American Football Association (1977)
Tombstone
Born: May 25, 1977 – AFA founding franchise
Folded: August 1977
First Game: July 2, 1977 (L 32-12 vs. Austin Texans)
Last Game: August 6, 1977 (L 34-6 @ Austin Texans)
AFA Championships: None
Stadium
St. Pius Stadium (5,500)1Breazeale, George. “Texans host Seagulls tonight”. The American-Statesman (Austin, TX). August 6, 1977
Branding
Team Colors:
Ownership
Owners: Bill Blan & Curtis Barnes
Background
The Houston Seagulls were one of six founding members of the American Football Association during the spring of 1977. The low-budget minor football league featured teams in Texas and Oklahoma during that first season of play, but would ultimately expand east to Florida and the Carolinas and north to the Rust Belt.
But the Seagulls weren’t around for any of that later action. The team was absolutely dreadful, staggering through seven straight one-sided defeats before calling it quits midway through their intended schedule. The Seagulls were outscored 75-0 in their two exhibition losses and 183-38 in five regular season defeats. After travelling to August for a 34-6 licking on August 6th, the Seagulls stopped showing up for games and AFA officials were forced to acknowledge the team was out of business two weeks later.
Incredibly, out of all this mess, the Seagulls produced an NFL success story. Johnnie Dirden was a 24-year old cement truck driver and Houston native who played a couple years of ball at Sam Houston State. The year after the Seagulls went up in smoke, Dirden drove his truck to Oilers training camp, walked in off the street, and asked head coach Bum Phillips for a tryout.2Brubaker, Bill. “There’s no reason why Oiler’s name should be familiar”. The Miami News (Miami, FL). November 18, 1978Dirden ended up making the Oilers as their kick return specialist that fall.
Dirden went on to play parts of three NFL seasons with the Oilers, Chiefs and Steelers from 1978 to 1981 and later played two years in the United States Football League.
Voices
“The Seagulls used to give players tickets to sell to the games and they’d tell us ‘OK, if you sell these, that’s your pay.’ I only sold $7 worth of tickets. I called that my paycheck. I guess I wasn’t a good salesman.”
– Johnnie Dirden, Wide Receiver 1977 (1978 Miami News Interview)3Brubaker, Bill. “There’s no reason why Oiler’s name should be familiar”. The Miami News (Miami, FL). November 18, 1978
Houston Seagulls Shop
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One Response
Yes we were bad, we played hard. Sorry it had to end the way it did. We whet on to start a another league and teams in texas. One of the best team was in texarkana named the Phantoms. They were great. Great turnout for games rest of league wasn’t. Owner and coach Curtis Barnes