Sports Teams
The San Antonio Spurs began as an original entry in the American Basketball Association. Called the Dallas Chaparrals, the franchise survived the turmoil of the ABA era and was rewarded with admittance to the NBA when the upstart league merged with the NBA.
The franchise has fielded some fine teams over the years. In the late 1970s and early 1980s the team featured George "the Iceman" Gervin and won the Midwest Division five out of six years. In the late 1980s the addition of David Robinson turned the club back into a contender. And when Tim Duncan arrived, he and Robinson brought a championship home to San Antonio in 1999.
The city's only top-level professional sports team, and consequently the team most San Antonians follow, is the San Antonio Spurs of the National Basketball Association . Previously, the Spurs played at the Alamodome , which was built for football , and before that the HemisFair Arena , but the Spurs built—with public money—and moved into the SBC Center in 2002, since renamed the AT&T Center .
The AT&T Center is also home to the San Antonio Rampage of the American Hockey League and the San Antonio Silver Stars of the WNBA , both owned by the Spurs Organization. San Antonio is home to the Double-A Minor League affiliate of the San Diego Padres , the San Antonio Missions who play at Nelson Wolff Stadium on the west side of the city. (San Antonio is the largest city in the country with neither a Major League nor AAA baseball team.) San Antonio hosts the NCAA football Alamo Bowl each December.
San Antonio has two rugby union teams, the Alamo City Rugby Football Club , and San Antonio Rugby Football Club.
The city is also home to St. Mary's University and the University of Texas San Antonio who field the only two collegiate Mens Rugby teams in the city. Both schools compete in Division III Texas Rugby Union, both schools are city and division rivals.
The University of Texas at San Antonio fields San Antonio's only NCAA Division I athletic teams known as the UTSA Roadrunners . The University recently added football, hiring former University of Miami coach Larry Coker as its initial head coach. Roadrunner football will begin play in 2011.
The city is also home of the U.S. Army All-American Bowl, played annually in the Alamodome and televised live on NBC. The Bowl is an East versus West showdown featuring the nation's top 90 high school senior football players. The game has featured NFL stars Reggie Bush , Vince Young , Adrian Peterson , and many other college and NFL stars.
City officials are said to be attempting to lure the National Football League permanently to San Antonio and have also said that a strong showing at the Alamodome for the three local Saints games was vital to showing that San Antonio can support an NFL franchise. NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue stated San Antonio was successful in hosting the team, and that the city would be on the short list for any future NFL expansions. The city has also hosted the Dallas Cowboys and Houston Oilers preseason camps in the past, and they have signed a contract with the Cowboys in which the Cowboys will practice in San Antonio through 2011. Cowboys owner Jerry Jones has acknowledged his support for the city's efforts to become home to an NFL franchise. Although it is the second largest city in the United States without an NFL team, San Antonio's smaller metropolitan population has so far contributed to its lack of landing an NFL, MLB , or NHL team.
The city got its first professional soccer team, the San Antonio Scorpions of the North American Soccer League , in 2010. They are expected to begin playing in 2012 initially in Heroes Stadium pending the completion of a soccer-specific facility in the STAR Soccer Complex .
San Antonio will be getting a National Premier Soccer League expansion team in 2010.
