The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Walter Camp Football Foundation honors Hall of Famer to be Gil Brandt
NEW HAVEN — Many of the dignitaries had already made their way into the ballroom at the Omni New Haven Hotel for the starstudded Walter Camp Football Foundation’s Alumni Association Brunch on Friday morning. However, there was one rather prominent football A-lister who was drawing quite the crowd outside of the ballroom doors.
Gil Brandt, the player personnel guru who played a major role in putting together the Dallas Cowboys team that posted 16 doubledigit win seasons in a 20year stretch from 1966-1985, had taken a break from his SiriusXM show to conduct a different type of interview.
In a span of about 30 seconds, a pair of well wishers stopped by the table to extend warm greetings to the man who is 11 months removed from finding out he would be entering the Pro Football Hall of Fame. These were not just a couple of strangers looking to escape a chilly Connecticut winter morning, but two iconic figures in the football world. Hugh Green, whose name is usually among the first mentioned when discussing the greatest defensive players in college football history, and Cornelius Bennett, twice named the AFC’s Defensive Player of the Year and a participant in five Super Bowls, were not about to walk by the broadcast table without acknowledging Brandt.
Not long after exchanging pleasantries and Brandt putting Bennett on the air, he was the center of attention once again with Walter Camp officials honoring Brandt for his impending Hall of Fame induction.
The 86-year-old Brandt has been a regular at Walter Camp weekend in various decades, and few people appreciate the meaning of the event more than Dallas’ vice president of player personnel from 1960-1988.
“There are so many things that are special here, without Walter Camp I am not sure we would have football and it starts there,” Brandt said. “This is an organization that does so much to enhance the city of New Haven on the weekend that this takes place. It is just a special, special place, you will see all the guys who have been here, the Pro Football Hall of Famers, All-Pro players come back repeatedly because they appreciate it.
“I enjoy every bit of it, I enjoy the experience at Yale Commons which is absolutely off the charts. It is just a special group of people, they are all volunteers and they work so hard to make it so successful. The biggest thing is I look back and a letter from President (Teddy) Roosevelt asking Walter Camp to join him for lunch because we were about to abolish it. That saved this game as far as I am concerned but aside from all of that, I think of what it has done for the image of New Haven.”
Camp is credited with many innovations that are taken for granted these days. The same could be said for Brandt, who helped the Cowboys modernize how scouting information was compiled, and the discovery of under the radar prospects who helped Dallas win a pair of Super Bowls during his tenure.
The ultimate honor came in February when Brandt found out he would be part of the next class inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Brandt will join former Cowboys Tony Dorsett, Bob Hayes, Bob Lilly, Mel Renfro, Roger Staubach, Randy White, Rayfield Wright and soon to be inducted Cliff Harris in the Hall of Fame. He will also join the two men he is always associated with — head coach Tom
Landry and Dallas’ president and general manager Tex Schramm as Hall of Famers.
Brandt still helps determine which players are invited to the NFL draft and his player rankings are featured on NFL.com in the weeks and months leading into the NFL draft.
He takes great pride in seeing players he is touting thrive at the next level, mentioning Seattle Seahawks rookie receiver DK Metcalf was ranked 16th by Brandt and far outperformed his No. 64 draft slot. He still chuckles when he tells the story of 6-time NFL Executive of the Year Bill Polian asking why current NFL MVP frontrunner Lamar Jackson was being invited to the 2017 draft.
“I love it,” Brandt said. “I am involved in bringing the players to the draft and two years ago we brought Jackson, the quarterback from Louisville and Bill Polian, much to his chagrin, said why do you bring a third rounder to the draft and he turned out to be a pretty good third rounder.”
Jackson was taken by Baltimore with the final pick of the first round in 2018 and in his second season put up some staggering individual numbers.
Brandt is amazed to see the spectacle that the NFL draft has become as the event has turned into mustsee television to so many.
“In Philadelphia in 1960, we drafted after the Green Bay/Philadelphia championship game, I think we had six writers and I think (in 2019) we had 2,500 writers. The first question after the draft is not who had the best draft but who are best players for next year. The draft, it has been unbelievable the interest in it and the interest in pro football has been unbelievable. It has helped a lot of us make a living.”