Computing came to the Dallas Cowboys
Whether or not the Dallas Cowboys are America's favorite team any more is not important. What the did do was bring electronic computing to football and spawned the computers in other sports. Now if you watch any major football game you can see electronic tablets at the benches of many team. not only for statistics, but to replace the photos normally strewn all over the sidelines. Prior to joining the Cowboys, Tex Schramm had worked as a CBS Sports executive, helping broadcast the Winter Olympics, where he became aware of and intrigued by the use of computers. He decided that computers could help the Cowboys choose players from the draft, including young athletes other clubs might miss. "I decided ... that I would have to find an objective method of deciding on the worth of a football player ... I thought we had to find a way to judge players without emotion,” Schramm told Sports Illustrated in 1968. “We used computers to figure scores and standings when I wa...