Wards of the League

05/23/2026

The second exhibition game of the summer was played on Saturday August 23rd at Buccaneer Stadium in Corpus Chisti. An estimated crowd of around 6,000 people showed up to watch the Dallas Texans defeat the Carswell Air Force Base team, known as the Bombers, by a final score of 27-0. Optimism was growing!

05/18/2026

We're going to start sharing some memorabilia items in weekly posts that didn't make the book. The first of which is the game program, or scorecard for lack of a better example, from the Texans first ever exhibition game. It was played on a hot Saturday night, August 16th, against the squad from Brooke Army Medical Center. Close to the training camp site, the game was played at nearby Antler Stadium in Kerrville. The military team was known as the Comets. Final score Texans 34 - Comets 7.

03/03/2026

I had a great time talking to fellow football historian Kenn Tomasch last Friday.

Kenn runs the podcast known a Sports Rewind on the YouTube Channel.

Here's a coming soon commercial plug attached, and I'll put the word out once the piece goes live. Kenn has done some very entertaining graphics and photos that we didn't put in the book. I was waiting to share these and Kenn's production is probably the best we've done since the book was released.

Take a pre-look and hope you enjoy once it's out. It's called "A Texas-Sized Football Failure"

https://youtu.be/H8HzSTw5800

The NFL's First Texas Team

Before the Dallas Cowboys became a dynasty, there was another NFL team in Texas — and it didn’t even survive a full season.In 1952, the Dallas Texans became ...

01/06/2026

Below is a link to Gridiron Greats Magazine who recently did a discussion for Wards of the League with me.

Just before the holidays I finished my sixth podcast.

It's just a real casual conversation with Bob Swick and Joe Squires, who are football nuts like me. It was fun doing this with these two guys, and it's nice doing something productive and not being retired all the time! 😆

For anyone that wishes to see, it’s posted below.

The run time is approximately one hour. There's an introduction and my part starts at the two-minute and forty-second (2:40) mark and the talk continues until the end.

Happy New Year everyone!

Gridiron Greats Magazine podcast is part of the Sports History Network - The Headquarters For Sports Yesteryear.EPISODE SUMMARYWith Special Guest Football Au...

11/07/2025

Want to give a huge shout out to the Blue-Ribbon Committee for making the Dallas Texans own Buddy Young a nominee and on the list of Semifinalists in the Contributor category for the NFL Hall of Fame. Buddy, along with eight others, will be considered by the Committee on November 11th and one will be selected as the nominee to the full Selection Committee when it votes in the final class of 2026 Hall of Fame enshrinees. Speaking for all of us, this recognition whether he makes it or not, is long overdue.

09/19/2025

Mike Cobern
I haven’t made any real updates to this page in a while now and I thought that with the one-year anniversary of the release of Wards of the League being in the rearview mirror it would be a good time to make some periodic updates.

For those of you who read it, and assuming you have if you followed this FB group, you’ll remember that I had mentioned in Chapter 19 – DEAD LAST – page 172 that the Texans never even had a group team picture taken. And at the time of my writing, there was never any to be found. However, not long after the book’s release I discovered one. It was obtained from the son of one of the players whom I had become acquainted and friends with.

I thought everyone following this might like to see it really did exist as shown here in my TV room.

Enjoy!

PS: I will be posting some of the individual player photos soon that were taken by the team photographer.

09/09/2025

I'm so stoked to be invited out to the newest Barnes & Noble location that has just opened in Rockwall for a meet and greet signing on Saturday October 25th from 1:00 to 3:00.

Opened just last week at the Plaza Shopping Center, located at 1009 E. Interstate 30, it looks great.

Haven't done one of these for a while and looking forward to it.

03/04/2025

I had an absolute blast talking Dallas Texans with John Vorperian on his Beyond the Game segment.

Link attached:

12/03/2024

11/14/2024

Really looking forward to Friday December 6th. Owners Joey and Ginny Honescko of Neighbor books in McKinney (208 E. Louisiana Street) are hosting a book signing and discussion for Wards of the League published by TCU Press.

The signing will begin at 4:00 and there will be a nice book club type of Q&A upstairs, with Joey moderating and asking some questions of his own for those who want to stick around.

If you live in or near the area, pop on out. Local bookstores need to be the first place to shop, and Neighbor is a really neat place whether you buy the book or not. I hope to see some old and new friends. And it's not too early to think about giving Wards for the holidays!😄🎄🎅☃️📘🏈

Deb Cobern did I miss any emojis?

09/25/2024

I had a blast last night at the Interabang Books event and a big thanks to the team there. I want to thank all my friends who showed up for this and the attention you gave to The 1952 Dallas Texans NFL Team. And no one fell asleep during my stories.

I got a huge surprise too with Kurt Daniels, my friend and editor, dropping by.

And a special shout out goes to my publishing partner TCU Press and specifically James Lehr.