THE “TOUGH BUNCH”
No one seemed satisfied with the day’s performance. The First resented
the enemy’s gains through their line and the Second declared stoutly
that if they had been taught a decent defense against forward-passes
the First would never have scored. Arnold told Toby later that Coach
Lyle had read the riot act afterwards. “I didn’t know he could be so
rude,” said Arnold sadly.
“Why didn’t you get in to-day?” Toby asked from the window-seat where,
propped on many cushions, he looked pale and interesting.
“Lyle wanted to give you fellows a show.”
“Well, Bates didn’t do a whole lot,” said Toby. “You’re pretty punk,
Arn, but you’ve got it over him. Gee, if I hadn’t made that rotten
fumble on the fifty yards that time we might have held you fellows to a
measly six points!”
“Yes, not! Son, that fumble of yours didn’t affect the game a mite. It
was forward-passing that beat you chaps. Your ends were no good at all.
Even your friend Mr. Tubb was fast asleep.”
“I know. We’ve got no sort of a defense for forward-passes. I called
the turn on that second one, but Farquhar was away out of position and
Tubb let Roover get right by him. You wait another week, though! We’re
getting your measure, Arn! What about to-morrow? Are you going to play?”
“Ask Mr. Lyle. I suppose I’ll get a show sometime, though. I sure want
to. They say Brown and Young’s are regular bearcats! What time is it
getting to be? I’m as hungry as the dickens. Let’s go!”
The Second Team had no practice Saturday, which, for some of its
members, was fortunate, since the First had managed to deal very
harshly with them during the brief period of yesterday’s game. Toby,
although he had nothing to show in the way of scars, was tired and
lame when he crawled out of bed in the morning, and not until he had
shivered under a shower-bath, groaningly rubbed himself pink and done
two minutes of setting-up exercises in front of an open window which
admitted the frostly tingle of the October morning did the usual
feeling of well-being return. After that he was able to reach chapel
without protests from lame muscles and, later, do full justice to a
breakfast of cereal, eggs, toast, stewed fruit, and milk.
Fortunately, on Saturday mornings recitations were few, for, save
during a brief midwinter period when outdoor sports were at a
standstill, preoccupation was always noticeable on the part of the
student body on that day of the week. Such a condition of mind was
especially evident this forenoon, due, probably, to the fact that
Yardley’s opponent in the afternoon had been heralded as a strong team
with a proclivity for “roughing it.” Yardley, as much as any school and
perhaps more than many, held for clean playing, but there was enough
of the “Old Adam” there to make a bit of scrapping interesting. Its
attitude was well explained by a remark made by Will Curran, the First
Team quarter, in front of Oxford between recitations.
“If they’re mean players we’ll lick them,” said Curran. “I never saw a
team yet who could play dirty ball and win as long as the other fellow
played clean. But my guess is that they won’t play dirty. That sort of
stuff doesn’t go here, and I think they know it. If they don’t know it
they’ll mighty soon find it out! They’ll play clean if we have to slug
’em to make ’em!”
Which statement, although made in all sincerity and with a perfectly
sober countenance, met with a ripple of laughter from his hearers.
“That’s the idea, Will!” approved Frank Lamson. “We’ll have peace if we
have to fight for it!”
Brown and Young’s School was a new institution and a large one.
You saw its half-page advertisements in the magazines every month.
Although a city school, it emphasized athletics and had a field that
any university might have been proud of, with a stadium that was an
architectural triumph. There were those who opined that Brown and
Young’s graduates were likely to be better grounded in football,
baseball and track athletics than in scholarly studies, but possibly
such persons were disgruntled by a Brown and Young’s defeat. For Brown
and Young’s took athletics seriously and pursued victory on diamond,
gridiron or rink most strenuously. And, it must be acknowledged, Brown
and Young’s had won many laurels. Yardley had met her last spring in
baseball, but this was the first gridiron contest between the two. On
the diamonds Brown and Young’s had proved noisy, argumentative and a
trifle rough in the pinches, and had accepted a 3 to 2 defeat not very
graciously, but she had not been guilty of unfair tactics. Perhaps, as
Tom Fanning said, she liked to be thought a bit “tough” in the hope
that her adversaries would either be afraid or try to beat her at
toughness and get caught doing it. In any event, Yardley received a
strict warning from Coach Lyle before the game.
“Any fellow who tries dirty work will come out,” he declared. “If the
officials don’t put him off, I will. Just remember that. If Brown and
Young’s don’t play clean it’s up to the officials. We’ve heard that
these fellows are a ‘tough bunch,’ a win-at-any-cost team, but you
can’t believe everything you hear. So don’t go into the game looking
for trouble. Maybe it isn’t there. If they should try the rough-stuff,
your captain will call the officials’ attention to it. Just you keep
your hands and your temper down and your heads up. Play as hard as you
know how, fellows, but play fair.”
It was an ideal football day, crisp and sunny, with almost no wind.
Frost had left the field a bit soft but not sufficiently so to affect
any one’s game. Greenburg turned out a good audience, which, added to
the Yardley rooters and a half-hundred Brown and Young’s followers,
nearly filled the stands by three o’clock. Toby had Sid Creel and
Grover Beech for companions, and, reaching the field early, they got
first row seats directly behind the Yardley bench. Brown and Young’s
came on first, a capable-looking squad of thirty or so, accompanied
by a regular retinue of noncombatants; a head coach and an assistant
coach, a couple of managers, a trainer, an assistant trainer and two
rubbers.
“Guess the Principal must be ill,” said Beech dryly. “I don’t see him
anywhere.”
“Maybe he’s one of the cheer leaders,” suggested Sid. “Those are sure
some gaudy togs of theirs!”
Sid had reference to the enemy’s orange sweaters and
orange-and-black-ringed stockings.
“Princeton colors,” said Beech. “Doubtless showing a predilection for
that university on the part of our noble opponent.”
“How do you get that way?” inquired Sid slangily. “Brown and Young’s
fellows don’t go to Princeton.”
“Don’t they?” asked Toby innocently. “Where do they go?”
“Into professional baseball,” answered Sid in triumph.
Beech grinned approval of the bon mot, but said that he didn’t believe
there was room in professional baseball for them all. Sid didn’t argue
the matter, for Yardley trotted around the corner of the stand just
then and the cheer leaders were bellowing for “A regular Yardley cheer,
fellows, for the Team!”
After that, with four elevens warming up on the gridiron, there was
too much to watch for conversation to flourish. Instead, the talk
ran something like this: “Noyes is driving the scrubs.”――“Simpson’s
back at center, Cap.”――“Gee, that was some punt! Wonder if they
can do that in the game!”――“Oh, you Ted Halliday!”――“Look at
the size of that guy, will you? Must be their center.”――“Right
guard. He’d make two of Casement!”――“Those chaps have got a heap
of pep, haven’t they?”――“How’re you betting, Cap?”――“Watch that
yellow-leg kicking goals down there, fellows! He hasn’t missed one
yet!”――“Hello, Andy! Who’s going to win?”――“Who’s the little chap
in the gray sweater?”――“Cornish, of Trinity. He’s umpiring. He’s
good, too.”――“Those fellows can cheer, can’t they? Rotten name for a
school, though; Brown and Young’s. Sounds like they were advertising
a department store!”――“Must be most time to start. Three minutes of?
There goes Fanning now. Is that the referee with him?”――“Good-looking
guy, that Brown and Young’s captain.”――“Fan lost the toss! Sure he
did! What? Oh, that’s different! Still, I don’t see――――”――“Every one
up! Bust yourself, Toby! Rah! Rah! Rah!――――”
Then, when the rival cheers had floated off across the river and
the gold-and-russet marshes beyond, the stands became momentarily
silent and the referee’s voice sounded clearly: “All ready, Brown
and Young?――Ready, Yardley?” Then the whistle piped and a tall
yellow-sleeved tackle swung a striped leg and sent the new ball
hurtling down the field.
It was a long, high kick, and well-placed, and when Snowden had
gathered it into his arms and doubled himself over it the enemy was
almost on him. A scant eight yards he made, by dint of much twisting
and feinting, and then he was pulled down. Yardley made one stab at
the opponent’s left and gained two. Then the ball went back to Snowden
and was hurled well up the field to the left. Roover was quite alone
when it reached him, and he trailed off a dozen yards before he was
forced outside. The play had caught the enemy napping, and it had
suddenly moved the game from Yardley to Brown and Young’s territory,
for when the ball was paced in and grounded it lay just short of the
enemy’s forty yards. The Blue’s cohorts cheered and shouted and waved,
while, from across the field, came a snappy, undismayed cheer from the
Orange-and-Black.
Another slight gain outside left tackle, and again the pigskin shot
back to Snowden. This time the big full-back started off toward his
right as if he meant to turn the end, but, challenged, he threw a
lateral to Arnold Deering, and Arnold, behind good interference, raced
to the adversary’s twenty-eight before he was set on savagely and
tumbled head over heels. Fortunately he held tight to the ball. The
Yardley stand was in an uproar of triumph and delight. Dismay showed
in the ranks of the enemy. Toby saw the Brown and Young’s quarter,
a spindly, nervous-mannered youth, look back apprehensively at the
goal-posts as he retreated up the field yelling strident encouragement
to his fellows. Toby felt a certain sympathy with that quarter-back,
enemy or no enemy. Toby had experienced similar apprehension.
Brown and Young’s looked pitifully weak during the next few minutes.
Her opponent’s success had upset her calculations and the suddenness of
events had left her gasping and rattled. From the twenty-eight yards
Roover carried the ball in two plunges through the Orange’s left to a
position opposite the goal and twenty-one yards away from it. Then
kicking formation was called and Fanning dropped out of the line, his
place being taken by Roover. Brown and Young’s shouted warnings against
a fake, but the cry of “Block that kick!” mingled with them. Captain
Fanning stretched his hands forth, Curran piped his signals, the ball
left Simpson――――
Confusion reigned! Cries filled the air! Yardley swept forward! But
where was the ball? Fanning’s right leg swung against nothing. Deering
was running off to the left, chased by an orange-sleeved end and Brown
and Young’s forwards were piling through. But no one, it seemed, had
the ball! And then, out of the ruck of confusion, shot a flash of blue
that, seen dimly between the heaving forms of friend and foe, resolved
into the likeness of Curran! Straight ahead leaped the quarter-back,
straight at the center of the goal. For five yards he slipped
unchallenged through the very storm center of the battle. Then the ruse
was discovered and the Orange hurled her defenses upon him. But friend
as well as enemy was about him now, and not until the ten-yard line was
underfoot was he tackled. Then, fighting hard, he dragged on for three
more strides, faltered, was borne back and went down under an avalanche
of enemy forms.
“The old delayed pass!” cried Grover Beech almost tearfully in his
joy. “And they fell for it!”
Eight yards to go! Desperately, while the tumult still reigned, Brown
and Young’s lined up under the shadow of her goal. That she could stop
the enemy now was too much to hope, nor did she, though she battled
fiercely. Deering was launched ahead for two yards and Roover made two
more. The shouting had almost ceased from the stands and the Brown and
Young’s quarter could be heard imploring the team to “Hold ’em fellows!
Throw ’em back! Get low! Get low! Hold ’em!” And with his voice came a
medley of others and, sharp, stabbing, through them all, the musketry
of Curran’s signals. Then a sudden heaving of both tense lines, a
concentration of the whole Yardley back-field on the enemy center,
a slow yielding there and, finally, a break, with Snowden, the ball
hugged to his stomach, arching over and through on a sea of squirming
figures!
Well over the last line lay the pigskin, a foot to spare! And as
Yardley trotted back, swinging headguards, cavorting a little, and
Brown and Young’s lined up sullenly beneath the cross-bar, Sid Creel
laid his head in Toby’s lap, kicked Beech lovingly on the shins and
murmured rapturously: “From our twenty yards to their goal in nine
plays! Eighty yards in eight minutes! O Brown, where is thy victory! O
Young, where is thy sting!”
Fanning kicked an easy goal and again Brown and Young’s sent the ball
from the tee. There was a breathless moment while Arnold Deering
juggled the catch and then a clever advance of nearly twenty yards
through half the enemy team. Two attempts at the line netted but three,
and Yardley made her first punt. And for the first time since the game
began Brown and Young’s had the ball in her possession. But disruption
was still evident, and the whistle sounding the end of the first period
came as a welcome of relief to the visitors.
When play was resumed the Orange showed her possibilities, for,
although Yardley stopped her midway between center line and goal and,
having adopted defensive tactics for the time, kicked again on second
down, Brown and Young’s came back with ever increasing determination.
The Orange used a clever and often disconcerting combination of
straight, old-style line-bucking and wide end-running with a remarkably
efficient protection for the man with the ball. She had a bewildering
number of back-field combinations, apparently chiefly designed to
confuse the opponent. The fact that line-attacks and end-runs were
sent off from the same close-up formation of the backs made it hard
for Yardley to guess which was coming. In fact, the Brown and Young’s
system of plays was well calculated to keep the enemy on the anxious
seat, and just so long as her line continued fairly impregnable she was
bound to make gains. So far she had attempted no forward-passing, and
her kicking game was still an unknown quantity. Her plan appeared to
be to hold the ball as long as she could, making the opponent wrest it
from her in the scrimmage.
As the second quarter progressed her attacks became fiercer and her
resistance more stubborn. Her men played well together, and, although
a few stood out above the rest in ability, individual effort was
subordinated to teamwork. It was teamwork that made possible her
running game, for every man had a duty and performed it, and not once
in that period was Yardley able to reach the man with the ball until
he had at least crossed the scrimmage line, and more often he had a
substantial gain to his credit before the Blue’s secondary defense
stopped him. It was principally the fact that, once inside the thirty
yards, Brown and Young’s abandoned end-running for line-plugging that
Yardley’s goal remained intact in that first half. Twice Yardley took
the ball away from her inside the twenty-yard line and punted out of
danger, and twice the Orange hammered or scuttled her way back again,
the whistle halting a march that seemed destined to bring a touchdown.
“That seven points doesn’t look as safe as it did awhile back,”
said Grover Beech as the rival squads trailed off to the gymnasium.
“Considering the way those lads played in the last quarter, I’d say we
were mighty lucky to get it!”
“You’re dead right,” agreed Sid Creel. “They’ve got it all over us on
team-play. They move like a regular machine. Those end-runs of theirs
are the slickest things I’ve seen in an age, and if we don’t find some
way of stopping them we’ll get licked as sure as shooting!”
“There’s just one way to stop them,” said Toby. “That’s to play our
ends further out and bring a back into the line.”
“Then they’d cut inside the end,” said Sid. “That’s old-stuff, sonny.
Pull the opposing end out and then shoot the plays inside him.”
“But with a half-back there――――”
“The trouble is,” said Beech, “you can’t guess when they’re coming.
Half a dozen times I doped it out that they were going to smash the
line and they just fooled me. There’s nothing to give you a hint. I
could see Tom Fanning getting goggle-eyed trying to size up what was
coming. Usually there’s something to give the snap away: a back drops a
foot or two further back or to one side, or he faces a bit the way the
play’s going without meaning to, or you get a hint from the signal. But
these chaps are foxy.”
“I don’t believe they’ve got anything on us as far as their line goes,”
said Sid.
“The only thing they’ve got on us is smoother playing,” declared Beech.
“They’re playing end-of-season football and we’re playing what we’ve
learned and no more.”
“Well, how do they get that way?” growled Sid.
“They go at it harder, I guess. They tell me that that coach of theirs
gets ten thousand a year.”
“Ten thousand dollars!” ejaculated Toby.
“No, eggs,” replied Sid sarcastically. “Well, why not? If he can teach
a team to play like that by midseason he’s worth it.”
“Maybe,” agreed Beech. “If you’re running that kind of a school. But
the best college football coach doesn’t get any more, and――――”
“They say Brown and Young’s has an enrollment this fall of nearly seven
hundred, and it’s only three or four years old,” said Sid. “So I guess
they can afford to pay a real salary to the coach. And I guess it pays
them to afford it. Wonder, though, how much the Principal gets!”
“Oh, the Principal isn’t important,” observed Toby. “I dare say he just
gets his room and meals and stationery, the poor fish! He ought to take
a tumble to himself and study football. I had a sort of an idea I might
be a railroad president or own a bank, or something modest like that,
but I’ve changed my mind. I’m going to be a football coach. It pays
better and the hours are shorter.”
“But think of the responsibility,” chuckled Beech. “Wealth isn’t
everything, Tucker.”
“Say, do these yellow-legs play Broadwood?” demanded Sid.
“No, I don’t believe so. They never have,” replied Beech.
“Too bad. I wish they would. We’d get a dandy line on Broadwood.”
“And Broadwood would get a dandy line on us. Don’t see that it would
help much. Well, here they come again. No, it’s our fellows. Get onto
your job, Fless!”
The cheer leader gave a startled look over his shoulder, grabbed his
big blue megaphone and jumped to his feet. “Come on, Yardley! Every
one up! Regular cheer, with nine ‘Yardleys!’ One! Two!――――”
The only change in the Blue’s line-up at the beginning of the third
period was at left end, where Meadows had displaced Sandford. The
Orange team returned intact. Yardley brought renewed joy to her
supporters in the first few minutes by two long gains, one by means of
a forward-pass and one by means of a seventeen-yard run by Deering,
that took her well into Brown and Young’s territory. But after that the
Orange refused to give and the ball changed hands on her twenty-seven
yards. That Coach Lyle had tried hard to solve the enemy’s running
game was evident on the occasion of the latter’s first attempt to gain
around Yardley’s left. Instead of trying to get through the enemy’s
excellent interference at once, Yardley adopted waiting tactics. So
long as the man with the ball kept on toward the side-line the Blue was
content to let him alone, and the surprising and even amusing spectacle
of fully half of each team streaking in parallel courses across the
field resulted. By these tactics Yardley gained an advantage. Whereas
before she had plunged blindly at the Orange’s interference, often not
knowing where the ball was, she now had time to size up the situation
and bend every energy toward the runner. Brown and Young’s play brought
the whole back-field out laterally, the runner carrying the ball,
either a half or the full-back, well guarded by three interferers, to
whom, once having diverted the opponent’s charge toward the center, was
added an end and tackle who formed what was virtually a rear guard. To
be successful, however, the play demanded that the opposing defense be
drawn through soon after it had started, the interference engaging it
and the man with the ball shooting free at the last moment and turning
in. So as long as the opponent did not challenge, the Orange formation
continued on in a lateral direction until, for a moment, it seemed
that it would simply continue across the side-line and into the stand!
Eventually, however, the runner saw the futility of further waiting
and took the law into his own hands in a desperate effort to save the
play. But as he had to drop back to let his interference pass before
he could turn in he was very promptly nailed and the Orange netted a
six-yard loss. But of course it didn’t work out so well for Yardley
the next time, for the Orange changed her tactics and shot the runner
in at the first opportunity. Nevertheless, the play lost most of its
effectiveness and, toward the end of the contest, was entirely ignored.
In that third period the honors were fairly even, with each team
gaining two first downs and neither penetrating nearer to her
opponent’s goal than the twenty-seven-yard line. Brown and Young’s
punters showed themselves fully equal to either Roover or Snowden and
the rival lines exhibited a similar strength against attack. Perhaps
the Orange’s superiority, if she showed any, was in her aggressiveness,
although it brought no returns so far as scoring was concerned. Each
team in the period might have attempted a field-goal but chose to stand
or fall on rushing. The seven points scored to the credit of Yardley
had regained something of their original value when time was called for
the quarter, although Brown and Young’s rooters were still hopeful and,
across the field, there were many anxious hearts.
Of the sort of playing with which the visitors had been accused, none
had been seen. To be sure, the Orange players played hard and fierce,
and when they tackled the runner always stayed where he was put, but
nothing mean nor underhand had appeared. They did a lot of talking
across the line, and some of their remarks were not in the best taste,
but many of Yardley’s opponents were what the fellows called “gabby”
and the Blue was used to verbal attack.
Play started in the final period with the pigskin in Yardley’s
possession on her opponent’s forty-four yards. Candee had taken
Simpson’s place at center and Twining had substituted Rose at left
guard. On the opposing team two changes in the line and one in the
back-field had been made. Deering plugged through the Orange left for
a short gain and Roover got outside tackle for two yards. Curran threw
to Meadows, who missed the pass, and Roover punted. An Orange back
cut through the Yardley field for nearly twenty yards after catching
and the ball was on Brown and Young’s forty-one. It was then that the
visitors opened their bag of tricks.