 | |
| Founded | 1946 |
|---|---|
| Folded | 1949 |
| Based in | Los Angeles,California,U.S. |
| League | All-America Football Conference |
| Division | Western Division |
| Team colors | Red, White, Blue |
| Owner(s) | Benjamin Lindheimer |
| Home field(s) | Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum |
TheLos Angeles Dons were anAmerican football team in the newly formed football league theAll-America Football Conference (AAFC) from1946 to1949, and played their home games in theLos Angeles Memorial Coliseum. The Dons were the first professional football team to play a regular season game inLos Angeles,California, two weeks before the first game of the rivalLos Angeles Rams of theNational Football League, who had moved fromCleveland.[1]
In1946, a new professional football league was launched to do battle with the long-established National Football League (NFL). This new league, theAll-America Football Conference (AAFC), included eight teams—an Eastern Division with three teams based in the state ofNew York and another inMiami, and a Western Division with teams inCleveland,Chicago,San Francisco, and Los Angeles. The AAFC'ssouthern California franchise, which was to compete directly with the newly-relocated Rams of the NFL, was known as the Los Angeles Dons.
The leader of the ownership group wasBenjamin Lindheimer, a California businessman and longtime football fan.[1] Other owners included Hollywood notablesLouis B. Mayer,Bob Hope,Bing Crosby, and actorDon Ameche.[1]
The Dons' head coach was"Dud" DeGroot, aStanford football player who had gone on to earn aPhD from that institution.[2] He was the head coach of the NFL'sWashington Redskins in1944 and1945 before jumping over to the rival AAFC for its debut 1946 season.[2]
The Dons shared the Coliseum with the Rams for home games.[3] Although never filling the mammoth facility, the club made a show of offering vast numbers of tickets for sale at reasonable prices, including 40,000 reserved seats for each home contest priced at $2.50, 15,000 general admission seats costing $1.50, and 8,000 children's tickets priced at just sixty cents.[3]
The team played its first regular season home game in 1946 on against theBrooklyn Dodgers on September 13 in before a Friday night crowd of 18,955 — the first time professional football had ever been played in the Coliseum.[3][4] The Dons took a first quarter lead on a 55-yard pass fromquarterback"Chuckin' Charlie" O'Rourke toBernie Nygren and never looked back, triumphing 20–14 over the visitors from New York.[5] The Dons opened the inaugural season with three wins and a tie before a rough spell; they finished in third place in the AAFC's Western Division with a record of 7–5–2, out of the playoffs.[6]
For most of their existence, the Dons compiled an average record, and never qualified for the AAFC playoffs. This was mainly because they were in the same division as the league's two most powerful teams, theCleveland Browns andSan Francisco 49ers. Unlike the Browns, 49ers, andBaltimore Colts, the Dons were not one of the AAFC teams that remained intact when the AAFC merged with the NFL in1950: they merged with the crosstownRams of the older league after the1949 season.[7]
One Dons player,William Radovich, formerly of the NFL'sDetroit Lions, fileda lawsuit against the NFL after beingblacklisted from playing or working in it afterwards. It led to theSupreme Court ruling, in the case ofRadovich v. National Football League, that professional football, unlike baseball, was subject toantitrust laws.
| Los Angeles Dons Hall of Famers | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Players | ||||
| No. | Name | Position | Tenure | Inducted |
| 50 | Len Ford | DE | 1948–1949 | 1976 |
| Season | W | L | T | Finish | Playoff results |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1946 | 7 | 5 | 2 | 3rd AAFC West | -- |
| 1947 | 7 | 7 | 0 | 3rd AAFC West | -- |
| 1948 | 7 | 7 | 0 | 3rd AAFC West | -- |
| 1949 | 4 | 8 | 0 | 5th AAFC | -- |
| Totals | 25 | 27 | 2 |