26 Facts About Darrell Royal

Darrell K Royal was an American gridiron football player and coach.

Darrell Royal won more games than any other coach in Texas Longhorns football history.

Darrell Royal coached the Edmonton Eskimos of the Canadian Football League for one season in 1953.

Darrell Royal never had a losing season as a head coach for his entire career.

Darrell Royal was an All-American at the University of Oklahoma, where he played football from 1946 to 1949.

Darrell Royal was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame as a coach in 1983.

Darrell Royal received it in honor of his mother, Katy, who died when he was an infant.

Darrell Royal died of cancer, but because of the stigma surrounding the disease at that time, Royal was led to believe until he was an adult that she had died giving birth to him.

In 1942, during World War II, Darrell Royal finished Hollis High School, where he had played football.

Darrell Royal joined the United States Army Air Corps, where he played football for the 3rd Air Force team during 1945 and was spotted and recruited by scouts for the University of Oklahoma Sooners football program.

Darrell Royal played quarterback and defensive back at the University of Oklahoma under his mentor, coach Bud Wilkinson, from 1946 to 1949.

Darrell Royal threw a 43-yard pass against North Carolina in the 1949 Sugar Bowl.

In 1992, Darrell Royal was inducted into the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame.

Darrell Royal served as an assistant coach at North Carolina State, Tulsa and Mississippi State.

Darrell Royal coached the Edmonton Eskimos of the Canadian Football League, and in 1954, he returned to Mississippi State for his first collegiate head coaching job.

Darrell Royal took over as head coach at the University of Texas on December 18,1956.

Darrell Royal's coaching tactics were the subject of criticism in Gary Shaw's expose of college football recruiting and coaching practices, Meat on the Hoof, which was published in 1972, six years after Shaw left the Texas football program.

Darrell Royal retired from coaching in 1976 and remained director of athletics until 1980.

Darrell Royal then served as special assistant to the university president on athletic programs.

Darrell Royal was quite pronounced in not wanting any Negroes on his team until other Southwest Conference teams admit them and until the housing problem is solved or conditions change.

Darrell Royal coached Freddie Steinmark, who was a member of the 1969 Longhorns National Championship team and subsequently died from bone cancer.

Steinmark has been the topic of several books and a 2015 movie, My All American where Darrell Royal was portrayed by Aaron Eckhart.

Darrell Royal was elected to the College Football Hall of Fame in 1983.

In 1991, Darrell Royal paid $117,350 for Willie Nelson's Pedernales Country Club after it was seized by the IRS due to Nelson's tax debt.

Darrell Royal died on November 7,2012, due to complications of Alzheimer's disease.

Darrell Royal is interred at the Texas State Cemetery in Austin, Texas.