Earl's a funny dude.
My i s c & a aggie wife's Aggie dad was the GM of an oil distribution company, and his company was also great at putting on large-scale fish frys-- like for 2,000+ people. It came about because they used to throw big fish fry parties for their customers, and their customers were very large companies like Shell, Texaco, etc.
They eventually evolved to where they catered other fish frys, because they already had the equipment and expertise and manpower to do it. So for many years, they catered the VIP Fish Fry at the Texas Relays (which is a pretty big 3-day track and field event held at UT in Austin every year). Lots of high school and college teams come in to compete from all over the state and country, which brings in a lot of college coaches for both track and football, and over time it became a big networking/socializing event for all sports-related people in the state, football and non-football.
So anyway, Earl Campbell naturally attends these kinds of events, and although alcohol wasn't ever on the menu, the crew always drank beer as they fried fish and served, and a few select, important guests, were always informally given some of it. I actually offered Mack Brown a beer at the first one he attended in the Spring of 1998, a couple of months after he was hired but before he'd coached a game. He politely declined. It was Lone Star, so, I get it.
Earl is known for liking his beer, but he'd never accept when offered. I'd be "working" the event, which for me consisted of chatting with people far more important than I am and fetching them beer every so often. So whenever I saw Earl, I'd be sure to walk over and offer him and his entourage some beers. But he always refused and instead, he liked to slide around behind all the folks working the fryers and serving line, locate an ice chest with beer in it, and sneak some. He'd do this several times throughout the evening, and it took 2-3 hours for us to serve all 2000+ folks coming through the lines. I guess he liked the idea of getting away with something, but my FIL always had me specifically put that ice chest in a place Earl would be able to easily identify and access it. And it always made me smile seeing him slink along the back wall to find it and grab some.
Just one of those quirks, that make him such an interesting person.