This guy helped create the American Football League, which eventually merged with the NFL.
He even coined the phrase “Super Bowl.”
But his biggest legacy might be in a completely different sport. And believe it or not, it all started here in Dallas.
This is the story of Lamar Hunt, known as the father of American soccer. He was the son of a Texas oilman and played college football at SMU.
At just 27 years old, he worked to bring an NFL team to Texas by buying and relocating the Chicago Cardinals.
So Hunt did what anyone would do. He rounded up a group of oilmen and investors and started his own league: the American Football League. It eventually merged with the NFL.
But enough about that football.
Let’s talk about… futbol.
In 1962, Hunt traveled with his future wife to Ireland. While in Dublin attending his first professional soccer match, he came away inspired that this fast-paced sport had a future in the US.
A few years later, he founded the first professional soccer team in Texas, the Dallas Tornado, and helped launch the North American Soccer League.
The league folded, but Hunt didn’t give up on the sport.
By 1996, a few years after the U.S. hosted the FIFA World Cup, Hunt became one of the founding members of Major League Soccer, today’s top men’s professional league in America.
When the league launched, Hunt owned two clubs: the Columbus Crew and Kansas City Wizards. He soon built the first MLS stadium. Other teams soon started building venues of their own.
In 2003, Hunt purchased a third club, the Dallas Burn — the team we know today as FC Dallas.
Hunt was inducted into the National Soccer Hall of Fame in 1982. He’s often referred to as the father of American soccer, not because he played the game, but because without his persistence to grow the sport in America, it might look very different today.