Quotes Page


"When Earl ran, snot flew, I haven't seen any snot fly yet."
-- Darrell Royal when asked to compare Butch Hadnot to the Tyler Rose

"I don't know if Earl's in a class by himself, but it sure don't take long to call roll."
-- Darrell Royal on Earl Campbell

"They're like a bunch of cockroaches. It's not what they eat and tote off, it's what they fall into and mess up that hurts."
-- Darrell Royal on TCU

"Don't matter what they throw at us. Only angry people win football games"
-- Darrell Royal

"I had hoped God would be neutral"
-- Darrell Royal on seeing a sign in front of a church reading Darrell Royal, Cast not thy steers before swine. before the 1969 Game of the Century

"Old ugly is better than old nothin'"
-- Darrell Royal

"You've got to think lucky. If you fall into a mudhole, check your back pocket - you might have caught a fish"
-- Darrell Royal

"It was like having a big ol' lollipop in your mouth and the first thing you know all you have is the stick."
-- Darrell Royal on losing a game in the last minute

"Give me a guy with his jaw stuck out, his shirt sleeves rolled up and who swaggers when he walks. I know its Harry High School, but if I have to make a choice I'll take the cocky, over-confident, conceited kid, over the one who has so much humility he can't look you in the eye"
-- Darrell Royal

"If everything had already been done, there would be nothing left for young people to accomplish. There are always going to be people who run faster, jump higher, dive deeper, and come up drier"
-- Darrell Royal

"A head coach is guided by this main objective: dig, claw, wheedle, coax that fanatical effort out of the players. You want them to play every Saturday as if they were planting the flag on Iwo Jima."
-- Darrell K Royal

"He__, no. I'm not going to candy this thing up. These are work clothes."
-- Darrell K Royal on fancy, striped uniforms

"Every coach likes those players who, like trained pigs, will grin and jump right in the slop."
-- Darrell K Royal

"You're what-iffing now and everybody can what-if."
-- Darrell K Royal

"He runs faster than small-town gossip."
-- Darrell K Royal on the speed of halfback James Saxton

"The only thing that disturbs me about my profession is the fact that people give you too much credit when you win and too much criticism when you lose. I'll be the same person and do the same things and say the same things when we lose. But people won't believe me then. I won't change, but the people will."
-- Darrell K Royal

"To say we were the only ones aggressive would be like a skunk telling an opossum his breath smells. "
-- Darrell K Royal

"When you get to the end zone, act like you've been there before."
-- Darrell K Royal

"Just as happy as a gopher in soft dirt."
-- Darrell K Royal when asked how he felt about beating Notre Dame in the same Cotton Bowl.

"We live one day at a time and scratch where it itches."
-- Darrell K Royal

"There is no such thing as defeat except when it comes from within. As long as a person doesn't admit he is defeated, he is not defeated-he's just a little behind and isn't through fighting."
-- Darrell K Royal

"Next to weather, there is no equalizer like two fired-up football teams"
-- Darrell K Royal

"We're not exactly a rolling ball of butcher knives."
-- Darrell K Royal

"The tail should never wag the dog, but as long as football is in its proper place on the campus, then it's good. I want to be remembered as a winning coach, but I also want to be remembered as an honest and ethical coach."
-- Darrell K Royal

"One player was lost because he broke his nose. How do you go about getting a nose in condition for football?"
-- Darrell K Royal, when asked if the abnormal number of Longhorn injuries that season resulted from poor physical conditioning

"You've got to be in a position for luck to happen. Luck doesn't go around looking for a stumblebum."
-- Darrell K Royal

"He's smoother than smoke through a keyhole."
-- Darrell K Royal

"They cut us up like boarding house pie. And that's real small pieces."
-- Darrell K Royal

"We're just as average as everyday wash."
-- Darrell K Royal

"Fat people don't offend me. What offends me is losing with fat people."
-- Darrel K Royal

"Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity."
-- Darrel K Royal