The San Antonio Toros: South Texas’ scrappy contenders of the Continental Football League

CoFL Staff
6 days ago
8 min read

If you love the odd corners of American football history, the San Antonio Toros are catnip. In an era when the NFL–AFL merger was squeezing oxygen from every other pro outfit, the Toros muscled their way into relevance with a blue-collar roster, a carousel of local stadiums, and a 1969 run that took them to the final, delirious game in Continental Football League (CoFL) history.

This is their story—how a San Antonio semi-pro upstart matured into a Texas powerhouse, briefly became a Western champion in a national league, and left a template (and a few warnings) for any modern non-NFL club that wants to matter.

Before the CoFL: a San Antonio Machine

The Toros emerged in the late 1960s out of the Texas Football League (TFL), an independent minor league that kept the game alive in cities the NFL and AFL ignored. Local businessman Henry Clay Hight fronted the project; he would become the franchise’s enduring heartbeat and—if you ask former players—an old-school owner who treated his people unusually well. Contemporary remembrances in San Antonio’s press and his obituary both place Hight at the center of the Toros’ rise and culture. (San Antonio Express-News)

On the field, the Toros turned into serial winners. In the TFL they captured league titles in 1967 and 1968—part of a five-year run across multiple leagues that cemented their reputation as one of the best semi-pro programs in the country.

Two things made that pre-CoFL phase instructive.

First, San Antonio’s high-school and small-college pipeline was rich—Sul Ross State, Texas Lutheran, Trinity (TX), and others were steady sources of talent.

Second, the Toros were flexible about venue and scheduling, which helped them control costs and chase gates. They played home dates at North East Stadium (today’s Comalander Stadium), Alamo Stadium, and Harlandale Memorial, picking their spots as availability and economics dictated.

1969: San Antonio joins the big fight

For 1969 the CoFL absorbed the Texas circuit into a new “Texas Division,” giving the league its widest geographic footprint and introducing a fervent football market to the national stage. The Toros joined the Texas Division and posted a 7-4 regular-season mark, the best in their half of the Texas bracket. Hoover Evans served as head coach; future San Antonio high-school legend George Pasterchick worked on staff—another example of how the Toros blended local coaching horsepower with minor-league pragmatism.

That ’69 schedule reads like a tour of mid-century Texas football landmarks. They opened at North East Stadium before shifting many home dates to Harlandale Memorial and brought 7,000–10,000 fans on several nights—a strong showing for a start-up club in a start-up division. Signature results included a 52–14 thumping of division rival Texarkana and a gritty 14–12 road win at West Texas. (Pro Football Archives)

When the regular season ended, San Antonio beat Texarkana 20–7 to claim the Texas title, then dropped Las Vegas 21–17 at Alamo Stadium to seize the Western Conference crown. Those were real, earned wins: Las Vegas had hammered Sacramento 31–0 the week prior, and the Toros still found a way through the Cowboys a week later in San Antonio.

The greatest game the CoFL ever staged

December 13, 1969—Bush Stadium in Indianapolis—became the CoFL’s last and wildest chapter. The Western champion Toros met the Eastern champion Indianapolis Capitols in a championship that Pro Football Weekly later called as “major-league a football game as this minor league ever produced.” Indianapolis won in overtime, 44–38, but not before San Antonio pulled off a miracle finish in regulation. With 30 seconds left and down 38–28, the Toros scored a touchdown, recovered an onside kick, and kicker Jerry Moritz drilled a 38-yard field goal to force OT. In the extra period, San Antonio drove to set up a potential game-winning 25-yarder but missed; Indianapolis then marched 70 yards and scored with seconds left in overtime to end the league’s five-year life in cinematic fashion.

Strip away the romance and the game still provides a usable scouting report on those Toros:

Quarterback play: Sal Olivas (New Mexico State) was a gunslinger with a vertical appetite—10 TD passes on the season—and good chemistry with deep threat R.A. Johnson.
Explosives on the perimeter: Johnson averaged a scorching 23.5 yards per catch and accounted for six receiving TDs; Truman Franks and Roger Gill were productive complements.
Kicking game as weapon: Moritz hit 36 of 37 PATs and seven field goals that season; beyond the raw points, his leg altered end-game math (see: the onside-kick-and-kick sequence in the final).
Field-position thieves: Return man Jacob Henry housed two punts and consistently flipped the field—part of why San Antonio hung around even when out-yarded.

Who were these Toros?

The 1969 roster looked like a Texas high-school coaches’ clinic roll call. It was heavy on local and regional products, many with two-way or special-teams chops—exactly how you build a 1960s minor-league team that has to cover travel, play iron-man football on short weeks, and survive without the safety net of big-league practice squads.

Key figures (1969):

Hoover Evans (HC) with assistants including George Pasterchick, future San Antonio high-school icon.
Sal Olivas (QB)—ex-NMSU star, NFL draftee, and the right pilot for a bombs-away passing game. (New Mexico State University Athletics)
R.A. Johnson (FL)—home-run receiver (27–635–6) whose deep connection with Olivas defined the offense’s ceiling. (Pro Football Archives)
A.C. Lex (RB)—chain-mover and red-zone finisher (team-high 7 TDs).
Jerry Moritz (K/P)—indispensable specialist; the box score evidence is overwhelming.
Johnny Mata, Ronnie Ehrig, Obert Logan—defenders/DBs who produced timely takeaways in 1969. (Mata’s pick set up a key score in the CoFL title game’s third quarter.)

It’s also notable how often San Antonio tapped the small-college ecosystem—Sul Ross State, Trinity, Texas Lutheran, Texas A&I (now Texas A&M-Kingsville), Texas Tech. That built a reliable scouting map the Toros kept using into the 1970s.

Venues, gates, and how San Antonio made it pencil out

Look at the Toros’ 1969 scoreline ledger and you’ll see why they survived as long as they did. They scheduled creatively to find the right mix of venue size (from 5,000-ish to 10,000-plus seats), date availability, and local draw:

North East Stadium (now Jerry Comalander Stadium): early-season home gate of 10,255 vs. Fort Worth.
Harlandale Memorial Stadium: the workhorse venue in ’69; several 5,000–9,500 crowds.
Alamo Stadium: chosen for the Western final vs. Las Vegas; 7,194 rolled in to see San Antonio clinch its spot in the championship.

This “right stadium for the right night” approach prefigures what today’s alt-pro outfits try to do—scale the room to the event to keep optics and operations healthy.

After the CoFL: kings of spring, then one more pivot

The CoFL folded after 1969, but the Toros didn’t. They helped birth the Trans-American Football League (TAFL) in 1970 and then did something visionary: in 1971 the TAFL moved its entire schedule to the spring, becoming the first American pro football league to stage a full spring season. The Toros thrived, winning the 1971 TAFL championship 20–19 over Texarkana at North East Stadium. That spring experiment caught national attention and foreshadowed a strategy modern leagues would revisit decades later.

When TAFL flickered, San Antonio co-founded the short-lived Southwest Professional Football League (SWPFL) with the Dallas Rockets, winning again in 1972. The thread through all of it: the Toros’ capacity to adapt—league to league, season to season—without losing their football identity.

What made the Toros good?

1) A regional scouting advantage. The roster churned with Texas small-college products, many with multi-positional value and special-teams utility. That’s how you win in developmental football: find players who can cover three lockers with one game check.

2) A quarterback with a fastball. Olivas’ 1969 numbers (10 TD, 1,098 yards in 11 games) don’t sing by modern standards, but in the late-’60s minor-league context—and with the deep-shot mix the Toros favored—his willingness to rip the post and go-ball gave San Antonio real punch.

3) Special teams as force multiplier. Moritz’s reliability on PATs/FGs and Henry’s return juice routinely produced the +3 to +10 points of hidden yardage/points that separate 7–4 from 5–6. In the CoFL final, that phase literally extended the game.

4) Community-scale venues. By bouncing among Harlandale, North East, and Alamo Stadiums, the club stayed within the Goldilocks zone for atmosphere and cost. The proof is in the attendance column and the ability to host a conference title game on short notice.

The weaknesses that capped their ceiling

Travel economics and league fragility. The CoFL’s national sprawl and the Texas Division’s late grafting made travel expensive with little television revenue to backfill it. Even sound Texas gates couldn’t fix a league matrix that kept changing underneath the teams. (By 1970, the CoFL splintered; the Toros and peers reassembled elsewhere.)

Depth against elite opponents. In the championship, San Antonio’s explosive plays and special teams kept pace, but Indianapolis had more ways to win drives when the game got long. That’s depth—a budget function as much as a scouting one.

Borrowed time on borrowed fields. Juggling venues is good operations, but you sacrifice routine—locker rooms, sight lines, kicking backgrounds—that help execution in tight moments. San Antonio handled it better than most; it’s still a tradeoff inherent to the model.

Legacy: why the Toros still matter

Even if you’ve never heard of the CoFL, you’ve felt its echoes. The 1969 title game—San Antonio vs. Indianapolis—was an OT thriller that ended the league on a high note and proved “minor-league” didn’t mean “minor” drama. The Toros’ post-CoFL spring-season success anticipated later experiments and validated a central idea: there’s room for pro football outside the NFL calendar—if you execute well locally.

For San Antonio, the Toros also showed that this city’s football appetite goes beyond Friday nights and the occasional NFL flirtation. There’s a reason modern teams—from WLAF to UFL—keep testing this market. The Toros were the prototype: community-built, locally scouted, and tough enough to punch above their payroll.

Fast facts & timeline

1967–68 (TFL): Toros emerge as a Texas power; win back-to-back league titles.
1969 (CoFL): 7–4 in regular season; win Texas title (20–7 at Texarkana), Western title (21–17 vs. Las Vegas at Alamo Stadium); lose CoFL championship in OT to Indianapolis, 44–38 (Dec. 13, Bush Stadium).
1970–71 (TAFL): Toros help launch the league; in 1971, TAFL becomes the first U.S. pro league to run a full spring schedule; Toros win 1971 title 20–19 over Texarkana at North East Stadium.
1972 (SWPFL): Toros win again after another re-org, underscoring their adaptability.

What the modern game can steal from the Toros

Recruit like a regional power, not a national brand. The Toros thrived by owning the small-college map around them—then coaching and coordinating to what those players did best. That strategy scales in 2026 as cleanly as it did in 1969.

Treat special teams as your third explosive. Minor-league offenses and defenses can be streaky. Kicking and returns are how you buy margin. If you’re building a modern Toros analogue, spend early on a pro-grade kicker and a returner with track speed and ball security. (San Antonio’s 1969 box score is the case study.)

Pick the right room for the night. If you don’t own your venue, curate it. The Toros’ mix of North East, Harlandale, and Alamo Stadium kept their product “big enough” without looking empty. That’s marketing, operations, and competitive advantage at once.

Plan for league volatility. San Antonio’s constant pivots—from CoFL to TAFL to SWPFL—were survival, not whimsy. Build your front office to re-schedule, re-brand, and re-negotiate fast, because the circuit around you may change three times before Labor Day.

Closing thoughts

The Toros’ great, oxygen-stealing feat wasn’t simply reaching the 1969 CoFL final; it was organizing a sustainable football identity in a market without an NFL lifeline and then dragging that identity through three different leagues while still winning.

They were Texas tough, community-centered, tactically flexible, and—for one unforgettable night in Indianapolis—co-authors of the wildest finish in a league’s history.That’s a legacy any modern club would be proud to inherit.

San Antonio and the UFL...

As the UFL quietly closed the chapter on the San Antonio Brahmas—citing venue misalignments even as the team ranked near the top of the league in attendance—the message is clear: San Antonio isn’t a failed market, just an underserved one. The old Toros proved more than half a century ago that this city can rally behind tough, local football played with pride.

Now, with the Continental Football League’s return as a summer professional league, the stage is set for San Antonio to reclaim that spirit—authentic, regional, and built for fans who still believe football season shouldn’t end when the heat rolls in.