Former Texas Royalty and long-time Longhorn leader is now Long Gone:Darrell Royal left us at 88

The word is he passed on last Thursday and although he did not like to pass the ball very much, he will always be remembered as one the greats of Texas Longhorn football and his runningbacks did not know the meaning of the word stop, cause 9-times-out-of-10 you were not going to be able to stop/tackle Earl Campbell and Rosevelt Leaks on a Darrell Royal-called running play, when the Texas Longhorns had the football….

There was no stopping Earl Campbell and Rosevelt Leaks and they were still tough to corral when they got to the pros, but the run of Royalty has been stopped in Austin, Texas, with the death of Darrell Royal, the long-time head coach of the Texas Longhorns, who passed away last week at the age of 88……

That was a very good run for Royal, who was part of some super-great Thanksgiving Weekend football games against Frank Broyles and his Arkansas Razorbacks, back in the 70’s….There really was nothing like it back then, on Thanksgiving Weekend, you had Texas-Arkansas, Penn State-Pittsburgh and Auburn-Alabama and on some occasions they might give us Notre Dame-Southern Cal on that same weekend, with guys like Al Hunter, out of Greenville Rose High School and the great AD/Anthony Davis for SoCal…..

Those Texas-Arkansas contests were the best though, and one of those two teams would usually be unbeaten, coming into that game, every year around Thanksgiving….Royal vs. Broyles and those were some real battles..

Scott Fowler had a real nice post on Darrell Royal, on his site, at the Charlotte Observer earlier this week and I will try and get that link up here….CLICK HERE for the Scott Fowler story from the Charlotte Observer….

All of the coaches sort of had a poker face back then and I am referring to the fireplace poker and not the game by the same name…

You look back at Royal, Broyles and a guy like Barry Switzer and in some ways, all of those ooaches looked alot alike….

Other local coaches that are going long, but are not gone yet, include Doug Henderson(Wesetern Guilford) who now stands at the 75-year mark/stage and Bill Slayton(Southeast Guilford) who had 81 candles on his cake, this past July 4….

Long live the men that have led us into the sports wars and long live the names like Darrell Royal, Frank Broyles, Doug Henderson, Bill Slayton, C.K. Siler and Marion Kirby….