Hall of Fame

CANTON, Ohio – Tex Schramm spent 40 years in the National Football League obsessed with winning, and he went out a winner Saturday morning. His 17½-minute speech was easily the longest among the five Pro Football Hall of Fame inductees.

"Right now you are probably looking at the happiest man in the world," Schramm told the crowd gathered outside the rotunda. "I wasn't a great athlete like these men behind me. It's really humbling, and I'm humble, and my associates and friends will say that's not a major part of my personality.

"When you've been in the National Football League for 40 years, you owe an awful lot to an awful lot of people. I'm not going to be able to touch on all of them, obviously, but it takes a lot of help when you get somewhere like this in the role that I was in."

Schramm, 71, was presented for induction by former commissioner Pete Rozelle. In 1985, Schramm presented Rozelle for induction.

AP

Tex Schramm was a sports writer early in his career.

On a mild, sunny Saturday morning, Schramm called Rozelle one of the three key figures who made his Hall of Fame election possible. The others, Schramm said, were Rams owner Dan Reeves, who hired Schramm as his public relations director in 1947, and Clint Murchison Jr., the original Cowboys owner who hired Schramm to run the operation in 1959.

"If it had not been for Pete Rozelle, I don't think I could have made any of the contributions or played any of the roles I played," Schramm said. Schramm called Reeves "an innovative, bright man" and said Murchison "had the courage to go with an expansion team and the courage to go with me."

Schramm also gave praise to his family, coach Tom Landry, longtime assistant coaches Ernie Stautner and Jim Myers, vice president Gil Brandt, Hall of Famers Roger Staubach and Bob Lilly, several other former Cowboys employees, the fans and the media.

"The Dallas Cowboys. What years. What memories," he said. "So many contributed, and I wished I could start naming them, but if I did, Jan Stenerud would never get up there to the rostrum."

Stenerud was one of three players inducted in their first year of eligibility as Houston's Earl Campbell and New England's John Hannah also gained admission. Chicago's two-way lineman, Stan Jones, also was inducted, running the members' total to 160.

When Schramm began his NFL career in 1947, there was no Hall of Fame. He watched it develop and grow over the years but never dreamed he would have a place here.

"It's just an awesome feeling," he said in a press conference prior to the speech. "During my 40 years in football, the people that have been enshrined here are people that I idolized. I've been kind of like a kid with his eyes wide open the last couple of days. You don't realize what it all means until you get here. It's something very unique and real.

"A Super Bowl victory – that's something you celebrate with a whole group. This comes closer to home. Here I can't ask Tom Landry what plays he's going to call, and I can't send anybody to go do something."

Schramm is the fourth long-term Cowboy to be inducted, joining Landry, Staubach, Lilly and Stautner. Asked which Cowboys from the club's winning era should be inducted, Schramm mentioned cornerback Mel Renfro and linebacker Chuck Howley. "I hope that eventually the players will get the credit they deserve for going to five Super Bowls," he said. "That is unprecedented."

He said he wished the script for his exit from pro football could have been written differently – he left the Cowboys after Jerry Jones' takeover in 1989 and was fired as World League of American Football president in 1990 – but said he has no hard feelings.

"The tough years were the '80s because people expected something and it didn't happen. I would like to have gone out with the '80s being like the '70s," he said. "Nonetheless, I'm proud of the 20-year run of winning seasons, the five Super Bowls. I'm very comfortable with that. I don't have any bitterness as far as the new [Cowboys] are concerned. They have their opportunity for their own era. We'll look back in 25 years and see how they did."