The Oorang Indians () were a traveling team in the National Football League from LaRue, Ohio (near Marion). The franchise was a novelty team put together by Walter Lingo to market his Oorang (Airedale Terrier) dog kennels. All of the Indians players were Native American, with Jim Thorpe serving as its leading player and coach. The team played in the National Football League in 1922 and 1923. Of the 20 games they played over two seasons, only one was played at "home" in nearby Marion. With a population well under a thousand people, LaRue remains the smallest town ever to have been the home of an NFL franchise, or any professional team in any league in the United States.
History
Beginnings
In 1919 Oorang Kennel owner, Walter Lingo, met and became friends with Jim Thorpe of the Canton Bulldogs, a future Pro Football Hall of Famer who was considered the greatest athlete of his time. Lingo had a deep passion for the Airedales, which he raised, and for Native American culture. LaRue, Ohio, was once the site of an old Wyandot village and Lingo believed that a supernatural bond existed between the Indians and the Airedales. Thorpe first came to Lingo's defense after neighboring farmers accused Lingo's Oorang Kennels of raising "a nation of sheep killers". Thorpe came to Lingo's aid by testifying that he once knew an Oorang Airedale that had saved the life of a 6-year-old girl, named Mabel, from being trampled by a bull. Afterwards, Lingo and Thorpe became friends and soon began hunting together.
right|thumb|1922–1923 Oorang Indians letterhead
In 1921, Lingo invited Thorpe and Pete Calac, who was a teammate of Thorpe's at the Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania, to his plantation in LaRue to hunt for opossum. It was on this trip that the men agreed on a way to both advertise Airedales and to employ Thorpe, who after dominating the Ohio League for much of the late 1910s was no longer to lead his Canton Bulldogs to championships in a broader national league. Lingo would purchase a franchise in the young National Football League, and Thorpe would run the team. At the time, the cost of purchasing an NFL franchise was $100 (). Meanwhile, just one of Lingo's Airedales sold for $150 (). Lingo saw the idea of a franchise as a way of touring the country's leading cities for the express purpose of advertising his Airedales. Therefore, he placed two conditions on the team. The first was that Thorpe had to field an all-Indian team. Secondly, Lingo wanted the team to help run his kennels in addition to playing football. Thorpe and Calac agreed to both terms.
The 1922 season
thumb|right|1922 Oorang Indians
The Indians had two future Hall of Famers on the roster, Thorpe and Joe Guyon. However, they did not play much. Thorpe was confined to coaching on the sidelines through most of the first half of the 1922 season and never played more than a half afterward. Guyon did not join the team until midway through the 1922 season. Pete Calac, who won several "Ohio League" titles with Thorpe and the Canton Bulldogs, was still suffering from career-threatening wounds from fighting in France during World War I.
First-ever halftime shows
Rather than retiring to the locker room at halftime, the Oorang Indians showed Lingo's Airedales to the crowd. It was debatable, though, whether the Indians were there to play football or give Airedale exhibitions at halftime. In addition to the exhibitions with the dogs, the Indians, including Thorpe, participated in helping the Oorang Airedales perform tricks for the crowd. However, it was their halftime entertainment that made them such a huge attraction in the early 1920s. There were shooting exhibitions with the dogs retrieving the targets. There were Indian dances and tomahawk and knife-throwing demonstrations. Thorpe had a history of repeatedly drop kicking footballs through the uprights from midfield. Indians player Nick Lassa (also called "Long-Time-Sleep") even wrestled a bear on occasion.
Off-field behavior
right|thumb|A December 6, 1923 cartoon in the [[Baltimore News illustrating the media's perception of the team.]]
The Indians players knew that Lingo's only goal was to advertise his Airedales and that winning football games wasn't important to him. Therefore, the players spent a lot of their free time partying and drinking. In 1922, the night before a game with the Chicago Bears, the Indians went to a Chicago bar called "Everyman's Saloon." At 2:00 a.m., the bartender stopped serving drinks since Illinois law prohibited the sale of alcohol after 2 a.m. This action upset the Indians players, who stuffed the bartender in a telephone booth and turned it upside down. The Indians lost to the Bears 33–6 just a few hours later. Another instance occurred in November 1923 in St. Louis (as the Indians were in town for a game against the All-Stars), when several of the Indians went out drinking for the night. As the night came to an end, the players decided it was time to return to their hotel. They soon found a trolley that could take them back to their rooms; however, that particular trolley was headed in the opposite direction. To solve this problem, the Indians players reportedly picked up the trolley, and turned it around on the tracks. They then told the conductor the address for their hotel.
Legacy
In 1997, which was the 75th anniversary of the team's founding, the Marion County Historical Society erected an Ohio Historic Marker on the site of the Oorang Indians' practice field in LaRue, Ohio. Today, LaRue still has the distinction of being the smallest community to have a National Football League franchise. Two members of the Oorang Indians, Jim Thorpe and Joe Guyon, were named as charter members of the National Football League Hall of Fame. Meanwhile, Lingo's kennels, which were the sole reason for the team, thrived until 1929, when the industry was impacted by the Great Depression; however, the Oorang Kennel Company continued until Walter Lingo's death in 1969. The Indians are also believed to have the highest percentage of Oklahomans on its roster than any other NFL squad before or since.
Pro Football Hall of Famers
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center"
! colspan="5" style="background:#7D0008; color:#FFBE26;"|Oorang Indians Hall of Famers
|-
! colspan="5" style="background:#FFBE26; color:#7D0008;"|Players
|-
! No.
! Name
! Position
! Tenure
! Inducted
|-
| — || Joe Guyon || T/HB || 1922–1923 || 1966
|-
| — || Jim Thorpe || Back<br>Coach || 1922–1923 || 1963
|}
Season-by-season
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Year !! W !! L !! T !! Finish !! Coach
|-
| 1922