Darrell Royal..In His Own Words

In February we learned that legendary head coach Darrell Royal has been living with dementia for several years. With Coach Royal, 87, by her side, and with support from friends including cyclist Lance Armstrong and actor Matthew McConaughey, Edith Royal also announced the creation of the Darrell K Royal Research Fund for Alzheimer’s Disease .

It touched my heart and after the sadness I started to think of the greatness of the man. He will always be “the” head coach when anyone thinks of the University of Texas. Well at least until us old timers are gone and the new generation will start asking, who was Darrell Royal?

The thing about coach Royal is he had some of the greatest quotes ever said by anyone and I am not talking about just the sports world. I would like to share a few for those who might have forgot he special way to spin a phrase.

I would have loved to know the setting of these quotes but finding the quotes is one thing and learning when and in what context the quotes were made is quite another.

Then there was one of his most famous and it is surrounded with controversy. In 1962 coach Darrell Royal said that there are three things that can happen when you pass the football, and “two of them are bad.”  This was the earliest quote on record for this statement. In 1965 Woody Hayes, head coach of the Ohio State University used the quote. Some have also attributed the quote to some General from Tennessee but we Longhorns have no doubt it was Coach Royal who coined the phrase. Here are a few other quotes.

There are so many more and I feel blessed to have met Coach Royal and even more blessed to have had him coach the Longhorns.