A Little History on the New York Titans
In preparation for wearing their blue and gold throwbacks this weekend, the Jets PR team sent out an excellent press packet with all kinds of information about the New York Titans, the team that preceded the New York Jets.
TITANS TIMELINE
August 14, 1959: The American Football League’s first organizational meeting was held in Chicago under the leadership of Lamar Hunt of Dallas. Charter franchises were granted to New York and Harry Wismer; Dallas, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Denver and Houston.
After some shuffling of cities, the league established its divisional setup, grouping the Titans in the East with Boston, Buffalo, Houston and placing Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles and Oakland in the West.
About the Titans’ original owner, broadcasting legend Harry Wismer (from various sources):
A native of Port Huron, Michigan, Harry Wismer displayed great interest and prowess in sports at an early age, earning letters in football, basketball, and baseball at St. John’s Military Academy in Delafield, Wisconsin. He later played college football at both the University of Florida and Michigan State University, his playing career ending at the latter school when he damaged a knee severely during a game against the University of Michigan.
He then began broadcasting Michigan State sports on MSU’s radio station WKAR . In 1934 he was hired as the public-address announcer for the Detroit Lions, who were then owned by the same man, Dick Richards, who owned Detroit radio station WJR. Wismer soon began doing a ten-minute daily radio show covering the Lions in addition to his PA duties, while continuing as a student at Michigan State.
In the late 1940s he provided the voice talent to numerous 16 mm college football films. Wismer often added the sound commentary long after the games were over, and added a radio style commentary with sound effects such as referee whistles to recreate an authentic sound. He was owner of HarFilms, a short-lived New Orleans based sportsfilm production company.
Wismer achieved the height of his fame as the voice of the Washington Redskins. His first game for the Redskins was a most inauspicious one, their 73-0 loss to the Chicago Bears’ great “Monsters of the Midway” team in the 1940 NFL Championship Game. At one point Wismer was a 25% owner of the club as well, with the majority of the stock being retained by founding owner George Preston Marshall. However, the relationship between the two had greatly degenerated by the mid-1950s over several issues.
In the early 1950s, he was involved in an early attempt to expand football into prime time network television, when ABC, now with a renewed interest in sports, broadcast an edited replay on Sunday nights of the previous day’s Notre Dame games, which were cut down to 75 minutes in length by removing the time between plays, halftime, and even some of the more uneventful plays. (While this format was not successful in prime time, a similar presentation of Nore Dame football later became a staple of Sunday mornings for many years on CBS with Lindsey Nelson as the announcer.)
Also that season was the first attempt at prime time coverage of pro football, with Wismer at the microphone on the old DuMont Network. Unlike ABC’s Notre Dame coverage, DuMont’s NFL game was presented live on Saturday nights, but interest was not adequate to save the DuMont Network, which had by this point already entered what would be a terminal decline (although it did mount a subsequent 1954 season of NFL telecasts, minus Wismer, which proved to be one of its last regular programs).
In 1953, Wismer was spokesman for a syndicate interested in buying the St. Louis baseball Cardinals from Fred Saigh, who eventually sold the team to Anheuser-Busch. In June 1956, Wismer was listed as a vice president and 25 percent stockholder of the Washington Redskins on the NFL. He feuded with Marshall, the club president. However, the relationship between the two had greatly degenerated by the mid-1950s over several issues.
Nov. 22, 1959: The AFL held its first draft, lasting 33 rounds, then 20 more rounds 10 days later. The New York Titans took Notre Dame QB George Izo with their first overall pick. Izo signed with the NFL Cardinals.
Dec. 18, 1959: Wismer hired Hall of Famer-to-be Sammy Baugh as the first coach of the New York Titans at $28,000 a year. Later, the Titans show some scouting prowess, finding flanker Don Maynard, a free agent after playing one season in the CFL, who became the first Titans player to sign a contract. Wismer gained access to New York’s Polo Grounds for Titans home games and established his team’s colors of blue and gold.
Head Coach Sammy Baugh, on April 26, 1960:
“We’re going to have a real team. We’ll start training up in New Hampshire with about 70 boys, none of whose names, probably, are known to the general public. But what’s in a name? Give me boys like we have signed, most of them 200 lbs. and over and most of them quick and I’ll have a football team.
Steve Sebo, our general manager, who’s been coaching some himself and knows talent when he sees it, informs me, for instance, that we will have nine outstanding quarterback prospects. He has an imposing list of halfbacks, fullbacks and linemen too.
I don’t mean to give the impression that the Titans, in their first year, will be the greatest football team ever organized. We’ll have to build and experiment and change. But we’ll have a football team at the start that’ll be worth watching.” -From the NY Times
From the NY Times:
DURHAM, N. H., July 9 – Twenty-six somber men arrived here from New York tonight on a bus named Desire. It was an odd assortment – some crew-cut, some shaggy-headed, some sloppy fat, some hard as anthracite. But each had the same goal, elusive as it may be: professional football glory.
These were 26 of the 103 men who have been invited to the training camp of the New York Titans, one of the eight teams in the new American Football League. Some of the men who took the seven-and-one-half-hour bus trip to the University of New Hampshire, where practice opens tomorrow afternoon, have been out of college for four or five years or longer. Some never finished college. Some who have had tryouts with National Football League teams, were dropped before the coach even knew their last names. One or two, who have had experience in the N.F.L., but were overshadowed there, hope to become stars overnight in the American Football League. And others, who have toiled on the sand lots of season after rocky season, think they will become another Johnny Unitas.
This could be a great opportunity for these dreamers, or the end of a fruitless search. They know that if they don’t make it now, it’s back to the sand lots and oblivion. They also know that by Sept. 11, when the Titans open their season, only thirty-three of the 103 players will have survived the exhaustion and pain of two-a-day practice sessions and the elbows and pressure of the four-game exhibition tour.
As in other pro football camps, there will be those who will not survive one day. They will steal out of camp late at nightand hitch a ride home, rather than ask for their fare, because they couldn’t take it. And the tream will have ended.
Some Boys May Cry
“It’s better this way,” say Sammy Baugh, the head coach, who was sitting in the front seat of the bus. “Some of these boys will be eating dirt from the first day, but they won’t quit. Then you have to tell them, and some go away and cry.”
Only three or four of the players making the trip knew each other when they met at the Manhattan Hotel at 10:00 o’clock this morning. The lobby looked like a reception center at Fort Dix. Those who were alone with their thoughts – the big and hard, the big and fat, and the tall and skinny – rested a foot on cheap piece of luggage, or held overnight and duffle bags in their hands.
Sometimes, when they thought nobody was looking, they stared at another player five or ten feet away as if to say, “Maybe he’s the guy I’ve gotta beat out. He looks tough. I wonder if he’s as worried as me.”
“That’s how it is at the beginning,” said Sid Youngelman, a 260-pound tackle with five years experience in the N.F.L. “They’re all suspicious and nervous and maybe even scared of the next guy until that first scrimmage. Everything’s okay after they knock the daylights out of each other.”
At 10:10 Baugh, a former Washington, Redskins’ great quarterback, breezed into the lobby. He went over to the players, most of whom he never had met, extended his had and said, “I’m Sambo; I’m Sambo.” The players snapped to attention as if they were being addressed by their C.O.
Worhman Is Confident
Bill Worhman, a 27-year-old halfback from the University of South Carolina and Bloomingdale, N.J., remained in a corner with his wife Delores and their two children. He is 6 feet, 2 inches and 195 pounds. He had a short trial with the Cleveland Browns in 1955 and was head coach at Dickinson High School in New Jersey last year. He quit his job because he said he was sure he would make the team.
“I can always get a coaching job,” the blond athlete said. “But I can’t always get a shot at something like this. I can’t get football out of my system. I have to find out definitely if I have it. I think I do.”
The players boarded the bus. “Scott,” Mrs. Mrs. Worhman said to her son. “Hold Valerie’s hand. Daddy’s going away. Wave to him.”
Worhman was sitting on the opposite side of the bus and he didn’t see them.
The players found seats, but few talked to the man beside them. Two who found something to talk about were Bob Mischak, a 242-pound guard who played for West Point and the New York Giants, and Mike Friedberg, a 250-pound tackle from Philadelphia.
“I feel I can make this outfit,” Friedberg said. “I’ve been around.”
Mischak said, “I enjoyed my stay with the Giants, but money’s a little better here, and the conditions are, too.”
Youngelman, Mischak and Friedberg were among the most impressive looking specimens, but there were two or three players aboard who looked like they couldn’t qualify for Brooklyn Tech’s J.V.
Sept. 11, 1960: The Titans make a successful debut at the Polo Grounds, beating Buffalo in the rain, 27-3, before a crowd of 10,250 (5,727 paid).
Nov. 24, 1960: The First Thanksgiving
When Titans’ founder Harry Wismer announced the 1960 schedule, he trumpeted the Thanksgiving Day game as an annual fixture to the AFL landscape. The victory for the Titans that first Thanksgiving Day was the first of three straight for the franchise, which in becoming the Jets in 1963 gave up the traditional spot on the calendar. The Jets have only appeared twice since on Turkey Day, losing to the Lions in 1972 and 1985. Now, 47 years later, New York and Dallas renew the Thanksgiving Day rivalry that almost was.
TITANS 41, TEXANS 35
From legendary Dick Young in the New York Daily News
“A piping-hot Turkey Day football feast, stuffed with 76 juicy points, whetted the appetites of 14,344 late diners at the Polo Grounds, as the Titans outgorged the Dallas Texans, 41-35. This was the highest-scoring game of the infant AFL, and so typical of its wide-open play; replete with long passes, longer runs, and virtually devoid of aerial defense…Most responsible for the satisfying PG finale was Al Dorow, the hairless wower. He fired the ball 301 yards via 21 completions in 33 heaves – mostly to Don Maynard and Art Powell, the most sure-handed duo in the loop. Maynard, the Giant reject, was particularly exciting with ten grabs good for 179 yards…It seemed, with the fourth period well under way, that the Titans had a breeze. Maynard’s incredible pass clutching, with defenders clinging to his thin neck, had moved New York ahead, 34-13. Then the Texans came on with a rush as big as all Alaska. They scored three TDs within a space of seven minutes – and in between their second and third scores, the Titans also put one across. That’s the type of game it was.”
Texans 0-10-3-22 – 35
Titans 14-14-0-13 – 41
SCORING SUMMARY
1st NY – Maynard 30 pass from Dorow (Shockley kick)
NY – Donahoo 57 fumble return (Shockley kick)
2nd DAL- Spikes 13 FG
DAL- Haynes 67 run (Spikes kick)
NY – Dorow 3 run (Shockley kick)
NY – Powell 1 pass from Dorow (Shockley kick)
3rd DAL- Spikes 11 FG
4th NY – Mathis 1 run (kick failed)
DAL – Burford 18 pass from Davidson (Spikes kick)
DAL – Haynes 20 run (Johnson pass from Enis)
NY – Bohling 2 run (Shockley kick)
DAL – Boyston 4 pass from Davidson (Spikes kick)
Post 1960 Season: Guard Bob Mischak was named All-AFL, becoming the first all-league selection in franchise history.
Sept. 24, 1961: Dick Christy starred in the Titans’ 35-28 home-opening win over Denver with 70- and 64-yard punt return touchdowns, still tied for the most punt return scores in a game in league history.
From the NY Times:
“Al Dorow, the New York Titans Spartan quarterback, was a human target for the Denver Broncos. The target suffered, so did the pursuers.
For while every black helmet and padded white shoulder at the Polo Grounds was aimed at Dorow’s Adam’s apple, two of the Titans less herculean performers - Dick Christy and Don Maynard – became as elusive as Lamont Cranston, The Shadow. …
Christy, who had trials with five pro football teams before he joined the Titans last month, slipped tackles like Houdini while scoring on a 69-yard punt return with five and a half minutes gone.
Twelve minutes later, after Maynard proved during a 34-yard pass-run scoring play that he could run with the ball as well as catch it, Christy had another opportunity. The left halfback, who has a reputation in pro football for being as good as he wants to be, apparently wanted to be good again. And he was.
He took a punt on New York’s 36-yard line, eluded four tacklers, cut to the sideline, eluded two more frantic clutches. Sixty-four yards and a conversion later the Titans had a 21-7 lead.
With four minutes left in the half, Maynard performed even more brilliantly than he had earlier. He took a pass from Dorow on the Denver 25 and completed the 39-yard touchdown play by zigging a tackler here, zagging a tackler there.
So at the end of the first half the Titans led, 28-7, and Dorow was still in one piece.
…When Dorow left the field, limping slightly, he did so with the proud expression of a man who had been a human target and had won.”
Dec. 2, 1961: Minnesota QB Sandy Stephens was the Titans’ first pick of the 1962 draft.
Dec. 18, 1961: Harry Wismer named Clyde “Bulldog” Turner to succeed Baugh as the Titans’ head coach, then when Baugh protested, agreed to pay off his former coach’s contract and keep Turner.
From the NY Times:
“A 280-pound Texas cattle rancher became head coach of the New York Titans. He is Clyde (Bulldog) Turner, generally regarded as the greatest center in the history of professional football. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1960.
The former Chicago Bear succeeds another Texas rancher, Sammy Baugh, who guided the Titans to second-place and third-place finishes in the Eastern Division of the AFL in 1960 and 1961, respectively.
Baugh’s original three-year contract still has a year to run. He will remain with the club as a consultant for the same salary he received as coach — $20,000 a year.
Turner signed a two-year pact calling for $20,000 a season. He said he had “the greatest respect” for Baugh and would be happy to have him on his staff.
“I don’t know how he’d feel about that though,” Turner added.
The deposed coach was unavailable for comment. However, a week ago when Harry Wismer, the Titans president, threatened to demote him to an assistant coach, Sammy retorted: “That’s wonderful. I’d like to be an assistant at these prices.”
Sept. 9, 1962: Lee Grosscup, the Giants’ backup quarterback in 1960-61, was signed just before the season opener, got the starting nod and directed a 28-17 victory over Oakland.
Nov. 8, 1962: Wismer was unable to meet his payroll and the AFL assumed the costs of running the Titans until the end of the season.
March 28, 1963: A five-man syndicate - David A. “Sonny” Werblin, Townsend B. Martin, Leon Hess, Donald C. Lillis and Philip H. Iselin – purchased the New York franchise for $1 million.
Werblin: “We plan to give New York the football we know. We’ll go first class all the way. We still have the legal details to complete but by next week we will start work to obtain the best management and playing material. Our goal is to make this the best football team we know.”
April 15, 1963: The new owners made two very important announcements on this day: A new nickname for the franchise (Jets) and a new general manager/head coach, Weeb Ewbank.
Sonny Werblin, the club’s president and CEO, renamed the team the Jets. The reasons were twofold. At the time, the United States was entering the “Space” or “Jet” age. Commercial airlines were filling the air and soon there would be men walking on the moon. Also the Jets’ new venue, Shea Stadium, would be located in Flushing Meadows, between LaGuardia and Idlewild (later renamed Kennedy) airports. Hence, the name “New York Jets.”
Gothams, Borros and Dodgers were the other leading contenders. Dodgers was discarded because the baseball people were not in favor. Borros (a pun on boroughs) because there was fear the team would be called the jackasses, and Gothams was dismissed because someone said that it would be shortened to Goths – “and you know they weren’t such nice people.” -NY Times, April 16, 1963
Why the change from Navy Blue and Gold to Green and White?
“New York is a green-conscious town, from the dividing stripe down Fifth Avenue to the verdant hills and dales of Westchester to the beautifully landscaped parks of Long Island,” said Ted Deglin, a club spokesman. “Through the ages, green had always signified hope, freshness and high spirits.” -NY Times, April 16, 1963
24 Responses to A Little History on the New York Titans
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charleyjet says:
I think I’m one of the few here who go back to those days. We used to go to the Polo Grounds and pay 50 cents to get in with our high school G.O. cards. You could sit most anywhere- no luxury boxes back then. The team would announce a crowd of 30,000 and the paper would say stuff like “25,000 came disguised as empty seats.” The games were always high scoring. With Don Maynard and Art Powell the Titans had two excellent wide receivers, on end and flanker as they were called back then. Al Dorrow was a pretty good qb.
Anybody else here remember those days?
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matthewm says:
Charley, I was there too. Where is Billy Mathis now that we need him? Remember the quote from Larry Grantham? He said: “The didn’t introduce us before the games? They just let us wander through the stands until we had met everyone.”
During all the OJ Simpson trials, when they talk of him having a ‘jury of his peers’, I keep thinking: ‘Guess that means Cookie Gilchrist.’ The AFL should never have merged with the staid NFL. It should have adopted more Canadian football rules: no fair catches, you have to run it out of the end zone, run and gun. Do you remember a Thanksgiving game when they beat Denver 46-45? I think we should sue Tennessee to get the name back.
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spent says:
I remember when they weren’t even the Titans yet. The guys used to get together and play in an old car lot behind my house. They didn’t need pads or helmets or balls or any of that crap. That’s when men were men.
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All that stuff about NY being a green-concious team is BS
The new Jets uniforms were green because Sonny Werblin was born on St. Patrick’s Day and he wanted to pay homage to himself!! True Story -
mark says:
The color of money.
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Embarrassing true fact: I hate green.
As such, I love the entire T of NY look. I have bought a lot of Titans merchandise — I think the logo is cooler, the color nicer, and it just fits the idea of football better.
I hate that the Tennessee team gets to call themselves that. They should’ve had to pick a name that had to do with Tennessee or Memphis — like the Banjo Pluckers or Whiskey Barrels …
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Uh, I hate the Titans uniforms, they’re so ugly. I don’t even feel like I’m watching the Jets when I see them in those colors.
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TimNC says:
I’m with you Pat, those Titans digs are atrocious! :)
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JL says:
I think Woody Johnson HATES everything about the Jets uniform.
I think this throwback nonsense, apart from a merchandising ploy, is a way to ease Jets fans into a major team uniform change to coincide with the move to the new stadium.
BTW, I hope I’m wrong, because I was so happy when we went back to the old uniform…something to thank Parcells for.
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Dean Barbella says:
JL,
I couldn’t agree more. I love the current throwback uniforms – classic!
No need for the back-to-the-future (Denver Broncos, Oregon Ducks) crap.
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Matthew- that was funny line by Grantham. Hadn’t heard that one before. We can’t really expect these youngsters, who think football started with 6 divisions in the NFL, to know what we are talking about. The days before the merger, with teams kidnapping their draft choices, were something.
As to team colors, I don’t really enjoy the throwback uniforms. As to why they are worn, it has nothing to do with the Jets. Every team has to wear them once. Its all about selling merchandise. I find it actually hard to read the numbers on the Titan jerseys- maybe just losing the eyesight with my advanced age.
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Doctor K says:
I find it hypocritical that the NFL emblem is put right on the throwback jerseys. The Titans were an AFL club! It goes to show the arrogance of the NFL that they can show that they “won” in the merger by selling merchandise that’s not even authentic. The AFL brought style and substance to the then stodgy NFL: names on the backs of jerseys, more vertical offense, POINTS!
BTW, the blue and gold Titans colors were homage to Notre Dame. -
pat d says:
The Jets are green and white period. The Titans are history.
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BoCash says:
I would love to see the 80s and 90s uni for a weekend.
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jussie says:
Does anyone know the most points the jets ever scored in a game?
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RO0BET BEAU TACKMANN says:
MY FATHER WAS THE BUSINESS MANAGER FOR THE TITANS,AND I, HIS SON WORKED ON THE BENCH IN THE POLO GROUNDS. WHAT GREAT MEMORIES, WATCHING THE JET’S PLAY WITH THE TITANS UNIFORMS. THANK YOU . ROBERT BEAU TACKMANN.
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MY FATHER WAS THE BUSINESS MANAGER FOR THE TITANS AND I WORKED ON THE BENCH ALONG SIDE OF SAMMY BAUGH, DON MANARD AND AL DORO. WHO CAME TO A TEAM I WAS PLAYING WITH CALLED THE LEXITONS OF NEW YORK . GREAT MEMORIES. ALOHA BEAU TACKMANN
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rick junsch says:
i first saw the titans when al dorow was the qb, and eventually bought season tix for the jets when they played at shea. i saw those incredible games during their super bowl year, and particularly enjoyed seeing my neighbor, john dockery, play db and wr as a backup. he was a walkon who weeb liked a lot and took him on the team. i have nothing but great memories of those days and am still a diehard fan.
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SEVEN NAMATH says:
HORRIBLE. HORRIBLE. HORRIBLE. I HATE the TITANS uniforms. WE ARE THE NY JETS NOT THE TITANS!!!!
BLEED GREEN not Blue and Gold.
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READING ALL OF THESE ARTICLES ARE OUTSTANDING,AND BEING PART OF IT MAKE’S IT EVEN MORE GREAT TO READ. GREAT SITE.ALOHA AND MAHALO ROBERT “BEAU TACKMANN. GO BLUE AND GOLD,GO JETSSSSSS
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For anyone of interested, I have 2 sew on TITANS OF NEW YORK patches in pristine condition. These were given to me by my father in 1960. My father was a childhood friend to Don Maynard. These have been correctly stored since 1960.
Back to blue and gold– Those uni’s are sharp