December 4, 1976: Royal & Broyles Hang Up Their Whistles

Frank Broyles (left) and Darrell Royal,

Memorial Stadium, Austin, 1976

December 4, 1976: In front of a national television audience on ABC, the University of Texas football team defeats the University of Arkansas, 29-12 at Memorial Stadium in Austin, Texas. The stadium will later be renamed for Texas' head coach, Darrell Royal.

It was the last game for Royal as the Longhorns' coach. Hired in 1957, he had won National Championships for them in 1963 and 1969, and 11 Southwest Conference Championships. But they finished the season 5-5-1, and it felt like other teams were catching up to his. Even though he was just 52 years old, he felt it was time to move on -- and a lot of Longhorn fans came to that conclusion before he did.

It was also the last game for Frank Broyles as head coach at Arkansas. Hired in 1958, he had won a share of the National Championship in 1964, and 7 Southwest Conference titles. Officially, Broyles led the Razorbacks to the SWC title outright in 1960, 1964 and 1965; Royal led the Longhorns to i outright in 1962, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972 and 1973; they shared the SWC title in 1959, 1961, 1968 and 1975.

Razorback Stadium in Fayetteville, seat of the UA system, is 525 miles northeast of what's now named Darrell K Royal-Memorial Stadium in Austin, UT's seat. (Like President Harry S Truman, Royal's middle name was just an initial, without a period after it.) Texas won the game between them in 1959, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975 and 1976. Arkansas won in 1960, 1964, 1965, 1966 and 1971, giving Royal a 13-5 advantage. Overall, through the 2022 season, Texas leads, 56-23. (UPDATE: Through 2025, the Longhorns lead, 58-23.)

Despite their on-field rivalry, Royal and Broyles were close friends, probably due to their similarities. They were born 6 months apart in 1924. Both were Southerners, but not from the State where they would do their most famous coaching: Royal from Hollis, Oklahoma, Broyles from Decatur, Georgia. Both were quarterbacks in college, themselves trained by a Hall of Fame coach, but not at a school they would later coach: Royal by Bud Wilkinson at Oklahoma (another major rival for Texas, along with Texas A&M), Broyles by Bobby Dodd at Georgia Tech.

They famously agreed to move their 1969 game to the last week of the regular season, to get a national audience on ABC. When Number 1 Ohio State were upset by Michigan 2 weeks earlier, that made Texas Number 1 and Arkansas Number 2, and their game, for the SWC title, a berth in the Cotton Bowl, and the inside track to the National Championship, became one of a few college football games to gain the headline "Game of the Century." Texas came from 14-0 down to win, 15-14, and beat Notre Dame in the Cotton Bowl to win the National Championship.

Both men continued to serve as their school's athletic director for a while: Royal until 1980, Broyles until 2007. Royal lived until 2012, Broyles until 2017.

Frank Broyles (left) and Darrell Royal,

Darrel K Royal Memorial Stadium, Austin, 2008

Arkansas left the Southwest Conference for the Southeastern Conference in 1990. In 1996, the SWC folded, and Texas joined the Big 12 Conference. In 2021, Texas made a deal to join the SEC for the 2024 season.

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December 4, 1976 was a Saturday. Betty Lennox, the basketball player known as "Betty Big Buckets" for her baskets that helped the Seattle Storm win the 2004 WNBA Championship, was born.

There were 3 other college football games that day. Unlike Texas vs. Arkansas, where, unusually, neither team was nationally ranked, at least 1 team was in each of the other games, including 3 other Texas teams then in the SWC:

* Number 6 University of Houston beat the University of Miami, 21-16 at the Astrodome in Houston. UH had lost to Arkansas, but beaten Texas, and won the SWC title. Despite this, only 20,849 fans came to see this game. Coach Bill Yeoman's Cougars stayed Number 6, and beat Number 4 Maryland in the Cotton Bowl, to finish 10-2 and ranked Number 4.

* Number 9 Texas Tech beat Number 18 Baylor, 24-21 at Clifford B. and Audrey Jones Stadium (now Galaxy Stadium) in Lubbock, Texas. Officially, Tech tied Houston for the SWC title, Technically (pun intended, UH won it by beating Tech in Lubbock 2 weeks earlier.

* And Number 13 Nebraska beat Hawaii, 68-3 at Aloha Stadium in Honolulu. Only 33,737 saw that game, unlike in 1982, when Nebraska brought 16,000 fans to Aloha Stadium, and boosted the attendance to 46,876. Nebraska went on to beat Texas Tech in the Bluebonnet Bowl at the Astrodome. (It's 539 miles from the Tech campus to the Astrodome, so it's not like being in the same State gave Tech any real home-field advantage.)

There were 2 NFL games on the day. The football version of the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Baltimore Colts, 24-17 at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis. And the Los Angeles Rams beat the Atlanta Falcons, 59-0 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. The Falcons finished 4-10, fired head coach Marion Campbell, then hired Leeman Bennett. With his "Gritz Blitz" defense, they improved to 7-7 in 1977, and made the Playoffs in 3 of the next 5 years.

Baseball was out of season. There were 7 games in the NBA:

* The New York Knicks beat the Seattle SuperSonics, 103-96 at Madison Square Garden.

* The New York Nets beat the Atlanta Hawks, 107-105 at The Omni in Atlanta.

* The Washington Bullets beat the Denver Nuggets, 100-95 at the Capital Centre in the Washington suburb of Landover, Maryland.

* The Houston Rockets beat the Indiana Pacers, 120-108 at The Summit in Houston. It's now the Central Campus of televangelist Joel Osteen's Lakewood Church.

* The Chicago Bulls beat the New Orleans Jazz, 107-99 at the Chicago Stadium. As usual, the Jazz were a one-man show: "Pistol" Pete Maravich scored 34 points, but no other player scored more than 16.

* The Golden State Warriors beat their arch-rivals, the Los Angeles Lakers, 116-114 at the Oakland Coliseum Arena. Jamaal Wilkes scored 31 points. Having already won an NBA Championship with the Warriors, he would win 3 more with the Lakers.

* And the Portland Trail Blazers beat the Milwaukee Bucks, 112-108 at the Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Portland.

There were 6 games in the NHL:

* The New York Rangers beat the Minnesota North Stars, 11-4 at the Metropolitan Sports Center in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota. It was actually only 2-2 until 5:13 left in the 1st period, but the Broadway Blues took off from there. Rod Gilbert had 2 goals and 3 assists. Don Murdoch had 2 goals and 2 assists. Ken Hodge had a goal and 3 assists. Wayne Dillon had 3 assists. Even North Star legend Bill Goldsworthy had a goal for the Rangers.

* The New York Islanders beat the Buffalo Sabres, 3-0 at the Nassau Coliseum.

* The Montreal Canadiens beat the Pittsburgh Penguins, 3-1 at the Montreal Forum.

* The Chicago Black Hawks and the Toronto Maple Leafs played to a tie, 2-2 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.

* The Atlanta Flames beat the St. Louis Blues, 1-0 at the St. Louis Arena.

* And the Los Angeles Kings beat the Detroit Red Wings, 4-1 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California.

There were 3 games in the World Hockey Association:

* The Winnipeg Jets beat the New England Whalers, 6-2 at the Hartford Civic Center (now the PeoplesBank Arena) in Hartford, Connecticut.

* The Indianapolis Racers beat the Edmonton Oilers, 5-3 at the Market Square Arena in Indianapolis.

* And the San Diego Mariners beat the Phoenix Roadrunners, 4-3 at the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix.

And in English soccer, Arsenal defeated Newcastle United, 5-3 at the Arsenal Stadium, nicknamed Highbury for its North London neighborhood. Arsenal had just signed Malcolm Macdonald from Newcastle, and on a frozen field following a snowstorm that week, he scored 3 goals against his former team. He hadn't wanted to leave, and Newcastle fans knew that, so when he ran over to their traveling support after the game, they cheered him as much as the Arsenal fans did. 

April 4, 1994: Arkansas Wins With "40 Minutes of Hell"

Corliss Williamson (left) and Nolan Richardson

April 4, 1994: The University of Arkansas beats Duke University, 76-72, at the Charlotte Coliseum – essentially, a home game for Duke – and wins the National Championship. But Mike Krzyzewski's Blue Devils couldn't hold up against the Razorbacks and coach Nolan Richardson's "40 Minutes of Hell."

Charlotte Coliseum

A native of El Paso, Texas, Richardson had played at the University of Texas at El Paso -- then known as Texas Western University -- under head coach Don Haskins, before they won the epochal 1966 NCAA Tournament. He coached in Texas at a high school and a junior college, before being hired at the University of Tulsa in 1980. In his 1st season, he led them to the NIT title. In 1984 and 1985, he led them to the Missouri Valley Conference title.

The University of Arkansas is in Fayetteville, only 110 miles east of Tulsa. They hired Richardson in 1985, and he brought his son, Nolan III, and his top Tulsa assistant, Mike Anderson, with him. It took him 2 years to get a 19-14 record, another to get to 21-9 and the NCAA Tournament. In 1989, he led them to the 1st of 7 straight 1st-place finishes in the Southeastern Conference or its Western Division. In 1990, he led them to the Final Four; in 1991, to the Elite Eight.

In 1994, Richardson led the Razorbacks to the Final Four again, with a sophomore forward named Corliss Williamson, nicknamed "Big Nasty." The starting lineup was filled out by forward Scotty Thurman, guards Clint McDaniel and Corey Beck, and center Dwight Stewart. Strong on offense and defense, Richardson called his team's effect "40 Minutes of Hell." Their old home, Barnhill Arena, became known as "Barnhell."

That came to an end on November 29, 1993, when their new home opened. Effectively the house that Richardson built, it was named the Bud Walton Arena. It was named for a major University donor, the brother of the late Sam Walton, founder of Walmart.

They got all the way to the NCAA Tournament Final, where they faced Duke University, coached by Mike Krzyzewski, and led by forwards Grant Hill and Cherokee Parks. And since the game was at the Charlotte Coliseum, Duke had what amounted to home-court advantage.

As late as 1:30 left in regulation, the game was tied at 70, when Hill made a 3-point shot. Thurman hit one, then Chris Collins missed one. First McDaniel, then Beck, made 1 out of 2 free throws to make it 75-70 Arkansas with 17 seconds left. Parks scored, but McDaniel was fouled again, and hit a free throw for the final score, 76-72. Arkansas were the National Champions.

Richardson got the Razorbacks back to the title game in 1995, but they lost to UCLA. He never got them past the second round again. In 2002, he got into a dispute with the man who was practically the king of the university, athletic director and legendary former football coach Frank Broyles, accusing him, and University administration, of racist treatment. He was fired, and sued the University. The suit was dismissed in 2004.

Anderson was promoted to head coach, and lasted until 2019, with not nearly the same kind of success as Richardson. Two days after he was fired, the University, having made peace with Richardson, named the playing surface as Bud Walton Arena the Nolan Richardson Court.

A Spanish speaker, Richardson coached the national teams of Panama and Mexico. He spent 2 seasons as head coach of the WNBA's Tulsa Shock.

Williamson would play 12 years in the NBA, mostly for the Sacramento Kings, for whom he is now an assistant coach.

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April 4, 1994, as NCAA Tournament Final nights usually are, was a Monday. As usually happened in this era, it was also Opening Day for Major League Baseball.

Football was out of season. No NBA games were played hat day. There were 3 games played in the NHL:

* The Quebec Nordiques beat the Buffalo Sabres, 6-4 at the Colisée de Québec.

* The Pittsburgh Penguins beat the Tampa Bay Lightning, 2-1 at the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh.

* And the Philadelphia Flyers and the Winnipeg Jets played to a tie, 2-2 at the Winnipeg Arena.

January 1, 1955: Georgia Tech Complete the New Year's Day Circuit

Bobby Dodd

January 1, 1955: The Cotton Bowl Classic is held at the Cotton Bowl stadium in Dallas. The University of Arkansas, Champions of the Southwest Conference, take on the Georgia Institute of Technology, the 2nd-place team in the Southeastern Conference. (Georgia Tech left the SEC and became an independent in 1964, and joined the Atlantic Coast Conference in 1983. Arkansas joined the SEC in 1992.)

The Arkansas Razorbacks, coached by Bowden Wyatt, came into the game 8-2, and ranked Number 10 in the country. The Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets, coached by Bobby Dodd, were 7-3 and unranked, but were coming off a big win over arch-rival Georgia.

The game was scoreless until right before halftime, when Arkansas quarterback George Walker completed an 80-yard drive by scoring himself, but he missed the extra point. Georgia Tech dominated the 2nd half, holding the Razorbacks to only 8 yards rushing, and scoring touchdowns with Paul Rotenberry in the 3rd quarter and Wade Mitchell in the 4th. The Yellow Jackets won, 14-6.

By winning this game, Georgia Tech became the 1st school to win all 4 of the major New Year's Day bowl games. They had previously won the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California in 1929; the Orange Bowl in Miami in 1940; and the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans in 1944.

There have since been 8 other schools to turn the trick: Alabama, completing the circuit with the 1962 Sugar Bowl; Georgia, with the 1967 Cotton Bowl; Notre Dame, with the 1975 Orange Bowl; Penn State, with the 1995 Rose Bowl; Ohio State, with the 1999 Sugar Bowl; Miami, with the 2002 Rose Bowl; Oklahoma, with the 2003 Rose Bowl; and Texas, with the 2005 Rose Bowl.

Prior to the start of major conference realignment in the 1990s, winning all 4 was really hard, because, from 1947 onward, the Rose Bowl had been between the Champions of the leagues now known as the Big Ten and the Pacific-Twelve.

Also, until 1975, the Big Ten and the league then known as the Pac-Eight had a rule that the Rose Bowl was the only bowl they would send a team to. And Notre Dame did not accept any bowl bids between their 1925 Rose Bowl win and their 1970 Cotton Bowl loss. Notre Dame have overcome this, but Ohio State are the only team that was in the Big Ten prior to Penn State's arrival in 1993 to overcome their league's issue.

A few schools have won 3 of the 4: Nebraska, Louisiana State, Auburn, Tennessee, Arkansas, Missouri and Florida State still need the Rose Bowl; USC and Wisconsin still need the Sugar Bowl; and Washington and Michigan still need the Cotton Bowl.

Once the Bowl Championship Series kicked in for the 1998 season, conference tie-ins were no longer written in stone, making cross-league bowls more common. You'll notice that Penn State, Miami, Oklahoma and Texas did it after the Big Ten Champion could have gone to a de facto National Championship Game in a year when it wasn't the Rose Bowl. Prior to the 1946 season's lock-in for the Big Ten, Penn State had played in the 1923 Rose Bowl, but lost to USC; while Miami, Oklahoma and Texas had never previously played in it.

The Fiesta Bowl, in the Phoenix suburbs, in Tempe from 1971 to 2006 and in Glendale ever since, became a New Year's Day bowl game in 1982. Notre Dame first won it on January 2, 1989, making them the 1st team to have won all 5. Penn State won it for the 1st time in 1982, so they completed all 5 in 1995. Ohio State won it in 1984, so they completed all 5 in 1999. Texas won it in 2009, and Oklahoma in 2011, completing all 5. So that's 5 schools that have won all 5 major New Year's Day bowl games.

Oklahoma (in 1976) and Penn State (in 1977 and 1980) had won the Fiesta Bowl before it was a New Year's Day game. Alabama, Georgia and Georgia Tech have never won it: Alabama have lost their only appearance, in 1991, while the 2 Georgia schools have never even been in it.

Since 1913, Georgia Tech have played their home games at Grant Field. In 1988, it was officially renamed Bobby Dodd Stadium at Historic Grant Field. Having been a star player at Tennessee, Dodd is one of the few men to have been elected to the College Football Hall of Fame as both a player and a coach.

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January 1, 1955 was a Saturday. In the other New Year's Day bowl games:

* Number 1 Ohio State beat Number 17 University of Southern California, 20-7 in the Rose Bowl, in the stadium of the same name in the Los Angeles suburb of Pasadena, California. Ohio State had won the Big Ten. USC had finished 2nd in the Pacific Coast Conference, the forerunner of the Pac-12, but, like the Big Ten, the PCC had a rule that no team could represent it in the Rose Bowl in back-to-back years, so their intra-city arch-rivals, the University of California at Los Angeles, ranked Number 2 in the country, were out, and USC took their place. As a result, the polls ended up split on the National Championship, between Ohio State and UCLA.

* Number 5 Navy beat Number 6 Mississippi, 21-0 in the Sugar Bowl, at Tulane Stadium in New Orleans. "Ole Miss" had won the SEC title, beating Georgia Tech.

* Number 14 Duke beat Nebraska, 34-7 in the Orange Bowl, at Burdine Stadium in Miami. (The stadium was renamed the Orange Bowl in 1959.) Duke were the Champions of the ACC. Oklahoma had won the title in the league then known as the Big Seven Conference (Oklahoma State would soon join, to make it the Big Eight), but the league had a rule that no team could represent it in the Orange Bowl in back-to-back years, so 2nd-place Nebraska did, with poor results.

* Texas Western University beat Florida State, 47-20 in the Sun Bowl, at Kidd Field in El Paso, Texas -- TWU's home field. They were renamed the University of Texas at El Paso in 1967. Kidd Field still stands, but was replaced as their home field, and as the home of the Sun Bowl game, by the adjacent Sun Bowl stadium in 1963. Burt Reynolds was on FSU's roster, but was injured and didn't play in the Sun Bowl. His football career over, he turned to acting. His roommate was Lee Corso, who would later become a college coach and ESPN's top college football analyst.

There were 3 games played in the NBA:

* The New York Knicks beat the Milwaukee Hawks, 100-91 at the old Madison Square Garden.

* The Syracuse Nationals beat the Boston Celtics, 108-102 at the Onondaga War Memorial (now the Upstate Medical University Arena) in Syracuse, New York.

* And the Rochester Royals beat the Philadelphia Warriors, 96-92 at the Edgerton Park Arena in Rochester, New York.

The NHL's entire "Original Six" were in action:

* The New York Rangers lost to the Boston Bruins, 4-0 at the Boston Garden.

* The Montreal Canadiens beat the Detroit Red Wings, 4-1 at the Montreal Forum.

* And the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Chicago Black Hawks played to a tie, 2-2 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.

And in English football, Arsenal F.C. drew with Birmingham-area team West Bromwich Albion, 2-2 at the Arsenal Stadium, a.k.a. Highbury, in North London.