Marvez: What I Learned About ... and ... From Hall-of-Famer Gil Brandt

Few people in the media knew former Dallas executive Gil Brandt as well as Alex Marvez of SiriusXM NFL Radio. For nearly a decade, he and Brandt spent summers together at NFL trainings camps, working for SiriusXM as they interviewed players, coaches and GMs to preview the upcoming season.

When Brandt passed away Thursday at 91, Marvez was one of the first individuals I contacted. I was interested in the depth of their relationship, what he learned about Brandt in their time together and what he'll miss most.

This is is what he had to say:

Q: What defined Gil Brandt?

MARVEZ: “That football remained his life. I would get four or five calls a day, with him saying, ‘Hey, what are you hearing? What do you know?’ Or with Gil passing on a piece of gossip. It was like he was covering the league without covering the league, if you know what I mean. It’s not like Gil was tethered to the past. He was very much in the present. He remained up-to-date on things but had certain axioms -- based on him being the ‘Godfather of Analytics’ -- that he believed largely translated to NFL success. He was a big proponent, for example, of the three-cone drill. He just thought that was something that could tell you whether a player could move or not. He also believed in psychological testing. Over the years, Gil created an extensive number of scouts throughout the NFL, with Dirk Koetter one example. When Dirk was at Boise State, he’d get paid something like $20 each season by Gil to write up reports about NFL prospects. Gil’s research even extended to the high-school ranks. I have scouting reports he gave me on Earl Campbell from the 1970s, dating to what he was like in high school. He also wasn’t someone who (ignored) what’s going on with concussions. He never, on or off the record, expressed any sort of dismay that today’s game is not what it once was. He realized that things needed to change, and I think part of it was the person Gil was when he saw some of his former players struggle. He cherished the relationships he had with them.”

Q: What did you admire most about him?

MARVEZ: “What might be the most impressive part of my level of respect for him is what happened after he gets fired (in 1989) after doing the same job for 28 years with the Dallas Cowboys. So, he’s out there, living in the Dallas area. He loves it there. He loves being Gil Brandt. But, all of sudden, he’s without a job. Now, what do you do with the rest of your life? He didn’t want to move. He didn’t want to work for anyone else. So he re-invented himself to become a media mogul, so to speak; someone who was valuable. He went outside his wheelhouse a bit. He wrote stories for Inside Sports, a magazine back in the ‘80s and ‘90s, and he invited players to the NFL draft. And he did it because he had good information.”

Q: Anyone who knew him knew that Gil Brandt was a great story teller. What’s one of your favorites?

MARVEZ: “When he was driving down to see LeRoy Jordan at Alabama, he ended up hitting a cow (with his car) and had to stay that night in a hotel … I think it was in Mississippi. Anyway, when he checks in, the person at the front desk says, ’Well, we don’t have much. But we do have the luxury suite. And it’s $9 a night.’ So Gil agreed to pay the $9. The next day, as he’s getting his car repaired, a police officer comes up to him asks how he was going to pay for the cow he hit … because it belonged to his father.”

Q: How would you describe him?

MARVEZ: “He was curious as much as anything, and he was willing to embrace technology and change. But I would also mention his work ethic. His thing was to out-work people, communicate with people and trade information. With Gil, if you were with him, you experienced things you probably wouldn’t otherwise. Why? Because you were connected to him, and he brought you along for the ride. His memory got a little spotty as he aged, but even in his late ‘80s his recollection of things was astounding. I remember one time when he had me look up the 1947 men’s high-school basketball champion in Wisconsin. This was only a few years ago, and he brought it up when we got a phone call from a listener. So I looked it up, and he was absolutely right. Right off the top of his head, he knew who won the championship in 1947. And he wasn’t even an alumnus.”

Q: What’s lost in all this is that, with his passing, is that we’ve lost an invaluable resource … someone who connected today’s football fans to a different era of the NFL.

MARVEZ: “There are only certain connections to that era, and that’s one of the saddest things about Gil’s passing. How many people are left who understand how the league worked in the 1960s … what it was like to compete against the AFL to sign players … and then actually go do it … or to see the expansion of the NFL? Now we really don’t have those resources. There are just a handful of guys. This almost closes an era in the NFL because there will never be another Gil Brandt. There will never be someone who did what he did … who beat the bushes and changed the game by helping to craft a way to scout players. He would admit he wasn’t always right, and he’d admit to his mistakes. But he would do his best to remedy them. He drafted 24 quarterbacks, and I want you to think about that. That doesn’t even count trades. But even when he had good quarterbacks, he was still trying to get another. Danny White was the first quarterback taken in the 1974 draft when Dallas had Roger Staubach and Craig Morton -- which is why Danny White signed with the World Football League. He was like: ‘How am I going to beat these guys out? I don’t want to just be a punter.’ So he plays in Memphis for two years, comes back to Dallas, Morton gets traded and you’ve got Stauabach and Danny as his heir apparent. Different world, different time. I get that. But Gil would continue to innovate and find different ways to get ahead.”

Q: What learn about him that didn’t know before?

MARVEZ: I just go back to the work ethic. There was no reason for Gil Brandt to continue to wake up every day and dedicate himself to football the way he did. Yet that was his passion. He helped out at the local high school, Highland Park, and went to games. On Friday nights, he had such a connection with the program and its head coach, Randy Allen, that during breaks in our show he’d turn on the radio in his office and listen to scores while he was getting phone calls from people telling him what was going on in those games. He ended up befriending the Jones family because Jerry Jones’ grandson went to Highland Park, and Gil would go to as many of his games as he could. In fact, he ended up sitting with the Jones family for the state championship game. I just look at him as resilient, too. He was someone who kept reinventing himself. Gil Brandt remained true to himself and found another way to continue to be around the game that he loved. It was just one of those things that made him so special.”

Q: What are you going to miss most?

MARVEZ: “The phone calls. I knew that every day my phone was going to ring with Gil asking about something or sharing some piece of information. Or it might be a simple, “How you doing?” That was him. He was ‘Analytics before Analytics.’ It was just how he was. He couldn’t sit still. It was remarkable the number of people who knew Gil and what he was able to accomplish.”