Cowboys Gil Brandt to the Hall of Fame: Memories about the Man With The Memory

Dallas Cowboys legend Gil Brandt's greatest gift -- and the foundational reason he's going into the Pro Football Hall of Fame this weekend -- is about both the words (in the form of scouting players) and the amazing memory behind them.

OXNARD - Gil Brandt's word matters. So this weekend, when he told NFL Network that the 2019 Dallas Cowboys "are ready to emerge as a Super Bowl champion this year'' ... we all are obliged to listen.

But Gil's greatest gift -- and the foundational reason he's going into the Pro Football Hall of Fame this weekend -- is about both the words (in the form of scouting players) and the amazing memory behind them.

And I've been listening to those words and memories from him for 30 years.

Yes, Brandt, currently a consultant to the NFL and an unofficial Cowboys ambassador, built his incredible resume in the NFL. As vice president of player personnel for Dallas from 1960-89, Brandt literally led a movement to reinvent talent evaluation and procurement. Among the Cowboys' innovations that led to almost perennial contention in this days were the extensive utilization of computer technology and hands-on scouting of the talent at historically black colleges.

"Gil,'' Cowboys owner Jerry Jones told us this week, "has always been in my Hall of Fame.''

Mine, too.

At 85, Brandt's "bedside manner,'' for lack of a better phrase, is unexcelled. His army of friendships is virtually endless, pals and connections from power-brokers involved in high school sports, college sports and the pros, but also leaders in social fields, medicine, industry, finance, the military and politics. And along with the aforementioned Cowboys early use of computers to sort, organize and evaluate, Brandt's brain itself is a "computer'' of sorts.

He could have applied it to success in any industry. He chose the Cowboys. And the Cowboys chose him. And the marriage was incredibly productive, not just in the way he contributed to the Cowboys changing the sport in so many ways, but also with Brandt as a leading deal-maker. His cleverness contributed to an assortment of one-sided trades that netted Dallas players like Ed Jones, Tony Dorsett, and Randy White. His 1964 draft produced a trio of Hall of Fame players, Mel Renfro, Bob Hayes and Roger Staubach and he kept doing it, notably again in 1975 when his "Dirty Dozen" draft included White and four other Pro Bowl players, all of it winding up with the trio of Tex Schramm, Tom Landry and Brandt (the first two already in the Ring of Honor and in the Hall of Fame) steering the Cowboys to "America's Team'' status with an NFL-record streak of 20 consecutive winning seasons, including 13 divisional championships, five NFC crowns and victories in Super Bowls VI and XII.

In short, Brandt is largely responsible for the acquisition of 15 of the 19 players presently in the Ring of Honor, and largely responsible for the Cowboys being the Cowboys.

My first meeting with Brandt, in 1990, told me everything I needed to know about the man who, even back then, due to all of the above was a legend. I was new to DFW, having just been hired away from where I was working in San Francisco to come here and cover the Cowboys for the newspaper. Early on, Norm Hitzges of 570 KLIF invited me to join him as an in-studio guest on his radio show. The other guest that day, as I realized when I walked down the radio station hallway to meet him?

"Mr. Brandt,'' I stammered, "it's an honor to meet you. I'd like to introduce myself. I'm ...''

"Miiiiike Fiiiiisher,'' Gil responded, extending a hand. "I know who you are.''

Shocked, I asked him how that was possible.

"Greeeeeley, Coloraaaaado,'' he replied quickly. "The University of Northern Colorado and Greeley Central High School, where you tried to play football but you weren't very good.''

As my confused brain was spinning (and while his computer brain was whirring), I quickly pondered what sort of magic trick this was. Brainwashing? Sorcery? Black Ops? And then he added a capper.

"Mike,'' your problem with playing sports,'' Brandt told me, "is thick ankles. You have thick ankles.''

And by God I looked down between the bottom of my gym shorts and the top of my shoes and there they were: Thick ankles.

It's 29 years later and I know him well now but I still don't know how he did it. Or even why. How and why did he know what high school a sportswriter attended? Recently, after some of the ceremonial dust had settled, I approached the honoree and congratulated him.

"Thanks, Fish,'' Gil Brandt said, shaking my hand. "Hey, have you been back to "Greeeeeley, Coloraaaaado, lately?''

Yessir, I have. It's one of my "hometowns'' -- just as Canton, Ohio, is now one of yours.