Hominy Indians

Our early pro football team of the week is one that went on quite a winning streak, including big wins over the NFL Champs and other NFL teams. The Hominy Indians are our focus in this episode, and what a team they were!

During the Golden Age of Sports, the decade of the 1920s, the gridiron had one of its finest teams assembled, in a small Mid-Western town. Hominy, Oklahoma was the place that a team called the Hominy Indians. They were aptly named as each and every player was of Native American descent. The group eventually included members from 22 different American Indian tribes. This was nothing new, as the success of all-Native teams such as the collegiate Carlisle Industrial School and even the Oorang Indians professional teams that both featured stars Joe Guyon and Jim Thorpe.

The Hominy team was the brainchild of Osage tribesmen brothers, Ira and Otto Hamilton. To get the ball rolling, Ira Hamilton, with the financial backing of fellow Osage Nation members: Dick Rusk, Harry Big Eagle, John Abbott, and Allison Webb, got a group of local Native Americans together and began holding practices and scrimmages. At first Ira Hamilton was the coach as well as a player until a quality named coach could be hired. When this occurred Hamillton happily relegated back to playing ion the line. When the team felt they were ready they played their first game.

The Hominy squad traveled around the country as an independent professional team. In one stretch in the mid 1920s, the group had never been defeated or even tied and they ended up with a 26 game winning streak! This was not always the case though, the group suffered some hard times early on. One account in the Osage Journal of Pawhuska, Oklahoma on November 26, 1926 said that the Pawhuska Hislies blanked the Homiy team 38-0. 

26 Nov 1926, Fri The Osage Journal and The Osage County News (Pawhuska, Oklahoma) Newspapers.com

The Hominy Indians suited up some big time players like All-American back John Levi of the Arapaho Tribe. Allegedly, Jim Thorpe called Levi the greatest athlete he'd ever seen. Rumors swirled about the legend of John Levi and included him being able to toss the watermellon ball of the era 100 yards in the air and the ability to drop kick a football through the uprights from the midfield stripe. The guys in the trenches were a formidable five listing the towering Pete Big Horse, played right guard for the team and Ira Hamillton as the left side guard. Otto Hamilton, Ira's brother, played the center position. Bill Shadlow played a pivotal role on the front line as well as Joe Pappio. There are rare game film clips of Pappio hitting opposing linemen so hard their helmets would fly off of their heads. These guys could open big holes in the opposing lines for Levi and others to run through. The roster also included Johnnie Pepper Martin who went on to play pro baseball. 

They never made great amounts of money as some reports say that the top games may earn the players $150 each while other contests, scraped together the gate take to give everyone a little something to take home to their families.

21 Oct 1927, Fri The Osage Journal and The Osage County News (Pawhuska, Oklahoma) Newspapers.com

Hominy had the greatest exposure they could ask for when they got the chance to play the NFL Champs on December 26, 1927 in nearby Pawhuska, Oklahoma. The New York Giants went on a traveling exhibition tour just weeks after winning the NFL title by finishing with the League's best record. Hominy took perfect advantage of that opportunity. The game was a tightly played contest, and the Giants must of at some point realized that they were in for more than they bargained for from the Hominy eleven. With the game tied at six the All-American fullback, John Levi took over at quarterback and tossed a 60-yard bomb right on the money for the score to lead the way to a 13-6 victory over the New York Giants. This victory extended the small town Oklahoma team's win streak.

At their height of popularity after this win, there was even some talk of possibly joining the NFL as a franchise according to some surviving relatives of the team members. That was a tough climb as the NFL stayed pretty much geographically centered in the East, and around Great Lakes areas. The Rams were the first to go West of the Mississippi in the late 1940s and the Dallas Cowboys would not be the first southern team in the League until the early 1960s.

The team was forced to disband after the conclusion of the 1932 season, due to financial reasons caused by the Great Depression, where people simply did not have the funds to pay for tickets to attend games.

The banner photo is a still shot taken from a rare film of the Hominy Indians football squad in the mid 1920s.

A Very Special thanks to information obtained from the following brilliant internet sites mentioned above including Newspapers.com, Osagenation.NSN.gov, Hominy Heritage page, the  University of Alabama at Little Rock website, and the Hominy.lib.ok website.