Decades after his last game in 1976, Darrell K Royal remains “The Coach,” the winningest football coach in University of Texas history. The driving force behind eleven Southwest Conference and three national championships, winner of Coach of the Year and Coach of the Decade awards, and honored namesake of the Darrell K Royal–Texas Memorial Stadium, Royal is still revered as “a coach who would rather lose a game than engage in unsportsmanlike tactics; who would neither make excuses for losing nor brag about winning; and who by his own example contributes to the building of stalwart character in men,” in the words of the City of Austin’s “Darrell Royal Day” proclamation.
DKR offers an intimate, insider’s view of the private life of the man behind the legend through an extraordinary collection of never-before-published photographs, letters, newspaper clippings, football ephemera, recollections, and “Royalisms” lovingly preserved by Royal’s wife of more than sixty-five years, Edith. This irreplaceable family archive offers revealing snapshots of Royal’s entire life, from his impoverished youth in Oklahoma, through his courtship of Edith and his glory days as a player at Oklahoma and a coach at Texas, to his retirement career as a goodwill ambassador for the university. Accompanying the images are moving recollections from fellow coaches and former players, family members, and friends who testify to Royal’s honesty and integrity and the transformative effect that his character has had on the legions of people whose lives he has touched.
