Cowboys' Gil Brandt left legacy that will be 'celebrated forever'
FRISCO – Gil Brandt, the innovative Cowboys executive who was part of two Super Bowl-winning teams, one of the founding fathers of the advances of scouting and the signing and drafting of players from HBCUs and other sports died in the early morning hours Thursday. He was 91. Sara Brandt, who was married to Gil for 34 years, said he died just before 2 a.
m. from an undisclosed illness. She said her husband was admitted into the Faith Presbyterian Hospice and T.
Boone Pickens Hospice and Palliative Center several weeks ago. “He was an amazing man,” she said. Brandt was the Cowboys’ vice president of player personnel from the team’s inception in 1960-88.
Along with team president Tex Schramm, he formulated rosters that led the Cowboys to five Super Bowl appearances, 13 division titles along with 20 consecutive winning seasons. Brandt helped formulate the National Scouting Combine, introduced the use of computers to rank players and held up the NFL draft for nearly eight hours in 1964, when there was no time limit on making picks. Brandt awaited medical results of a wrist injury to cornerback Mel Renfro before selecting him in the second round.
Renfro, a 10-time Pro Bowler, would get elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Brandt drafted or signed nine players who went on to the Hall of Fame and 15 who reside in the Cowboys’ Ring of Honor. “We are so deeply saddened by the passing of Gil Brandt, a true icon and pioneer of our sport,” Cowboys owner and general manager Jerry Jones said in a statement.
“Gil was at the very core of the early success of the Dallas Cowboys and continued to serve as a great ambassador for the organization for decades beyond that. His contributions cemented his spot in the Ring of Honor. He was my friend and a mentor not only to me, but to countless executives, coaches, players and broadcasters across the National Football League, which rightfully earned him a spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame where his legacy will be celebrated forever.
” Brandt began his career in the Los Angeles Rams scouting department after he graduated from Wisconsin. He became a full-time scout with the San Francisco 49ers in 1958 before leaving to run the expansion Cowboys’ personnel department in 1960. Brandt’s ability to recognize talent went beyond traditional means.
He signed Utah State basketball player Cornell Green and converted him into a safety. Green became a five-time Pro Bowler and two-time All-Pro in his career. In Brandt’s later years, he advocated for Green to get inducted not only into the Pro Football Hall of Fame but also the Cowboys’ Ring of Honor.
Brandt also signed basketball players Preston Pearson, Percy Howard and Pete Gent to the Cowboys. The vision Brandt saw in Florida A&M track star Bob Hayes paid dividends. Hayes, an Olympic gold medalist sprinter, was drafted in the seventh round by the Cowboys in 1964.
Hayes would become a Pro Football Hall of Famer and the first man to play for a Super Bowl-winning team and earn an Olympic gold medal. When few NFL teams scouted players from HBCU’s, Brandt sent scouts to Tennessee State where defensive tackle/end Ed “Too Tall” Jones resided. Jones became the first player from an HBCU to get drafted No.
1 overall in 1974. Brandt also signed Dallas native Everson Walls, a cornerback from Grambling State, in 1981. “The HBCUs were major [for] the Cowboys back in the day,” Walls said.
“I had a lot of company there. I had a lot of support from guys like Mike Hegman, guys like Too Tall Jones and the great Bob Hayes. These are the kind of guys that Gil Brandt was out there looking for and when they were scouting for it, he wasn’t just up there just picking a few things out of the air.
” Brandt took chances on players like quarterback Roger Staubach, who was drafted in 1964. The Cowboys had to wait to use him until his commitment to the Naval Academy was completed. Brandt would send footballs to Vietnam, where Staubach was stationed, so he could stay in shape.
“He had this unusual knack for judging talent,” said Cowboys wide receiver Drew Pearson, who was undrafted after playing quarterback at Tulsa and later was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. “Everybody had their criteria of what they were looking for on the basis of the height, the weight, the speed and that type of thing. Gil had a knack for looking for the intangibles to go along with that.
Even though Drew Pearson didn’t have the size or the speed or the weight and that type of thing, but he saw something in me that made a difference and that was the ability to be disciplined to play quarterback [in college and] move to receiver. ” Brandt changed how NFL teams scouted when he teamed with IBM to have a computer create a scoring system to rank college prospects based on certain characteristics. Brandt said when he showed up at the NFL draft, teams would laugh at the bulky computer the team used.
The creation of the scouting combine was part of Brandt’s idea of allowing NFL teams to grade prospects in one setting to help with the evaluation process. After his retirement, Brandt remained part of the combine, advising college prospects and their agents. “He was a pioneer in the scouting industry,” said Hall of Fame NFL executive Bill Polian, a friend of Brandt.
“He used computers, used psychology testing and he used a so-called black box, which was an unyielding bulky forerunner of the visual light tests and reaction test that we do today. ” Brandt was known as a fierce contract negotiator who caused problems with several players. In 1970, when Hall of Fame safety Cliff Harris signed a three-year contract as an undrafted free agent from Ouachita Baptist, players told him he was underpaid.
Harris said after his rookie season, Brandt approached him and gave him a raise. “I remember what a tight ass he was when it came to negotiating,” Walls said. “I don’t think a lot of the guys here appreciate what Gil Brandt did for the Cowboys.
He was able to change the game itself. The way he recruited, the way he scouted. Also, the way he got cheap labor.
” After Jerry Jones purchased the Cowboys in 1989, Brandt was dismissed from his position. It led to some hard feelings between Brandt and the Jones family. At the time of his firing, Brandt said, “[Jones] told me finances was the reason that he’s losing $29,000 a day.
He’ll probably fire four or five scouts, including Bob Griffin. I told him, I know I did as good a job as possible. I feel good about the 29 years I had with the Cowboys.
But it’s a bad way for it to end. He didn’t even shake my hand. ” The icy relationship subsided with Brandt getting inducted into the Cowboys’ Ring of Honor in 2018.
It was Jones’ way of helping push Brandt’s name into the minds of Hall of Fame voters. Brandt was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame the next year. “Actually our relationship with Gil grew after he left,” team executive vice president Stephen Jones said earlier this year.
“We let him go when we first got there, but there was some rough sledding early. But then Gil became a dear friend of Jerry and I. He’s always had great love and passion for the organization and thank goodness we were able to patch things up and really take advantage of what Gil knows.
He’s a dear, dear friend of mine and Jerry and I think nothing but the best of him. But I must say when we first got in, it wasn’t all peaches and roses. ” Following his retirement, Brandt co-hosted an NFL show for Sirius/XM Radio and wrote a column for NFL.
com. Last year, Brandt’s time in the media ended after inappropriate comments about the death of then-Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Dwayne Haskins. “He was a guy that was living to be dead,” Brandt said at the time.
Brandt later apologized for his comments, and he didn’t return to Sirius/XM. For years before his health declined, Brandt attended Cowboys games, always greeting media members and team executives. Several weeks ago, Brandt was placed in hospice care.
“I’m glad to have been part of his life,” Sara Brandt said. “We traveled a lot [and] went to so many functions. Of course, the pinnacle was getting into the Hall of Fame and Ring of Honor and a pretty nice life.
He loved life and kept fighting and fighting to live. He just kept coming back and back and back. ” Brandt’s death is the last link of the original Cowboys brain trust of team owner Clint Murchison, Schramm, Brandt and coach Tom Landry, who pushed the team into greatness starting in 1960.
Brandt was the key man in acquiring talent in various ways and many players are grateful for his ability to find them. “If I listened to him about things outside of football, my life would probably be different,” Hall of Fame defensive tackle Randy White said. “He was a great guy.
He cared about the people that he brought to the Cowboys. He cared about what was important. The problems, questions, issues you could always go to Gil and he would always put you in the right direction.
I know he looked out for me my whole time since 1975 when I came to the Dallas Cowboys and I love Gil Brandt. ” Brandt is survived by his wife Sara, and sons Hunter and Brig. Funeral arraignments are pending.
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