What Once Was, Will Be Again: College Football Returns!

By Dr. Greg Selber

Backin the 1980s, when the world was still somewhat young, Valley folks used to occasionally don T-shirts with the following whimsical slogan embossed: “Bronc Football: Still Undefeated,” which was a fun, silly thing and yet possessing of deeper meaning, referencing a school, The University of Texas-Pan American, and its mascot, the Bronc. For the assumption was that, as an area that’d been crazy about the game for generations, an area with more than 1 million residents, the RGV had always had to content itself with high school football. Or the Texas Longhorns. Or the Cowboys. At UTPA, the occasional flag or club football squad would assemble to play anonymously every now and then in the late ‘80s. Most people used to think that the university had never fielded a legitimate college football team. They were mistaken.

For twin four-year stretches, from 1927-30 and then 1947-50, the local university did indeed have a real college football team to support. As The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley looks forward to the start of the long-awaited 2025 season – the Vaqueros are set to become the latest member of the NCAA Division I grid landscape, Aug. 30 against Sul Ross – they can do so knowing that yes, there are a few progenitors in the ancient memory, who set the pigskin groundwork so long, long ago.

One finds, when digging through the ruins and runes of yore, that as the new Edinburg Junior College carved its initial piece of the rock in 1927, the sport of the 1920s offered many of the treats and surprises, nuances, that 2025’s football fans have looked forward to with anticipation since the announcement of the pending Vaquero football program, some three years ago. Spirit and devotion to the school, local athletes getting their chance to continue football past high school, stories of mirth and woe … it was all there, back in the day, as they say.

The first-ever day of school for Edinburg Junior College was Sept. 13, 1927, but the charges of Coach J.D. Foster, a former college mentor with a .600 career winning percentage over five seasons, had been working out for several weeks. Technically before the school officially “existed.”

The first two shots out of the ’27 gridiron box were anticlimactic, as the Broncs tied twice, against a junior college from San Marcos (later to be Southwest Texas State, still later Texas State) and the Rice freshman crew. There were not that many Texas junior colleges playing football in the era, and sometimes the Twenties Broncs faced off against high school outfits such as McAllen High, or military base teams such as the 23rd Infantry out of San Antonio. The first season saw the club go 4-2-3 and for a game up at Kingsville, the newly minted Broncs brought hundreds of fans from the RGV on a special train, a band and glee club along for the ride.

With most of the talent returning in 1928, Foster’s gang became a true contender with a sharp 5-2-0 mark, allowing just 28 points all season. Though Brownsville JC had been born a year before Edinburg JC, in 1926, the southern football squad had not materialized until 1927. The two rivals, much later to be merged into one entity – UTRGV – in 2015, opposed each other twice in 1928, the Broncs smashing to victory (59-0) early in the slate, only to see the Scorpions narrowly win the late-season clash. The Brownsville fans made a cracking bonfire after the second tilt, performing chants hoarsely while doing the popular snake dance, and generally enjoyed the winning buzz.

In this period, several stars on the local field would eventually go from two years at junior college to bigger pastures, such as Rice University, which recruited the Valley well in the old times. Strapping backfield ace John McCauley (from Hillsboro) was without doubt the best player Edinburg ever had, as after tearing up the college ranks with Edinburg JC, he was eventually All-Southwest Conference at Rice, leading the Owls to the 1934 conference title, and down the road became a first-round pick of the Philadelphia Eagles in the initial NFL draft, in 1936. That was the year that Harlingen High superstar Jimmy Lawrence was picked No. 5 in the first round, out of TCU.

If 1928 was fabulous, the next two seasons were less so, the club compiling a 6-7-0 overall mark against such junior college luminaries as Schreiner, Uvalde, Wharton, and St. Mary’s. All along, win or lose, the team packed them into Edinburg’s high school field, with the Razzers, a fan group known for its loud yells and constant chatter, front and center. The full name of this colorful band of loonies: the Grand Amalgamated Union of Vociferous Team Loyalty!

If McCauley was top of the charts for the Broncs, close behind was a tackle from Connecticut, Lou Hassell, who like McCauley ended up at Rice, and both stars would one day be inducted into the Houston school’s Athletics Hall of Fame. Hassell, as we know, was and is the namesake of a special award still given at the modern university in Edinburg, honoring the top student-athletes, year to year.

At any rate, the Depression put an end to the four-year gridiron experience, as at the end of 1930, the administration decided to cut a number of sports, including football, an expensive proposition, then and now.

The Return

The Broncs, after a 16-year layoff, came back to life in 1947 led by a man, Bobby Cannon, who had won more than 100 games as a coach with several high schools, including Mission and Edinburg High. The college, to become a four-year college by 1951, built a new stadium in 1947 that held 5,000 fans, fairly large capacity at the time. The team won four times that comeback campaign, in eight games, and the excitement in town was substantial.

Alas, that would be the high-water mark for the program in its second iteration, as the Broncs never again finished at .500 or better. There were highlights, still, although a 1948 trip down to Mexico City for a ball game ended in both the good (a solid win) and the bad (most of the team was stricken by dysentery down south).

By then the Thanksgiving Day clash with rival Brownsville, now known as TSC, or Texas Southmost College, was a steady annual draw in November. In eight career matchups, the Scorpions held the edge to be sure, with five wins, though the Edinburg faithful always brought the A Game, fan-wise. The latest school spirit club, Bronc Boosters, formed a formidable band of rooters, newly amalgamated. They traveled by the hundreds to Corpus to see Edinburg lose against Del Mar College in the driving rain one year, without batting an eye. Lester Youngman, a physics and engineering teacher, had replaced Cannon as coach, and the program looked forward to the rest of the 1950s.

That is where the story stops, however, as the college, preparing for the transition from two-year JC to four-year school, decided not to keep the football team going. The last 1950 contest, against Brownsville, T-Day week, was broadcast on KURV radio, then as now a leading media outlet in the Valley. No one figured that it would take 75 years before the next opportunity arrived to see the locals in grid action.

Now, it is here, that next opportunity. Bronc Football was never, after the first loss of 1927 anyway, “undefeated.” However, T-shirts and other merch have returned in droves to campus, with a new name and color, long-time RGV football mania embedded therein.

EDINBURG COLLEGE FOOTBALL

EDINBURG V. BROWNSVILLE FOOTBALL RIVALRY

1927 DNP

1928 EDINBURG JC 59, BROWNSVILLE JC 0 BROWNSVILLE JC 7, EDINBURG JC 0

1929 EDINBURG JC 27, BROWNSVILLE JC 6

1930 BROWNSVILLE JC 63, EDINBURG JC 0

1947 TIE, 6-6

1948 TEXAS SOUTHMOST COLLEGE 20, EDINBURG REGIONAL 0

1949 TEXAS SOUTHMOST COLLEGE 19, EDINBURG REGIONAL 14

1950 TEXAS SOUTHMOST COLLEGE 13, EDINBURG REGIONAL 6

TOTALS: EDINBURG 2-5-1 V BROWNSVILLE

EDINBURG: 112 PTS (14.0); BROWNSVILLE: 134 PTS (16.8)