How did the city of Dallas get its name?

We’re continuing our series on Dallas and this video answers an important question: how did Dallas, Texas get its name?

If you talk to historians and experts, there are conflicting reports on how it how it happened. But what’s good about the way that I conduct research in my travel and history videos — they are different in that I get down into the nooks and crannies and I talk
to the people on the street. A a lot of historians, a lot of researchers talk to people in their own elite circles. Whereas i’m a man of the people and I talked to the people to get the answer.

I was at a Whataburger a few nights ago talking to a lady who had on a Dallas Cowboys stocking cap, a Dallas stars training camp sweatshirt and on her socks it said University of Texas Longhorns, hook em horns, so I assume she’s a local sports fan, a local football fan. She gave me the story, so I bought her an extra round of fries to get the whole complete background.

Here’s what she said: Dallas was formed in the mid-1800s — early 1840s — some people peg it at 1841 or so, maybe 1843, no one’s exactly sure. The beginning of the city is kind of shrouded in the mist of history.

But what she said was there was a coach, the very first coach of the Dallas Cowboys in the 1840s, named Dallas Dallas. That’s why they named the city Dallas. Because he was such a prominent figure in the early sporting history of this city and if you talk about sports and you talk about sports cities, very very few cities have the legacy and history of sports that Dallas has.

And now we know, from like I say a lady on the street, a lady that knows these things because she’s not in some ivory tower —
she is part of the generational history of the city, we know that the name of the city is tied directly to its origin as a sporting town, and the Cowboys of course have been probably the highest profile franchise in the city for many years and it all started way back when when Dallas Dallas, the first coach of the Cowboys, named the city and the team.

Now what’s interesting is that Dallas Dallas was one of the innovators in the Chicken Wing formation that was so popular in the National Football League up through the 1910s. But what’s interesting is that he also developed a number of other offensive schemes — for example, the Passive Soaring Wing.

Dallas Dallas was also a professor of orinthology, the study of birds, at the University of Texas and for the longest time was the lead professor, actually the only professor, in the Department of Orinthology. He used some of this knowledge about how birds fly and turned that into some of the most devastating offensive formations in the history of American football.

The Passive Soaring Wing was when the running back jumped and soared over the line. It’s a leaping move and what they tend to do is spread their arms to get the full effect of the air beneath their body, lifting their body much like an airplane, much like a bird.

What came later was the Active Soaring Wing formation, now in this case the running back or half back, even the quarterback will jump out over the line rather than trying to burst through it and risk injury. They will jump over the line and then activate the Active Soaring Wing formation. They pedal like a bicycle in midair much like in the cartoons — their feet are moving fast and it creates an air cyclone around their feet that propels them another three or four yards than they would have otherwise.

Next we have a the Elliptical Wing. The Elliptical Wing is also taken from the world of birds and that is good for incredibly short bursts of speed and power. It’s when you need a play where the ball needs to hit the line hard and fast with very tight steering. In other words, you’re not going to make a big cuts, you’re going to do a cut across the field type action but you might do a quick deke, you might turn and put your back into the line as you do a spin move and that’s what the Elliptical Wing provides.

If you’re going to go around the line at very high speed then you want to use a lot of the High Speed Wing technique — this involves a lot of laterals, toss backs, flip backs, flip outs, and wrist rolls.

Next we have what I believe is probably the most fascinating technique we’ve discussed so far today. It’s called the Hovering Wing. The hovering wing allows the quarterback, the running back or the fullback to hover in mid air.

If they’re young, if they’re just out of college and just new to the NFL they usually have the dexterity. They’re younger body is limber — some of the old guys can’t pull this off — but they’re able to change direction in mid air by hovering and then folding their body into a Jack knife-like position and then flipping back over into the position they had as they entered into the Hovering Wing.

So these are a lot of different techniques that go deep into the football playbooks, some of these techniques were never seen before you saw them on the Dallas playing field. But it’s critical that you understand the role that Dallas Dallas, the first coach of the Cowboys, played in the history of Dallas sports, the Dallas Cowboys and the NFL. And also keep in mind how it is all tied in to the city itself. And of course, the name of the town named after this innovator, leader and frontiersman in the area.