The following article is linked to his Pro Football Hall of Fame bio LINK. It's a fitting memoral which is a very good read for not only longtime Cowboys and other teams fans, but also for the younger fans who have come to believe that the Cowboys became 'The Cowboys' only after the arrival of Jones and Johnson:
Schramm leaves massive imprint on NFL 
By Vic Carucci
National Editor, NFL.com
(July 15, 2002) -- Tex Schramm's legacy could stop with his involvement in building the
Dallas Cowboys into a team that had an NFL-record 20 consecutive winning seasons and reached five Super Bowls, winning two.
It could stop with his being the primary architect of what became known as America's Team.
It could stop at the Dallas city limits or the Texas border, and we'd still be mourning the loss of one of the greatest executives in pro football history.
But Schramm's legacy is so much larger than his immense contributions to a single, though extremely prominent, franchise. It includes a massive imprint he left on the sports world in general, on what we have long taken for granted as a great source of entertainment, as something we look forward to each year whether we are counting down the hours to the start of the first training camp of summer or the days to the opening kickoff of the first game of the regular season.
It is hardly an overstatement to credit Schramm with having a major hand in putting together the National Football League as we know it today. He was a visionary who worked closely with a fellow visionary and close friend, former Commissioner Pete Rozelle, to constantly enhance the popularity and enjoyment of the game. Schramm understood better than most of those around him that it was vital to seek improvement in every aspect, that nothing could undermine the league's success faster than feeling a sense of satisfaction that it was as good as it could possibly be.
Tex Schramm's legacy
is so much larger than his
impact on the Cowboys.
Schramm's most historic accomplishment is his key role in orchestrating the merger of two warring pro football bodies: the NFL and the American Football League. The NFL was established and had owners who were strident in their refusal to do business with an upstart league that they viewed as an irritant, as something existing only to make their lives miserable by stealing away top players. But Rozelle, whom Schramm hired to be the first public relations director of the Los Angeles Rams, knew in 1966 that the merger would benefit both factions for many years to come. He insisted that Schramm hold what amounted to secret meetings with Kansas City Chiefs owner Lamar Hunt, a Texan instrumental in the birth of the AFL, to make it happen. He did and it happened.
Hello Super Bowl. Hello biggest and most powerful sports league of them all.
Schramm's legacy also includes smaller, but significant, innovations, such as: wide sideline borders, strips dangling atop goalpost uprights to indicate wind direction, microphones that allow the referee to announce penalties for the entire stadium to hear, instant replay, sideline radios in quarterback helmets, and (to speed up the pace of games) starting the play clock immediately after the previous play.
It was Schramm who championed the 12-team, wild-card playoff concept that owners decided to keep in place this offseason despite a movement to include more teams in the postseason. It was Schramm who brought us the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders.
And it was Schramm who brought the first woman into an NFL front-office position when he hired Kay Lang to be the Cowboys' original ticket manager 43 years ago. And it was Schramm who, as
Dallas Morning News columnist Frank Luksa pointed out, worked "quietly and effectively" to break discriminatory barriers that included some Dallas hotels refusing to house black players on visiting teams and black Cowboy players limited to living in the southern part of the city.
I have always had a soft spot in my heart for Tex, because he was as personable as anyone I have ever encountered in my many years of writing about the NFL. OK, so perhaps some of my feelings are influenced by the fact he studied journalism in college and started out as a sportswriter for the
Austin American-Statesman and worked briefly as an executive for the CBS television network before Clint Murchison had the good sense to hire him to oversee the startup of the expansion Dallas football franchise in 1959. And, yes, I was absolutely thrilled to find out that this former sportswriter who never played a down of football had a pretty good eye for NFL talent. Although the brunt of the Cowboys' personnel decisions were made by our own Gil Brandt and the late Tom Landry, Schramm did have a chance to make three late-round draft choices that you might have heard about: Bob Hayes, Roger Staubach and Herschel Walker.
But those were among many great decisions that helped make the Cowboys a great franchise. Schramm wouldn't stop there, of course, and for that everyone connected with the NFL as a participant or fan is eternally grateful.
