NFL's Oorang Indians

[airedale]

For the NFL history buffs.

Edited July 6, 2018 by airedale

[moog5050]

That's neat.  Had no idea.

[The_Real_TCIII]

That is cool

[rob-c]

Well that’s some interesting history.. 

[tommyc50]

wow thank you so much for posting my uncle gave me a book on him when I was like 7[im 58 now] .Amazing athlete did it all bo Jackson couldn't shine the mans shoes. Football. baseball. track and field. ITS sad in they took took all his metals he won in the 1912 Olympics cause he was paid to play baseball one year before the Olympics back then they were paid nothing so they had to do what they had to do to eat, that's what happened in 1919  with the black sox scandal ,even up to the 60's most sports players worked in the offseason they had to they weren't paid  much. The man has a town named after him[ jim thorp ,pa.] .What any of these  million dollar athletes today can say that.

[DirtTime]

That's pretty cool. 

[left field]

Walter Lingo used the team as a gimmick to promote his dogs and kennel. He developed a line of larger Airedales and marketed them as the finest utilitarian dogs of the time. Pretty controversial today with many breeders trying to capitalize on the Oorang name.

 http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/w/King_Oorang_Airedales

Quote

Overall, the Oorang team was a publicity stunt to amplify the Oorang dog kennel’s fame. The Indians only remained a team in the NFL for the 1922 and the 1923 seasons. La Rue, Ohio was and remains the smallest community to sponsor a National Football League franchise. The Indians were mainly a traveling team who were meant to publicize the Airedale terriers; they went to the large metropolitan cities to expose the audiences to the dogs. However, they did play one home game in the town of Marion, Ohio since La Rue was not large enough to have a football field. In the team's first season, the Indians finished twelfth in the league, with a record of two wins, six losses, and zero ties. The next season, the team finished eighteenth, with one win, ten losses, and zero ties. The Oorang Indians ceased to exist after the 1923 season when their novelty wore off.

 

Edited July 8, 2018 by left field

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[nyslowhand]

Very interesting bit of history!

[airedale]

For me this was a pretty interesting book.

Edited March 6, 2020 by airedale