The University of Texas Club’s Darrell K Royal Power Boardroom
The University of Texas Club’s Darrell K Royal Power Boardroom combines technology, style and comfort.
Darrell K Royal was a legendary college football coach who led the University of Texas Longhorns to three national championships in 1963, 1969 and 1970. With a career record of 184–60–5, Royal, who died in 2012 at the age of 88, still ranks as the winningest coach in the university’s history.
When a renovation was planned in late 2013 for The University of Texas Club—a ClubCorp property in Austin, Texas that is located on the sixth and seventh floors of the east side of the university’s Darrell K Royal–Texas Memorial Stadium—General Manager Joe Connell saw an opportunity to create another appropriate memorial for the revered coach.
The University of Texas Club
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But in planning a new space that would be created through the project and named after the sports icon, the club knew that the Darrell K Royal Power Boardroom (the coach’s middle “initial” did not include a period or stand for anything) couldn’t be just another meeting room. Instead, as its name indicates, it was conceived as a place for high-powered gatherings, featuring state-of-the-art electronic capability. “We have teleconferencing, Wi-Fi with super bandwidth, videoconferencing capabilities, an 80-inch TV with surround sound, and a remote control for all of those features,” Connell reports.
The new boardroom, which replaced what used to be the seventh-floor administrative offices, was part of a $3.3 million “reinvention” project for the club that also included a redesigned Longhorn Bar with casual dining; new Texas Star banquette seating and community Joiners Tables; and a new media area with a 103-inch big-screen TV.
A photographic timeline of Royal’s career, along with some of his most inspirational quotes, cover one wall of the boardroom.
“While the club was closed from January through May 2014 for renovations, a la carte service was moved to another area of the stadium,” Connell explains.
The boardroom project involved a lot of planning, Connell notes, with nearly every detail needing approval from a University of Texas committee. Several of the club’s Board members were helpful in designing the boardroom, which features photos of Royal and many of his most notable quotes.
The glass panels at the front of the approximately 300-sq. ft. room are visible from the club’s entrance and were designed specifically, Connell notes, so that passers-by could view the lit, double-paneled pictures of Royal in various poses, from the outside as well as inside.
“Panels are organized so that on the left-hand side there are younger photos of Mr. Royal; then as you look right, photos are arranged chronologically until they end with Mrs. Royal welcoming [current] Coach Charlie Strong,” Connell says.
While the overall design has high impact, the true centerpiece is quite literally in the center: the custom-made boardroom table. With the ability to seat 14 comfortably, the wood table is made from four pieces, rimmed with longhorn insets in the border. On game day, the club’s staff moves the table pieces out of the room, to allow it to be arranged with auditorium-style seating for the game.
In that way, the boardroom can be occupied by VIPs just about every day of the week—for meetings of the mind as well as for viewing matchups on the gridiron below.
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