Darrell Royal
Dean Wild coached football in my hometown of Hollis, Oklahoma. But he was much more than a coach to me. In fact, in many ways, he was like a compass.
In 1938 my dad loaded up the family in our old truck, and we left the Oklahoma Dustbowl for California. But I never took to living in California and was pretty homesick for Hollis from the beginning. The folks out there made fun of the way I talked. They called me “Okie” (and they didn’t mean it as a compliment).
Worst of all, the local football coach wouldn’t even let me try out for the football team because he said I didn’t weigh enough.
Then one day, out of the blue, I got a letter from Coach Wild. He told me if I came home to Hollis and played football for him, he’d see to it that I had a job and a free lunch every day. It was just what I wanted to hear. And I didn’t waste any time hitchhiking back to Hollis where, true to his word, Coach Wild had a job and a position on the team waiting for me.
