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Brooklyn Dodgers (Continental Football League)


The Brooklyn Dodgers were a football team that played one season in the minor Continental Football League in 1966. They were not related to the former National Football League or All-America Football Conference clubs of that name.

The franchise was originally known as the Providence Indians (aka Rhode Island Indians), a newly-formed team in the Continental League's first season in 1965. The ContFL's other nine squads were taken from the Atlantic Coast Football League and the defunct United Football League; the Indians replaced an incarnation of the Providence Steam Roller that had played in the ACFL from 1962 to 1964. After a disastrous 3-11 season played before tiny crowds, the franchise was shifted to Brooklyn and renamed after the famous baseball team. (There was precedent for this: there was a Brooklyn Dodgers team in the NFL from 1930–43 and another club of that name in the All-America Football Conference (AAFC) from 1946–48; still, the Los Angeles Dodgers were not amused, suing the new Dodgers for copyright infringement for using their former name.)

Although a completely different organization from the baseball Dodgers, the football Dodgers did hire hardball legend Jackie Robinson as their general manager, featuring him in their promotional materials. Robinson, who briefly played professional football in the old Pacific Coast League in the 1940s, was actually hired as a figurehead with little say over the day-to-day actions of the team; his role was mostly limited to public appearances, such as attending "Jackie Robinson Day" when the Dodgers played in Montreal, where he had played for the minor-league Montreal Royals in 1946. Andy Robustelli was the Dodgers' head coach, while Tom Kennedy, who also played with the club when it was in Providence in 1965, was the starting quarterback. After Kennedy led the Continental in passing (191-for-316, 2559 yards and 18 TDs), he was signed by the New York Giants; afterwards, ex-TCU star Sonny Gibbs took over behind center.


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