In the late 1990s, at a benefit 30 miles away from his East Texas hometown of Tyler, Earl Campbell sat at a table while the party's host, a colorful businessman and one of Campbell's best friends, summoned sheepish onlookers to come say hello to the legend.
"Well, what are you waiting for? Get on over here," he said. "Earl don't get up."
Campbell wasn't aloof, wasn't too cool to get up, despite the darkened Wayfarers that made him look cool. "Earl don't get up" because he couldn't.
Campbell was once seen as the baddest man on the planet.