NFL Innovator Tex Schramm Dies

Tex Schramm, the showboating innovator who helped build the Dallas Cowboys into "America's Team" and was instrumental in the NFL's evolution and popularity, died Tuesday. He was 83.

Schramm's son-in-law, Greg Court, told The Associated Press that the former Cowboys president and general manager died at his Dallas home. The cause of death wasn't immediately known.

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 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."

A strong personality with an imaginative football mind, Schramm had a fierce and protective love of the NFL.

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. He worked his way up from publicity director to general manager, then 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.

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.

Things 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.

Schramm's marketing genius helped turn the Cowboys into one of the world's most-recognized 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, 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.

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. Major league baseball, the NBA and the NHL all have endured work stoppages since then.

Schramm's aggressive anti-union attitude 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.

The blunt-spoken Schramm had long been criticized for his attitude toward 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 became a sportswriter after a stint in the Air Force.

His wife, Marty, died in December.