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Posted on 07/15/2003 7:31:49 AM PDT by wysiwyg
DALLAS -- Tex Schramm, the showboating innovator who helped build the Dallas Cowboys into "America's Team" and was an instrumental figure in the NFL's evolution and popularity, died at his home today. He was 83.
Greg Court, Schramm's son-in-law, told The Associated Press that Schramm died at his Dallas home Tuesday morning.
Schramm hired Tom Landry as the Cowboys' first coach and was with the team for the first 29 seasons. He left in 1989, two months after Jerry Jones bought the club and fired Landry, and was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame two years later.
Schramm's legacy extends far beyond the Cowboys. Without playing a down, he did as much as anyone to shape today's NFL.
Instant replay, sideline radios in quarterback helmets and starting the play clock immediately after the previous play were all his ideas. So were wrinkles such as wide sideline borders and wind-direction strips dangling atop goalpost uprights.
He also promoted the six-division, wild-card playoff concept and introduced the world to the Cowboys cheerleaders. The nickname "America's Team" wasn't originally his, but he was the one who popularized it.
"For years, I also pushed for the elimination of the huddle," Schramm said in a 1998 interview. "The huddle is useless and time-consuming. You could run 20 additional plays a game. Maybe more."
But for 12 years, Schramm remained the Cowboys' only Hall of Famer not to be inducted into the club's Ring of Honor because of a strained relationship with Jones. In April, however, Jones decided that the man who created the Ring should be in it, too. Schramm was going to become the Ring's 12th member -- and he was responsible for bringing the other 11 to the Cowboys.
A strong personality with an imaginative football mind, Schramm had a fierce and protective love of the NFL.
Schramm was a significant force in the AFL-NFL merger in 1966 and was the original chairman of the league's competition committee, a position he held from 1966-88. His first committee members were Vince Lombardi, Paul Brown and Al Davis.
Before being hired by Cowboys founder Clint Murchison in 1960 to run the expansion team, Schramm worked for the Los Angeles Rams from 1947-56, working his way up from publicity director to general manager. Then he became an executive for CBS-TV Sports.
While with CBS in Los Angeles, Schramm learned the intricacies of wedding football and television, a marriage that has since brought the league billions of dollars. During that job he also gave eventual NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle his first job in the league, hiring him as the Rams' publicity director.
At CBS, he orchestrated the first-ever television broadcast of the Winter Olympics. He also hired Pat Summerall to broadcast New York Giants football games.
Schramm was 39 when Murchison, a prominent Texas oilman, hired him to start an expansion team that had yet to be approved by the NFL.
"I'd always wanted, as far back as I can remember, to take a team from scratch and build it," Schramm said. "So this was an opportunity I couldn't pass up even though we didn't know for sure that Dallas would get a team."
Among his first hires was Landry. Although complete opposite personalities, their "business relationship" -- as Schramm called it -- produced 20 straight winning seasons, 18 playoff appearances, 13 division titles and five Super Bowl appearances. Dallas won two and lost the other three by a combined 11 points.
Thing started slowly, though, with Dallas not winning a game its first season. Despite high hopes in 1963, the losing continued and there were rumblings of a coaching change. Schramm remained confident in Landry and asked Murchison to do the same. He responded with a 10-year contract.
Dallas went on to win division titles in 1966 and '67, leading to memorable playoff losses to the Green Bay Packers, including the Ice Bowl. After being dubbed "Next Year's Champions," they finally won Super Bowls after the 1971 and 1977 seasons.
When the tide turned in the late 1980s, owner Bum Bright wanted Landry fired. Schramm refused.
Schramm was with Jones when Landry was fired in February 1989, but two months later he announced his resignation at the same NFL special meeting during which the sale of the team was unanimously approved. A rift developed between Schramm and the Cowboys' new organization as a result, with Schramm staying away from team headquarters until March when he dined with Jones.
A month later, Jones finally decided to add Schramm to the team's Ring of Honor. Schramm was scheduled to be inducted this season at a game to be announced later.
"I never gave up hope," he said at the April 16 news conference announcing his induction, his eyes filling with tears. "Things that should happen to people that deserve them, usually do happen."
Schramm's marketing genius helped turn the Cowboys into one of the world's most-recognizing sports teams.
An early success was in 1966, when he volunteered to host a second NFL game on Thanksgiving Day. Dallas played Cleveland in the Cotton Bowl that Thursday afternoon, drawing the largest crowd in franchise history (80,259) and the game remains a holiday tradition.
In 1972, the season after Dallas won its first Super Bowl, Schramm decided to entertain fans with professional dancers rather than traditional high school cheerleaders. The seven-member squad forever changed the sidelines for pro football.
As the team's profile grew, Schramm sped it along by developing the largest radio network any sports team ever had. Cowboys games were broadcast on 225 stations in 19 states, plus a Spanish-speaking network that included 16 stations in seven states and Mexico.
His impact extended throughout the league.
When NFL games began degenerating into field-goal kicking contests in the mid-1970s, Schramm was behind the liberalization of the blocking and pass coverage rules. That helped open up the passing game and thus the offense.
He also was highly involved in labor battles.
After the 1966 merger, Schramm was called upon to negotiate a settlement with the NFL Players Association. He wound up with a then-unprecedented four-year agreement and later served on the executive committee of the NFL Management Council.
When players went on strike in 1987, Schramm was one of the leading forces for using replacement players.
"Few people realize the significance of those games in sports history," Schramm later said. "They haven't had another strike, and they played for years without even having a (collective-bargaining) contract. Once the players saw the league could go on without them, that was the end of the strike."
There hasn't been another strike in the NFL since that three-week ordeal in 1987. Major league baseball, the NBA and the NHL all have endured work stoppages since then.
Schramm's warlike effort during the strike forced players like running back Tony Dorsett and defensive tackle Randy White, both eventual Hall of Famers, to cross the picket line or forfeit deferred money in their contract.
When White drove his truck past the picket line, Dorsett called him "Captain Scab." Two days later, Dorsett crossed that same line when he learned his $3 million annuity was in jeopardy.
The blunt-spoken Schramm had long been criticized for his attitude toward his players, especially during that strike.
"He told us that the players were transients and the owners were the stewards of the game," union chief Gene Upshaw said then.
Schramm was born in San Gabriel, Calif., where he his football-playing days ended after high school. The 147-pound fullback opted for a journalism degree from the University of Texas and he became a sportswriter after a stint in the Air Force.
His wife, Marty, died in December.
R.I.P.
Thanks for posting this.Rest in peace, Tex Schramm.
Tex Schramm dead at 8307/15/2003
Texas E. Schramm Jr., who teamed with coach Tom Landry to transform the expansion Dallas Cowboys into America’s Team in their 29 seasons together, died this morning at his Dallas home.
He was 83.
Mr. Schramm was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1991 for his work as Cowboys president and general manager and his contributions to the National Football League.
Last spring, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones announced that Mr. Schramm would be inducted into the Cowboys’ Ring of Honor during the 2003 season.
Mr. Schramm had been in poor health for several years. In 1992, he underwent quintuple bypass surgery.
Mr. Landry and Mr. Schramm — aided by owner Clint Murchison, who gave them autonomy regarding the team — needed five seasons to transform the Cowboys from a fledgling franchise into a perennial winner.
The Cowboys, who went 0-11-1 in their first season under Mr. Landry, did not post their first .500 season until 1965, when the club went 7-7 and finished second in the Eastern Conference.
That proved to be a harbinger.
From 1966 to 1985, the Cowboys recorded an NFL-record 20 consecutive winning seasons, the third-longest such streak in sports history. Only the New York Yankees, who had 39 consecutive winning seasons from 1926 to 1964, and the Montreal Canadiens, who had 32 consecutive winning seasons from 1951 to 1983, surpassed the Cowboys’ streak.
In that 20-year span, Dallas won 13 division titles, made 18 playoff appearances and played in five Super Bowls, winning two.
In the process, the Cowboys became one of the most recognizable sports franchises in the world. NFL Films bestowed the moniker “America’s Team” on the franchise, and the Cowboys became the measuring stick for every NFL team.
Fans loved them or hated them. Opposing teams simply despised them.
Texas Ernest Schramm was born June 2, 1920, in Los Angeles and named after his father. Mr. Schramm said his father, the son of German immigrants, “just always used to joke he was the 12th kid and they ran out of names.”
His parents met in Texas but moved to California early in their marriage. Mr. Schramm grew up in San Gabriel, Calif. He played football in high school and was sports editor of the school paper.
In a 1989 interview with The News, he recalled that he didn’t particularly like to write but said, “I liked to express my views and be recognized.”
After graduating in 1937, Mr. Schramm attended Pasadena Junior College for a year, then transferred to his father’s alma mater, the University of Texas. He left school in 1941 to enlist in the Air Force.
Mr. Schramm returned to UT four years later. He had married his high school sweetheart, Marty Snowden, and the first of three daughters had been born. Mr. Schramm worked in the sports department of the Austin American-Statesman while attending school.
Mr. Schramm began his NFL career in public relations with the Los Angeles Rams in 1947. He needed only two years to become an assistant to the club president and five to become the club’s general manager, a job he kept until 1957.
While with the Rams, Mr. Schramm hired a young, energetic publicist named Pete Rozelle, who would become NFL commissioner in 1952.
Mr. Schramm left the Rams for CBS in 1957 after a series of squabbles with ownership. He became an assistant director of sports broadcasting at CBS. There, he continued to show the creativity and vision that will be his legacy to the Cowboys and the NFL. Mr. Schramm proposed and produced the first Winter Olympics television broadcast.
But the NFL was always his first love.
He rejoined the NFL in 1959, when Mr. Murchison hired him to build the expansion Cowboys into a champion.
Mr. Schramm didn’t just love the Cowboys. He loved the NFL, and he left a large imprint on the franchise and the league.
He and Kansas City Chiefs owner Lamar Hunt, whose American Football League team battled the Cowboys for fans and local dollars as the Dallas Texans from 1960 to 1962, worked out the 1966 merger that put the NFL and AFL under the same umbrella and into the Super Bowl.
Mr. Schramm, who became chairman of the NFL competition committee and a member of the NFL management council’s executive committee, was searching for ways to make the game better. Two of his innovations were wireless microphones for game officials and instant replay.
He played key roles in creating the wild-card playoff system and turning the thin out-of-bounds stripe into a broad white border to help officiating and increase player safety.
“I can’t think of many progressive ideas in our game over the past 25 years that Tex hasn’t had a hand in,” Mr. Rozelle said after the 1988 season.
Mr. Schramm, who set out to build the model professional football franchise, said he loved every minute of his association with the Cowboys.
“I’ve never made any bones about my belief that history is important and that I’d like to be part of it,” he once said.
Bill Sansing, who became Schramm’s friend and confidante when they worked for the student newspaper at Texas, said he knew for a long time that Mr. Schramm was a visionary.
“Tex was a genius in terms of recognizing the important elements of making a major sports franchise work,” Mr. Sansing, who went on to become UT’s first sports information director, once told The News. “With the Cowboys, Tex was the first to think of his franchise’s media market on a much larger scale. Tex thought first of the world and second of the United States.
“As a result, interest in the Cowboys far outstripped whether they won or lost. Having a Roger Staubach or a Tom Landry helped, but Tex knew how to utilize them.”
Not long after Mr. Jones bought the Cowboys in 1989, he fired Mr. Landry. Less than two months later, seeing his influence with the team vanishing, Mr. Schramm resigned to become president of the new World League of American Football.
Mr. Schramm led the WLAF for 16 months before being forced out by the league’s board of directors. He had had “philosophical differences” with other board members for months over the number of first-year franchises and the scale in which the league would operate.
Mr. Schramm attended Cowboys home games for several seasons but otherwise had little interaction with the team. Last spring, he made his first appearance to the club’s Valley Ranch training complex in 14 years to have lunch with Mr. Jones.
Soon afterward came the announcement of his induction to the Ring of Honor, which Mr. Schramm created and served as the one-man selection committee during his Cowboys tenure.
Kay Lang, who spent 25 years as the Cowboys ticket manager, met Mr. Schramm when he worked in the Rams’ front office. Ms. Lang said Mr. Schramm’s attitude made him successful.
“He was arrogant, but in a nice way,” she once told The News. “You have to have that to climb the ladder like he did. It was confidence. It was positive thinking. It was believing in yourself and your organization.”
Suzanne Mitchell, who joined the club as Mr. Schramm’s secretary in 1975 and eventually became director of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, said the Cowboys were more than Mr. Schramm’s employer; they were part of his family.
“He didn’t want to miss anything,” she once told The News. “He wanted to be part of whatever was happening. The instigator, the creator. Those things always made his juices flow.”
Part of Mr. Schramm’s genius is that he understood his strengths and weaknesses. He had seen jealousy and organizational strife wreck the Rams, and he was determined to make Dallas a strong franchise.
It’s the reason he structured the Cowboys’ triumvirate — Mr. Schramm, Mr. Landry and player personnel chief Gil Brandt — in a way that ensured that each of the three had a clearly defined role within the organization.
Mr. Schramm paid the players. Mr. Landry coached the players. Mr. Brandt found the players.
“Tom knew he had authority over the players and everything that had to do with the playing of the game,” Mr. Schramm once told The News. “I had the remainder. There’s one thing you must have in football: one continuous line of authority.
“The players had to understand, as far as they were concerned, Mr. Landry was the boss. They had to understand that the only person I would listen to was Landry. Secondly, they had to understand that I had that kind of backing from Mr. Murchison. If everyone doesn’t know there’s a definite line of authority, you have chaos.”
Mr. Murchison, a strong believer in hiring the best people available and then leaving them alone to do the job, wanted a general manager who could handle the autonomy. Mr. Schramm hired Mr. Landry, a highly respected defensive coordinator with the New York Giants, and gave him complete control of the team.
“We never had a close relationship, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be successful,” Mr. Landry said shortly after he and Mr. Schramm left the club when Jerry Jones became owner in February 1989. “Tex and I were in tune. Our lifestyles were different, and people wondered how we could get along. We just meshed well in the system we were using.”
Hall of Fame coach Don Shula once said Mr. Schramm’s impact on the Cowboys was immeasurable.
“They became one of the great organizations in all of professional sports,” he said. “That just didn’t happen by accident.”
Retired staff writer Sam Blair contributed to this report.
Online at: http://www.dallasnews.com/latestnews/stories/071503dnsposchrammobit.91c0934c.html
RIP, Mr. Schramm. And thanks for the memories.
| It's all about the 'ring' for Schramm
|
| By Christine Stewart NFL.com |
(April 17, 2003) -- Tex Schramm has quite a "ring" to add to his lengthy list of achievements with the Dallas Cowboys and in the NFL.
Schramm, 82, will become the 12th member of the franchise's Ring of Honor at Texas Stadium. Nearly 28 years after defensive tackle Bob Lilly became the first honoree, Schramm will join the illustrious group he established back in the 1970s. He'll be formally inducted during a yet-to-be-named Cowboys home game this season.
"It's a great honor and something I've been thinking about for a very long time," Schramm said. "I started it, and I think it's just a tremendous honor to be included. I'm very proud."
| MORE TEX TALK |
| On whether he's still a big fan: "For sure ... the National Football League has been a great, great thing to me, and I was so involved in it for so long. It's all been such a great honor." What he considers his best draft: "I think the one in which we drafted Roger Staubach. [When it comes to the draft], all you can do is pick players and hope they turn out to be great players. We had some, and we're very proud of them." On what the Cowboys should do with the No. 5 pick this year: "They should pick the best player they can get. If one of the top quarterbacks are still available, they should take him because the most important player on the team is the quarterback." |
Schramm, the Cowboys' former president and general manager, came up with the idea for the Ring of Honor in the early-to-mid '70s. He wanted to find an innovative way to honor former Cowboys players and coaches who "made outstanding contributions to the club." Inductees' names and years of service are displayed in silver above the team's bench at Texas Stadium for all who enter to see.
"When we started having players who were really outstanding, people wanted to retire their jerseys," Schramm said. "I thought if you retire jerseys, they get put away and no one sees them, so I tried to come up with a different way to honor them. Every time you go [to Texas Stadium], the names are up there."
Schramm was the Cowboys' president and GM from 1960-1989. One of his very first hires was coach Tom Landry, and together, the pair transformed the Cowboys into one of the NFL's most successful and storied franchises. Under Schramm's leadership, Dallas amassed a league-record 20 straight winning seasons, won 13 division titles, made the playoffs 18 times, and appeared in five Super Bowls, winning two (in 1971 and '77). He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1991.
Building the Cowboys into winners wasn't the only success Schramm enjoyed. He was also the NFL Competition Committee's chairman from 1966-1988, and was pivotal in revolutionizing many aspects of the game. He was a major advocate of instant replay, brought about the use of computer technology in scouting, helped institute many of the special markings used on the playing field, and endorsed rules changes that enhanced offenses and made games more exciting.
 |
|
| Tex Schramm was instrumental in molding the Cowboys into a successful franchise. |
"I think a lot of people have no idea how instrumental he was in making the National Football League the success it is today," said former Cowboys personnel director Gil Brandt. "He was very aware of fans' feelings on things. Because of his involvement with the competition committee, the league's rules got better."
Brandt and Schramm worked together in Dallas for nearly 30 years. As for how he feels about his longtime friend's induction into the Ring of Honor, Brandt couldn't be happier.
"I'm excited for him. It makes him remembered forever in Dallas. He hired me. We lived across the creek from one another; his parking spot was right next to mine in our garage building. Probably more than anybody, I know what he brought to the table."
Schramm will join Landry, Lilly, Roger Staubach, Mel Renfro, Tony Dorsett, Chuck Howley, Lee Roy Jordan, Don Meredith, Don Perkins, Randy White and Bob Hayes -- who was inducted in 2001 -- in the ring.
"I never gave up hope that it would come because I usually found that things that should happen to people that deserve it, usually it did happen," Schramm said. "I just kept that thought."
What a thought it was.
Shramm and Landry are honored names in our hosuehold. Men like them have made football great...I wish there were more of them in the sport today...in fact, in the nation.
Of course ... but he's not playing anymore and that evil Mr. Jones is in charge of the once mighty Cowboys. Again ... now the roof can be closed.
So true... Roger S. and Joe Montana were probably number 1 and 2 in the all time great list of QBs (either one could've been number 1).
Jones is the biggest mistake in NFL history (that and Georgia F. moving the Rams to St Louis).
Jones has single-handedly taken a great team and destroyed it in one and a half decades.
I was at the game in Houston last year where the brand new Texans beat the Cowboys. Before the game, Jones was strutting around the stadium like he owned the place. It was fun to see him storm out after the game with his tail between his legs! He is probably the biggest jack@$$ in the sport today. He has no shame. The Cowboys will continue to suffer until Jones no longer owns the team.
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