played in the big game last Fall, and all but two were backs. Of
the two, one was an end and the other was a guard. Coach Morgan and
Truitt, our right tackle and captain, were raking the whole school for
halfback material and not having much success in finding any.
I ought to say here that Hollins had been having a run of perfectly
rotten luck for four years. Enwright Academy was our big rival and
Enwright had beaten us three times and played us to a scoreless tie
once in those four years. It had got so that a win over the blue and
gold was something mythical, like the dodo or the dope about Hercules
and the Nemean lion. No one in school when I was there had ever seen
Hollins beat Enwright at football and we’d got so that we’d stopped
hoping, or at least expecting, anything like that to happen. And
along about the middle of October, by which time we had been licked
three times, we had resigned ourselves to the regular programme: mass
meetings, secret practice, plenty of cheering, bluffing to the last
minute and――defeat.
We played a ten game schedule that year. The week before the Enwright
game we had Gloversville coming back for a return engagement,
Gloversville being calculated to give us good practice and no risk of
injuries to our players.
About the last week in October I got a surprise. I went down to the
field one Thursday afternoon with a couple of the fellows to watch
practice. Morgan had started secret sessions, but to-day they had
opened the gates. There had been several cuts in the squad by that time
and only the first and second teams were left; perhaps thirty-four or
five fellows in all. They were scrimmaging when we got there and the
second was trying to get over the first’s goal line from the fifteen
yards. They made two tries, wide end runs both of them, and didn’t
gain an inch, but after each play I noticed that one of the second
team men had to trot back about twenty yards to get into position
again. Whoever he was, he had just romped through the first’s line
and was behind the goal posts each time. Then, when we had got over
opposite the play, I saw that it was Joe Talmadge. On the next down the
second’s quarter fumbled and after the ball had rolled around awhile
the second team’s full-back fell on it. It seemed to me that almost
any one of the first team forwards should have broken through and got
that pigskin, but they didn’t, and it dawned on me that the reason
they didn’t was just because the second’s center had been too stiff
for them. After the second had tried a place kick and failed, the ball
went back to mid-field, and during the next seven or eight minutes of
that scrimmage I watched Joe closely. And what I saw made me wonder if
Coach Morgan had lost his eyesight, for Joe simply played Pride to a
standstill. Not once did the first make a gain anywhere near the middle
of the second team’s line, and when the second finally got the pigskin
again, after Stringer had made a mess of a run around left end, it was
always Joe who led the way through. He would just spin Pride around
like a top, or push him back like he was a straw man, and romp past
him. But why Morgan didn’t see it was more than I could figure out, and
that evening, after commons, I tackled Captain Truitt. Tru and I were
pretty good friends, for I had got him into Arcanium the year before.
“Talmadge?” he said thoughtfully. “Yes, I know, Zach. He’s been putting
up a corking game on the second right along for two weeks, but when we
try him on the first he falls down flat. We’ve had him over twice. The
first time we thought it was stage fright, but he was just as bad the
next. Sometimes fellows are like that. They’ll work like Trojans for
the scrubs and be no earthly good on the first. Coach hauled him over
the coals last week about it and all Talmadge could say was that ‘he
didn’t know.’ Too bad, for he’d come mighty near to making trouble for
Enwright.”
“It doesn’t sound like sense to me,” I said. “If he can play like a
whirlwind on one team why can’t he do it on another.”
“Search me,” said Tru, “but some fellows are like that. Coach talks
of trying him again Saturday against Wooster High. I don’t know if he
will, though, for we can’t afford to take any chances. I’d like mighty
well,” he added bitterly, “to win one more game this season.”
“One!” said I. “Oh, run away, Tru! The trouble with you chaps is that
you’ve lost faith in yourselves. You’re so used to getting the short
end of it that you can’t believe in winning. Buck up!”
“That’s a fact, old man! I believe you’re dead right. We’re so used to
being rotten that we don’t know how to be anything else. What we need
is one of these psychology sharks to come around and sort of hypnotize
us into a new state of mind. Short of that, Zach, we’ll do the same old
stunt again.”
“Psychology, your grandmother! Use your beans! Why shouldn’t we win
from Enwright? What’s to prevent? Why――――”
“Nothing, except that they’ve got the best team they’ve had in three
years and we’ve got a worse one than we had last year. And last year
they beat us by seventeen――――”
“Sure! I know! You needn’t go into the sickening details. But it’s
idiotic to think that you’re bound to be licked, Tru. I’m not much
on the psychology stuff, but I do think that there’s a whole lot in
believing that you’re going to get what you want. Why not try it?”
“Oh, I do. That is, I try to. I don’t talk this way to the fellows,
Zach. You’re different. You don’t talk. And it’s a relief to be gloomy
once in awhile. On the field I have to be ‘Little Sunshine’ until my
mouth aches from grinning.”
“Well, for the love of lemons don’t quit yet, Tru. Keep a stiff upper
lip and maybe you’ll pull off a miracle.”
Whether Joe Talmadge got onto the first or not was no affair of mine,
but I sort of liked the chap, what little I’d seen of him, and,
besides, it looked to me as if the team ought to go up against Enwright
with the best players to be found. Anyway, I munched it over going
across the yard, and when I got to the third floor of Hyde I stopped
at thirty-seven and knocked. Someone said “Come in,” and I opened
the door. Joe was alone. Tom, he said, hadn’t come back from supper,
and would I wait? I had meant to ask Tom if there wasn’t some way of
getting Joe to put up a fight when they got him on the first, thinking
that maybe he could talk it over with his roommate and find out what
the trouble was. I certainly hadn’t intended talking to Joe himself
about it, but that’s just what I found myself doing a few minutes
later. Joe was a nice sort and he kind of made you say what you had on
your mind. Maybe he had what they call magnetism. Anyway, there I was
pretty soon talking it over with him, he lolling back on the window
seat, hugging his long legs and looking thoughtful.
“You’ve got me, Morris,” he said finally. “They’re dead right about it,
too. Some way, when they stick me in there on the first I sort o’ lose
my pep. I don’t know why. Say, do you believe in――in――――”
He stopped and I said “Fairies?”
“No, but atmosphere.”
“Sure, Talmadge! I’m a firm believer in it,” said I earnestly, not
knowing what he was driving at.
“Honest?” He seemed pleased and I was glad I’d said the right thing.
“Well, sometimes I think it’s atmosphere that does it.”
“Does what?” I asked, puzzled.
“Why, makes me play so dog-gone punk on the first,” he explained
gravely. “I’ll tell you, Morris,” he dropped his knees and thrust his
big hands into his trousers pockets, “when I’m playing on the second
I――I kind of feel like I was doing something that wanted to be done. I
feel like the fellows around me wanted to win the scrimmage. But when
they put me over in the other line I don’t get that――that feeling at
all. I suppose that sounds like silly stuff to you, but――――”
“Hold on!” I said. “It doesn’t, Talmadge. I believe you’ve found the
answer. I believe you’ve put your thumb right on the――the tack! That’s
just what you would feel on the first, I’ll bet. Those chumps have been
licked so often they don’t believe in themselves any more.”
“That it? Well, that’s the way I feel, and I don’t seem to be able to
get rid of it. I guess that coach thinks I’m an awful dub, but I can’t
help it. I try hard enough, but the――whatdoyoucallit――incentive isn’t
there. Or something. Atmosphere I’ve called it. Or feeling. Something.”
We talked it over quite a bit. I thought he was right about the
trouble, and I still think so. I got him finally to promise to make
a good hard bid the next time. “Just try your best to forget the
atmosphere,” said I. “Play your own game, Talmadge. Make up your mind
that, no matter whether the rest of the team want to win or get licked,
you yourself are dead set on winning. Will you do it?”
“Sure! Much obliged. It’s good of you to――to bother.” He insisted on
shaking hands. “If he lets me in Saturday I’ll do the best I can. Maybe
it won’t be much, though. After all, I don’t know an awful lot about
football. Just the rudiments. But I’ll see if I can’t――” he hesitated,
smiled and went on――“can’t create my own atmosphere.”
I had planned to go home Saturday after dinner, but I stayed around and
saw the game and took the five-twelve instead. I wish I hadn’t, for
we got most unmercifully beaten by Wooster. To be sure, Wooster had
every bit of luck there was, but even taking that into consideration
our fellows played a pretty punk game. The big disappointment to me
was Joe. Morgan put him in at the start and let him finish the quarter,
but he didn’t put up any sort of a fight. And I could see that he was
trying, too. Wooster broke up our center time and again, and the only
reason Morgan let Joe stay in was because the play was all in mid-field
and I guess he kept on hoping that Joe would find himself. I came
across him between the halves. He had dressed and was looking on from
the side line. When he saw me he smiled wryly and shook his head.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “But it wasn’t any use, Morris. I’m kiboshed, I
guess. They smeared me for fair, didn’t they?”
I nodded. “But what was the trouble?” I asked.
“I don’t know. The same, I guess. I tried to make believe that the
whole thing depended on me and that I was the main squeeze, but it
didn’t seem to work. Say, do the rest of those fellows really _want_ to
win, or――or what?”
“Why, yes, they do, of course,” said I. “But――maybe they don’t know it!”
Joe sighed. “Something’s wrong with them. I had the impression all the
time that I was taking a lot of trouble for nothing, that no one cared
what happened, and it balled me all up. I’m going to quit football, I
guess. Anyhow, I ain’t got time for it.”
I said something polite and beat it back to the stand. It didn’t seem
to me to make much difference whether he quit or not.
Things ambled along toward the second Gloversville game. I noticed that
Joe was still playing on the second, and gathered from something Tom
said that he had wanted to quit and had been overruled by the coaches.
We licked Gloversville thirteen to six, in a glorified practice game
in which every substitute had a chance to show his gait. And after
that we settled down for the final humiliation of being whipped to a
froth by Enwright the following Saturday. Honestly, you couldn’t find
ten fellows in school who would say that Hollins was going to win, and
you couldn’t have found one who believed it! I didn’t. I’ll say that
frankly.
Three of the second team were taken over to the first, and Joe was one
of them. Maybe Morgan thought he might need a third center if Enwright
played the sort of game she was expected to. Anyway, Joe was huddled
up on the bench with the rest of the subs when the game started.
It was a cloudy, still November day, with a touch of frost in the air,
and there was no choice between goals. We won the toss and gave the
ball to Enwright. The visitors were a husky lot, all right. They’d
won six out of nine games and hadn’t any doubt about winning another
to-day. They were a rangy, powerful bunch, and looked fast and keen.
As to weight they had it over us by a few pounds in the average, but
not enough to worry about. We weren’t worrying about anything, for
that matter. We had made up our minds to fight hard and die fighting.
Only, we expected to die. And anybody knows that that’s no way to go
into a football game. We believed that Fate had everything all doped
out for us, so what was the use of worrying? I heard afterwards that
Morgan fairly insulted them in the dressing room before the game, but
he didn’t get any reaction. They refused to be insulted. They were
dogged, but there wasn’t enough vanity in the whole bunch to fit out a
Pomeranian lap dog. Then they went out and trotted onto the gridiron,
while we waved and cheered them nobly, prepared to die like heroes.
They had an awful surprise in the first ten minutes of that period.
Enwright absolutely refused to play football. Whether she was a bit
stale or what the trouble was I don’t know, but she fumbled and ran
wild and misjudged punts and acted like a bunch of grammar school kids.
You could have heard their quarter raving at them as far away as the
laboratory, I guess. The first thing anyone knew Hollins had pushed
White over for a touchdown and Tru had kicked a pretty goal!
Oh boy! Maybe we didn’t go crazy on the stand! Why, we hadn’t done
anything like that to Enwright in four years! We got cocky and
crazy-headed and predicted a score something like twenty-eight to
nothing! We ought to have known better, but we didn’t. Enwright sort of
pulled herself together after that and held us off until the quarter
was up. But we were still hopeful and looked for more glory in the
second period. The glory was there, too, but it went to Enwright. She
came bravely out of her trance and pushed us straight down the field
for a touchdown and then, when White misjudged a long corkscrew punt
and had to fall on the ball on our twelve yards, she did it again in
just three rushes. She missed both goals, though, and we got some
comfort from that. Twelve to seven wasn’t so bad, after all. And the
game wasn’t half over yet.
But, although the visitors didn’t score again in that quarter, they
outplayed us badly. And they kept it up in the third period, too,
after we had sung and cheered all during half-time. But they didn’t
score. They had three perfectly good chances, and each time some turn
of the luck queered them. Of course, our fellows did their bit. They
were giving their well-known imitation of Horatius keeping the bridge.
But, shucks, if it hadn’t been for a fumble on our three yards, a
perfectly punk pass from center to fullback and holding in the line,
Enwright would have scored three times in that quarter. The trouble
with us was that we never forgot who we were up against. We were
whatyoucallems――fatalists. When an Enwright runner was tackled he kept
on running and made another yard, maybe two or three. When one of our
fellows was tackled he quit cold. Same way in hitting the line. When
one of our backs ran up against the defense he eased up. Even our
punting showed it. We didn’t mean to quit, but we were doing it. We
oozed through the third quarter with the score still twelve to seven,
and we began to hope then that we could hold the score where it was.
What happened after the whistle blew I got from Tru and Joe.
Coach Morgan called Joe from the bench. “Jones is very bad,” he said in
that quiet, crisp way of his, “and they’re making too many gains at our
center, Talmadge. It’s too bad we haven’t anyone to stiffen it, isn’t
it? If it was only the second team I’d chance putting you in.”
Joe looked troubled. “I’ll try my best, sir,” he said doubtfully.
“We-ell, I don’t know. They’ve got us beaten anyway, and――――”
Joe flared up. “_They_ have! Like fun they have! We’ve got ourselves
beaten. There isn’t a fellow out there that doesn’t think he’s done for
right now. There isn’t one of ’em that really _expects_ to win. There
isn’t more than one or two that’s _trying_. They’re just dying game,
that’s all they’re doing! Beaten! Yah, that Enwright bunch would quit
cold if someone put up a real fight!”
“Think so?” asked the coach mildly. “I wonder. Too bad someone couldn’t
go out there and convince them of that, isn’t it, Talmadge?”
“Yes, but what’s the use? They won’t believe it, Coach.”
“They might――if it was put to them hard enough,” the man mused.
Joe began to pull up his sweater sort of half-heartedly.
“If _you_ think that way, Talmadge, you might get the others to. You
might try it. It wouldn’t do any harm. We’re beaten anyway, and――――”
“That ain’t so!” cried Joe angrily. “You know it, too!”
“What good does my knowing it do?” asked Morgan gently.
Joe pulled his sweater over his head and flung it behind him.
“Jones?” he asked.
The coach nodded. “And tell Truitt I said I’d changed my plans. Tell
him I’ve decided to win the game.”
Joe grinned. Then he ran on just in time and pushed Jones out of the
way.
It was Enwright’s ball on her forty-six yards, second down and five
to go when Joe arrived. Tru looked a bit puzzled at the message for a
moment, but then he grasped the idea and it seemed to do him a lot of
good. “That’s the stuff!” he cried hoarsely. “We’ve got orders from the
coach to win this, fellows! What d’ye say now! Everyone into it hard!
All we want’s one score. Let’s get it!”
Enwright tried out the new center and made only a yard. Joe jeered at
them. “Come again!” he told them. “Always glad to see you!” They got
three past left tackle and Joe was on Conners like a ton of bricks,
bawling him out. “What do you think you’re doing?” he demanded. “Trying
to chuck this game away? Fight, you big baby! Don’t let ’em walk over
you! _Fight!_”
Conners was so surprised that he forgot to get mad until it was too
late. Tru said that having Joe butt in and take things out of his hands
like that sort of flabbergasted him, but he was so tired and used up
he was glad to have someone else do the bossing. Enwright only needed
another yard to make her distance and she tried to shove her way past
Conners for it. But Conners was insulted and mad clean through now, and
he wouldn’t have it, and blamed if we didn’t take the ball away from
them in the middle of the field, and for the first time that day!
After that Joe created his own atmosphere, as he had put it to me,
and it was a brand new atmosphere for the rest of the bunch. He kept
dinning it into them that they were going to win, that Enwright was
a lot of quitters and all tired out, anyway, that they only needed a
touchdown and that they were on their way to it. And blessed if they
didn’t begin to believe it! And it wasn’t long before Enwright was
thinking there might be something in it, too! Tru said you could notice
the difference five minutes after the last quarter began. They eased
up and didn’t round off their plays. Their quarter began to change
signals, and once they went back and put their heads together. When
they did that Joe gloated openly and began to show even more pep.
“Sure!” he cried, “Talk it over! Know you’re beaten, don’t you? If
you’ve got anything left, show it! Time’s getting short!”
It was, too. There was only about seven minutes left. We had taken
the ball back to their twenty-eight and had to punt, and they had run
it back to the thirty-six and were shy four yards on the third down.
They got two of the four on a delayed pass that fooled every one on
our team except Joe, it seemed, and then had to punt. Of course, all
they wanted now was to kill time, and they tried every means they
knew. But White got away from our thirty-five with a run that landed
the pigskin past the middle again and then Morgan sent Presson back
into the line-up and Press ate up ten yards in three plunges. It looked
like we had them going then, and we were cheering ourselves hoarse on
the stand. Joe snarled and bullied, and praised, too, and in those last
five minutes he had every fellow on the team working for him like dogs.
And they all expected to win, too. That’s the funny part of it. Dobbs
told me afterwards that if we’d been beaten he would have cried like a
kid. But we weren’t. No, sir, we weren’t. Not that year. We ate them up
from their thirty-eight yards right down to their ten. They stiffened
then and at first it was like chipping concrete to make gains. There
was hardly more than a minute left. We could hear Joe barking and
yelping. Even when he sounded the maddest you felt sure that he was
going to get what he was after.
And Enwright knew it, too. Yes, sir, Enwright showed it right then.
She wasn’t cocky any longer. She was pegged out and nervous and
discouraged. You could see it in the way the backs changed positions
behind the forwards, not being sure where they’d better stay, and you
could see it in the way the line started before the ball twice. We made
a yard and a half on the first plunge and lost the half on the second,
and it was nine to go on the third down.
We were all off the stand by that time, clustering along the side line
and back of the goal, cheering and yelping at one moment and then being
so still the quarter’s voice sounded like claps of thunder. Our right
end scampered off, Joe passed to the quarter, quarter faked a forward
and dropped the ball to Maynard and Maynard shot straight into the
center. Joe was clearing the hole out for him, and he did it to the
king’s taste. Right through and into the secondary defense plunged Joe,
taking them with him as he went, while Maynard, head down, pigskin
clutched to his tummy, followed after. They stopped them short of the
last line, but not much short, and we still had another down.
The timekeeper was walking nearer and nearer with his eyes on his watch
and we fellows looking on almost had heart failure. It seemed to us
that our team had never taken longer to line up and that the quarter
had never been so slow with his signals. But he got them out finally
and――Oh, well, you know what happened. It was Joe again, and Maynard
again, and Enwright went down like nine-pins and our whole team broke
through her center and went tumbling, streaming over the goal line! And
when the whistle blew Joe had to trot back from the other side of the
end line, he had been going so hard!
That’s how we broke the hoodoo. Tru failed at goal, but we had won,
thirteen to twelve, anyway. They elected Joe captain a week later, and
he would have been a corker if the war hadn’t come along. He went over
in the spring, and the next thing we heard he was top sergeant. I’m
sorry for the Huns in front of Joe’s platoon if he used that psychology
stuff!
BILLY MAYES’ GREAT DISCOVERY