of the 1960 preseason Cowboy games. I was born in August 1960, I am curious if there was a game that day, but no amount of research I have done finds the preseason schedule from 1960
 
Top