Beyond the Boxscore
Earl Campbell's craziest Darrell Royal memory: It involves a bar and a legendarygood time
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Earl Campbell didn't just run the ball for Darrell Royal like no other. Hebecame the coach's longtime friend. -
This is the publicity shot that Earl Campbell loves to use. But the years havetaken a toll on him and in reality, he's using a wheelchair now — at leasttemporarily.
Everyone wants to talk to Earl Campbell, to share a moment with one of the greatest running backs in football history, but Campbell keeps finding his own thoughts returning to another Texas legend.
"I don't think I could sit here today and not tell you how much we're going to miss the legendary Darrell Royal," Campbell says of the University of Texas icon who died days before at age 88.
Campbell is speaking at the Council on Alcohol and Drugs Houston's big fundraiser, where he'll talk for the first time in public about his own personal story of addiction (to "pain pills and Budweiser") with a powerful mix of humor, frank talk and touching anecdotes. But this trip to Houston also brings back thoughts of some of Campbell's best, most recent times with Darrell Royal.
Just two guys sitting around the Broken Spoke, telling tales and laughing long into an evening.
The man who delivered and took more punishment than any running back outside of Jim Brown (and Campbell might have challenged Brown in this category) needs a wheelchair to get around at the moment. He says it's the temporary result of a nerve procedure he needed to have done on his ever-painful back and knee surgery.
Even that brings up Royal memories though. For Coach — as Campbell still almost always calls Royal — always seemed to have a way of finding out whenever Campbell would try to "sneak" into Houston for another medical procedure, usually at Methodist Hospital.
After another one of those secret trips exposed (Royal always knew what his players were doing, even after they, and eventually he, left the playing field), Coach insisted that the two get together.
So there is the greatest Texas running back ever and the greatest Texas coach ever showing up at the Broken Spoke — the famous Texas honky tonk in Austin — one night to swap old war stories.
"We went to the Broken Spoke to have a beer," Campbell says. "He had a couple of beers (Campbell will celebrate three years of sobriety on Nov. 16). We took pictures with all of the people who were there.
"What a great man."
This was before the Alzheimer's really ravaged Royal, one of his good days. As Campbell talks and smiles, you realize this is one of the last real memories he has with his coach.
Just two guys sitting around the Broken Spoke, telling tales and laughing long into an evening.
Campbell says that he and Royal had "like a father-son" relationship. Only Royal could have turned Earl Campbell into a country music fan. (After Royal's prodding, Campbell now loves Willie Nelson).
The man behind the icon
When people talk about Royal they tend to focus on the reverence he brought out in people. Zac Emmons, the Houston Texans corporate communications manager and a UT grad, has a great story about how the entire thronging crowd at a Longhorns home game he attended parted right down the middle to let Darrell Royal and his wife Edith pass through a packed concourse.
There was no entourage around the Royals, no one telling all those people to move. They just did it out of respect — naturally.
Current Texas coach Mack Brown having his team line up in the wishbone for the Longhorns' first offensive play Saturday is more of that reverence.
Royal seemed to sense when Campbell needed a laugh — even in the running back's darkest moments.
But Darrell Royal could be one determined practical joker too. Especially with Earl.
"He'd call me up and be like, 'Earl, I've gotten in a little bit of trouble," Campbell says. " 'I need a lawyer in Tyler, Texas (Campbell's hometown of course). Do you know a good lawyer in Tyler, Texas?'
"He'd be going on and on while I realized he was pulling my leg. Then, he'd just start laughing."
Campbell will be at Royal's funeral on Tuesday where there will be more smiles at all the memories a true Texas original has left behind.
Royal seemed to sense when Campbell needed a laugh — even in the running back's darkest moments. Just like he always kept tabs on when his old star was sneaking into Houston for another hospital procedure.
Campbell laughs again. Coach was one of a kind.
