Join us on Tuesday, February 22 at noon for a special book talk with legendary newsman (and Briscoe Center advisory council member) @NealSpelce. He will discuss his recent memoir, “With the Bark Off,” and his time working with LBJ in the White House. Contact Tricia Blakistone at tricia.blakistone@austin.utexas.edu for a link to this talk. Neal’s book was published by the center and is distributed by @UniversityofTexasPress
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Winedale
A Recorded Texas Historic Landmark, State Antiquities Landmark, and on the National Register of Historic Places; Winedale is in northern Fayette County, and a division of the University of Texas at Austin's Briscoe Center for American History.
Learn More Here: https://briscoecenter.org/winedale/
With the Bark Off is available where books are sold.
An excerpt from With the Bark Off has been published in The University of Texas College of Liberal Arts magazine, Life and Letters. (It was the College of Arts and Sciences back in the good ole days!)
Here is an excerpt of the article:
The following is an excerpt of With the Bark Off: A Journalist’s Memories of LBJ and a Life in the News Media by Neal Spelce and Thomas Zigal. Both authors are graduates of the College of Liberal Arts at The University of Texas at Austin, which was still the College of Arts and Sciences when Spelce received his bachelor’s degrees in 1958. Spelce enrolled in the Plan II Honors Program in 1952 as a 16-year-old freshman. The program grounded him for his additional degrees – also received in 1958 – in Journalism and Radio and Television. The book was published in September 2021 by The Dolph Briscoe Center for American History at The University of Texas at Austin.
When Barry Goldwater was running against LBJ in 1964, the Republican presidential nominee booked a campaign stop in Austin, in the heart of LBJ country. Goldwater was a pilot, and he flew his own plane, a fairly large DC-3. We reporters headed out to the old Mueller airport in East Austin, and when Goldwater rolled to a stop on the landing strip, we were out there with our cameras. His supporters were there, too. He pushed open the pilot window and stuck his head out and waved to the crowd. “I’m glad to be here,” he said. “When I took off from Phoenix, they asked me if I’d ever been to Austin and if I knew where it was. I said, ‘No, I’ve never been to Austin, but I’m gonna fly east and when I get to a fairly good-sized city with only one TV tower, I’m going to land.’”
With football season kicking into high gear, readers of the sports pages – and even those following economic news – will see the University of Texas stadium name “Darrell K Royal Texas Memorial Stadium” pop up frequently.
Photo: Darrell K Royal Research Fund
What about this guy whose name is on a massive facility? Did he give mega-bucks to UT like those whose names you see on most of the buildings around the Austin campus and, in fact, on university campuses nationwide? Nope. Sports fans will tell you he was just a football coach. And they can recite his amazing record.
But you need to understand Darrell to get the full meaning of the stadium name. First of all, he was a small-town country boy (in Oklahoma, of all places). He was “rescued” from Hollis, OK, because as a natural athlete, he earned an education while on a football scholarship at Oklahoma University. He excelled as a player and as a “learner” under one of the nation’s best coaches, Bud Wilkinson.
He moved through mostly-minor coaching ranks as a young man, until one day in 1956 my KTBC-TV news director turned to me and said “Neal, who the hell is Darrell Royal?” I was a part-time reporter and asked “Why?” “Because UT just hired him as its football coach to take over after the Longhorns won only one game last year.”
Turns out, I knew about Darrell Royal because he was in the same fraternity at OU, Delta Upsilon, that I was a member of at UT, and I followed his career in the frat quarterly magazine. That link became the linchpin to a lifelong relationship with Darrell and his wife, Edith, that I write about extensively in my memoir, With the Bark Off.
But that’s another story. Back to the point. Darrell didn’t donate a buncha bucks to get his name on the stadium. His down-home, country-boy, witty personality helped him become enormously popular (signs popped up: “Darrell Royal for Governor”).
So, when UT decided to make another major stadium expansion long after Darrell retired from coaching and was spending his days golfing, the fund-raisers contacted wealthy alums with a pitch like: “Everybody loves Darrell so let’s truly honor one of the greatest guys to impact UT and re-name the stadium in perpetuity for Darrell.” Bingo! The dollar floodgates opened. Darrell’s name was added to the existing Texas Memorial Stadium that honored veterans.
By the way, that’s not a typo at the end of the first sentence. Darrell dropped the period after his middle initial. I don’t know why.
I interviewed Coach Royal in 1969 when the installation of Astroturf was making news.
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