Texana Thursday: 4 Little-Known Facts about Former Coach Darrell Royal

As football fans prepare for the annual Texas-Oklahoma weekend in Dallas, it’s always fun to remember past games and the people who made those memorable moments.

For Texas fans, the list of notable Longhorns would have to be led by Coach Darrell Royal. His story is well-known to Longhorns fans. He coached from 1957-76. He led the Longhorns to a record of 167 wins, 47 losses, and five ties. Under his coaching, Texas won its first three national championships (1963, 1969, and 1970), and 11 Southwest Conference championships. He recruited and coached a number of great football players, perhaps best known among them being the linebacker Tommy Nobis and the fullback Earl Campbell.

After his retirement from coaching, Royal remained an adviser at the university, which renamed the football stadium in Royal’s honor. He was active in charitable works in Austin and was known for his love of country music. He had many friends in the country music business, perhaps most notably Willie Nelson, who sang at Royal’s memorial service in 2012.

These are some little-known facts about UT’s most prominent coach.

1. Royal is known for coaching at Texas, but he was an All-America football player at Oklahoma.

Royal grew up in Hollis, Oklahoma, and was a Sooners fan. Following his World War II service, where he served in the Army but was never sent overseas, he played quarterback and defensive back at OU. His coach was Bud Wilkinson, who would go on to a legendary coaching career with the Sooners. Wilkinson was an important mentor in Royal’s coaching career.

Royal made All-America in 1949, and he still holds the school record for interceptions with 17.

2. Royal’s first head coaching job was in Canada.

Royal became the head coach of the Edmonton Eskimos in 1953. He was 27 years old. Before taking this job he served as an assistant coach at North Carolina State, Tulsa, and Mississippi State.

He coached for only one season in Edmonton, deciding that he’d rather be a college coach than a pro coach. He coached at Mississippi State (1954-55) and at Washington (1956) before taking the Texas job in 1957, at age 32.

3. Royal was known for his quotes.

Cedric Golden of the Austin American-Statesman published a collection of quotes attributed to Royal. Among them:

“You dance with the one who brung you.”

“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”

“Old ugly is better than old nothin’.”

“Football doesn’t build character. It eliminates the weak ones.”

4. Royal changed the shade of orange to the burnt orange we know today.

For many years, the Texas school colors were a traditional, bright orange, and white. Trouble was, when the orange-colored athletic uniforms went through the wash enough times, the orange would fade into yellow.

So Royal, in the early 1960s, darkened the color to the burnt orange we know today. There was some discussion about the change after the fact, but the decision was never overturned. According to the Alcade, the UT Ex-Students Association magazine, the university made the burnt orange its official school color in 1967.

This was not the first time the orange was darkened. In 1928, then-Coach Clyde Littlefield made a similar change, though in time the color changed back to a more traditional orange.