A Native American football team beat the 1927 NFL Giants: The story of John Levi

Deviate with Rolf Potts

“Running back John Levi is about as easy to stop as a 200-pound eel. With his speed, and his shifting, sidestepping style of running, tacklers slide off of him like rain off a slicker.” –From the Minneapolis Star, October 1923

In this episode of Deviate, Rolf talks about a 1927 football game between the New York Giants and an all-indigenous Oklahoma team called the Hominy Indians, and how the team’s star player, John Levi, was the father of Rolf’s junior high gym coach (0:00); John Levi’s early years as a football player at Haskell Institute, and Haskell’s games against teams like Baylor and Minnesota (5:00); Haskell’s game against the Quantico Marines at Yankee Stadium, and how it led to John Levi being offered a baseball contract (10:30); how professional football was different in the 1920s than it is now (14:00); how Osage County, Oklahoma was in the midst of an oil boom in the 1920s (17:30) the specifics of the 1927 New York Giants versus Hominy Indians game (20:30); and how John Levi’s legacy was embodied by his son, a U.S. Marine veteran who later became a physical education teacher in Wichita, Kansas (22:30).

John Levi, Jr. served as a medic for the First Marine Division during the Korean War. He later taught physical education for several decades at Hadley Junior High School in Wichita, Kansas. Now retired, he lives in Green Valley, Arizona.

Sports-related Links:

• John Levi (Arapaho multi-sport athlete)
• Hominy Indians (1920s Oklahoma football team)
• 1927 New York Giants (football team)
• Playground of the Native Son (2013 film)
• “They Might be Giants” (article about the Hominy-Giants game)
• Super Bowl 57 (NFL football championship)
• Jim Thorpe (Sac and Fox Nation multi-sport athlete)
• Barry Sanders (NFL running back)
• Patrick Mahomes (NFL quarterback)
• 1923 Quantico Marines Devil Dogs (football team)
• Red Grange (college and NFL running back)
• Olympics amateurism rules (aristocratic sporting ethos)
• Harrisburg Senators (minor-league baseball team)
• History of the National Football League
• Pottsville Maroons (defunct NFL football team)
• Kansas City Cowboys (defunct NFL football team)
• Akron Pros (defunct NFL football team)
• Buffalo Bisons (defunct NFL football team)
• Barnstorming (traveling sports exhibitions)
• John Mosier (NFL tight end)
• Russ Campbell (NFL tight end)

Other notable Links:

• A personal history of being a football fan (Deviate episode)
• Haskell Institute (Native American school in Kansas)
• Carlyle Industrial School (Indian boarding school)
• Indian Citizenship Act of 1924
• Osage County, Oklahoma
• Killers of the Flower Moon (2023 movie)
• David Grann (author)
• Hominy (town in Oklahoma)
• Fairfax (town in Oklahoma)
• Growing up racially diverse (Deviate episode)
• Battle of Inchon (Korean War amphibious invasion)
• Second Battle of Seoul (Korean War urban battle)
• Battle of Chosin Reservoir (Korean War winter battle)
• Band of Brothers (book by Stephen Ambrose)

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber.

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