Wards of the League: The Untold Story of the First NFL Team in Dallas

Wards of the League is a long-lost tale from pro football’s buried past. Very few people even know that the 1952 Dallas Texans ever existed and played in the National Football League. Before the Dallas Cowboys became America's Team, these Texans were nobody’s team. The NFL’s first venture into the football-crazed hotbed known as the Lone Star State began with enthusiasm but ended in a doomed collapse before the season was even over. The Texans’ rapid rise and fall are chronicled in this book for the first time. The story of the failed team in a place that now boasts of having the most valuable sports franchise in the world today is truly a tale of being in the right place but at the wrong time.

Mike Cobern grew up in the Dallas area and at an early age fell in love with the Cowboys. One of his first memories is watching Super Bowl V as his Cowboys fell to the Baltimore Colts, ironically the same team the Dallas Texans became. With his first book, he wanted to chronicle something that had never been covered before, and this goal was fulfilled in this history of the NFL’s last failed franchise. Today, along with his wife, he still resides in Dallas and remains a football fan and avid historian.