User:BBrooksDallas/sandbox/Dallas Rangers football team

Dallas Rangers football team

The Dallas Rangers was a college-level football team in Dallas, TX, in late 1932 and early 1933 that was a “free-agent” squad playing as an independent after being expelled from Jefferson University at the conclusion of the 1932 Jefferson Rangers football team regular season. The Jefferson Rangers had been kicked out of the University because the players were not attending classes. Also, other colleges had been wary of the team since some players were considered to be semi-pro and with the team not playing in a conference, there was no oversight of the institution. The University of Texas and Southern Methodist University had both cancelled games for their freshman teams to play Jefferson that season.

After the expulsion, head coach Nick Dobbs sought a season-ending challenge game as a reward for the undefeated, 8-0-0 season. He essentially created his own "bowl game" in doing so at a time when college bowl games were very rare, while barnstorming tours were common. He finally was able to convince the professional Portsmouth Spartans to play a game on New Year’s Day, 1933, as a part of their barnstorming tour. Portsmouth had lost the NFL championship game to the Chicago Bears just a few weeks earlier and featured former Dallas schoolboy football star Father Lumpkin. The Spartans are known as the Detroit Lions today.

Dobbs was able to secure a practice game vs. Texarkana College on the day after Christmas in Texarkana, TX, which the Rangers won, 42-14. On January 1st, the Rangers and Spartans squared off in the Fair Park Stadium in Dallas with the Spartans winning 21-0. While the Rangers were generally considered to be college students, newspapers around the country touted the game as a “professional” matchup. Six weeks later, Dobbs announced that he’d partnered with the executives of Somerville Law School in Dallas to create Dixie University as an affiliated college to manufacture a home for the newly christened team, now known as the Dixie University Rebels.