Today's Tidbit... Glenn McCarthy And Houston's Giant Stadium

In the late 1940s, the NFL and AAFC competed for football talent and the nation's attention, with entrepreneurs in Buffalo and Houston seeking to attract a franchise from whichever league gave them the first opportunity. A barrier to Houston gaining a franchise was the lack of a football stadium large enough for the pros, though Rice and the University of Houston were considering expanding or replacing their stadiums. Into the breach stepped Glenn H. McCarthy, who had earned several fortunes as an oil wildcatter and was the basis of Edna Ferber's novel Giant and the character played by James Dean in the movie of the same name. McCarthy proposed a 100,000-seat stadium with a retractable aluminum roof, with space to add 20,000 to 30,000 more temporary seats for significant events. McCarthy's Houston Stadium never came to pass, though it may have inspired the Astrodome that arrived in 1964.

McCarthy personified the rags-to-riches-to-rags-to-riches story, and like others who fit that description, elements of his background story get inflated and conflated over time, so it becomes difficult to separate fact from fiction. Although profiles suggest he played at Tulane, Texas A&M, and Rice, I could verify only portions of that story.

The son of an itinerant oilfield worker, the McCarthy family settled in Houston in the mid-1920s, allowing McCarthy to attend San Jacinto High, where he starred as a lineman. He impressed Paul Tyson, Waco High's famous coach, in a losing playoff effort in 1926, and his efforts earned him at least one all-state mention.