FOOTBALL
Wolcott was out on the next afternoon at the appointed hour, feeling at
first a little sheepish under the scrutiny of the critical crowd at the
side-lines, but soon oblivious to everything except the work to be done
and the directions of the coachers. On this first day the candidates
practised little except the simplest elements, such as tackling and
falling on the ball. The prudent coach sent them all down early, when to
Wolcott it seemed as if the work had just begun. The next day the same
programme was followed, the green linesman receiving in addition
personal instruction from the veterans in the rudiments of line play:
how to stand, how to charge, how to use the hands, or, what was perhaps
more important, how not to use them. Wolcott was not altogether without
experience, or he would have made little out of this amateur coaching.
He kept his eyes open, however, watching the motions rather than trying
to follow the words of his instructors, and seeking to learn what was
most worth learning. Laughlin gave him a suggestion now and then as he
went among the squads, and Lauder, the coach, devoted a few minutes to
him. He did not need to be told that a guard plays close up to the
centre on the offence and loose on the defence; that he must keep his
head up and his play low, meet the other man harder and quicker than the
other man meets him, throw himself into the enemy’s country at the
earliest possible instant, and always watch the ball. All this as theory
was tolerably familiar to him,—so familiar, in fact, that he almost
resented being held down like a greenhorn to a primary course when he
was capable of going higher. But when, after a few days, he got into his
first line-up, and in five minutes of play got offside through
overhaste, charged into the air, lost sight of the ball, rushed his man
away from the play which he was supposed to stop, and leaped twice at a
runner’s throat instead of at his shins—he despised the primary course
no longer.
“It does no good to jump around unless you’re helping some one on your
side or stopping some one on the other,” said Laughlin, reproachfully,
as he talked over the day’s practice afterward. “You want to be lively,
but every step ought to tell. Always strike for the ball or the bunch
where the ball is. You made a terrible mess when you tried to tackle
Fearns!”
“I know it,” replied Wolcott, humbly. “I’m afraid I lost my head.”
“I wish you’d do what I told you the other night,” continued the
captain: “make sure of the rudiments whether you know anything else or
not. If you’re good at those, there’ll always be a place for a fellow of
your size on the second; but if you take to making neck tackles and
shutting your eyes in a scrimmage, you won’t be of any use anywhere.”
“I won’t do so any more,” said Wolcott. And then he added, with an
accent of discouragement, “You think I can make the second, don’t you?”
Laughlin understood the tone quite as well as the words. “Of course you
can if you try, and I don’t mean that you can’t make the first either.
You’ve got to make the first by way of the second. The second is just
the place for you, or for any one else who wants to learn; it’s the
regular training-school for the first. You’re on the field every day,
you play against a better man who can’t help giving you points, and
you’re right where you can be watched. Don’t you worry about the first.
Just play your hardest all the time, make the man opposite you work to
keep you under, learn his game and improve on it, and then, if you beat
him out, you’ll be taken on to the first in his place. But don’t ask now
whether you’re going to land in the first or the second. You’ve got a
chance during the next six weeks to learn the game and show what you can
do. That’s all any one can ask.”
Wolcott was silent, but he was not at all convinced that the mere
opportunity to play on the second was in itself all he could ask for,
and his later experiences rather confirmed his doubts. To begin with, he
got but little personal coaching, for the coachers devoted themselves
especially to the first, helping the second, for the most part, only
incidentally. Then he was pitted against Butler, an experienced man,
fifteen pounds heavier, who had the support of the best line in school
and the best secondary defence. Bullard, who played centre on the first,
was not counted a great player, but he was certainly better than
thick-headed, heavy-limbed Kraus, who usually occupied the corresponding
position on the second, and who was likely either to topple over on
Lindsay’s back, or fall in his way, or in some other inexplicable
fashion deprive the new guard of the fruit of his efforts. Durand was
captain of the second, as clever and quick and “scrappy” a quarter as
one could desire. But what could the cleverest quarter do with a centre
who couldn’t get the ball back, and a line which wouldn’t hold long
enough to allow the backs to get started? At the end of a week of play,
Wolcott began to suspect that the second had no other reason for
existence than to be tossed and mauled about for the good of the first,
as the punching-bag suffers to harden the boxer’s muscle.
Another week went by, and the new player’s ambition began to wane. He
didn’t mind the hard knocks and the hard words; he was willing to work
and wait and play with all his might; but it did seem an unfair handicap
to pit him against a veteran player, a stronger and better-trained line,
the head coach and the captain, and still expect him to distinguish
himself. Laughlin had paid him but little attention during the last
week. The captain still made occasional suggestions, mostly in the form
of frank and unadorned condemnation of methods that were wrong, with now
and then a word of praise as a relish; but the old intimate relation in
which they had discussed the football campaign as a thing in which the
two had a similar interest, no longer existed. Was Laughlin too much
absorbed to notice him? Or had he already made up his mind that Lindsay
was of no use?
“Why didn’t you try for tackle, Lindsay?” asked Jackson, the
quarter-back, that afternoon, as the two stood briskly rubbing
themselves in the corner of the shower-bath drying room. “There isn’t
much show at guard against a man like Butler.”
“Because Dave wanted me to play guard,” answered Wolcott, sharply. He
had been puzzling over that very question himself.
“Did he?” answered Jackson, in a tone of surprise. “I wonder why.” And
then, after considering a few seconds, he added: “I guess he thought
’twould be better to have a good solid centre on the second to buck
against than another green tackle for the first. I guess he’s right,
too. It’s rather hard on you, though, isn’t it?”
Wolcott forced a laugh. “It makes no difference to me where I play. I
never expect to get beyond the second, anyway.”
Wolcott’s attention wandered in the recitation that afternoon, and he
went to his room after dinner in distinctly low spirits. He had dreamed
of making the eleven. Indifferently as he had spoken to Jackson, he
could not deny that the hope had been in his heart daily for the last
six months. All the labor and training of the summer had been undergone
with this prize before his eyes. If Dave was disappointed in him, he was
still more disappointed in himself; but in any case he must bear his
fate like a man, not whine over it like a child. After all, if he did
his best, his absolute best, and did not compass his ambition, he had
nothing to be ashamed of. He certainly wanted the best team put into the
field, and if his greatest service to the team lay in his furnishing a
“good, solid centre on the second for the first to buck against,” why
should he hesitate?
No, he would think no more of the first eleven. His place was on the
second. But on the second he would do something worth doing. He would
play his game to the end, without shirking or shrinking, to the best of
his ability in the place where he was put. And the second eleven should
be a good eleven, as far as he could make it, or help others to make it!
Full of a new purpose, Wolcott seized his cap and hurried over to
Durand’s room. Durand was writing names on a sheet of paper.
“Hello!” said Durand, “did you meet Dave?”
“Dave? No! Why?”
“He’s just been in here. He was going over to see you. He wants us to
brace up the second.”
Wolcott uttered an exclamation. “That’s just what I was going to talk
with you about.”
“Dave says we’re of no use, and we can’t deny it. He’s given me a free
hand to get out the best team we can. What do you think of this
combination?” And he read his list of names.
On the following day there were some new faces on the second. Kraus was
put to running laps on the track, and into the centre went Scates, a
burly White Mountain villager who had never touched a football until he
arrived in Seaton that September. They planted him in the line, told him
that the opposite centre was his personal enemy, bade him stand like a
rock, put the ball back when required, and then pile into his enemy as
if he were pushing a log into the Androscoggin. When the other side had
the ball, he was to smash through and get it. Milliken, a big
Pennsylvanian who had been vainly trying to stop Laughlin, was pulled
out of his position and set to bucking the line. The practice that
afternoon was lively, if nothing else.
The next day was Saturday, and the Bates College team appeared for their
annual game. Wolcott lounged at the side-lines in football clothes with
the rest of the big squad, on the extremely small possibility that a
sufficient number of accidents would occur to bring him into the game.
As the substitutes lounged, they watched and commented.
“Butler is putting it over his man all right,” observed Conley, who sat
at Wolcott’s elbow, in characteristic slang.
Wolcott was watching. Both Butler and his Bates opponent, though
starting low, charged upward, meeting nearly erect. Then Butler, who was
heavier and stronger, would push the other back or throw him aside, and
pass quickly through. Why did they rise like that? The movement was
instinctive, of course, but why did not the lighter man keep on the
ground where his advantage lay, and not be tempted into the air?
Interested in the pair, Wolcott followed the play along the side-lines,
catching glimpses from time to time of the attitude of the two men as
they clashed. The advantage was always on Butler’s side.
In the second half Butler faced a new foe, who for a time fared no
better at his hands than his predecessor. But presently a change was
perceptible. The new guard did not rise to meet his enemy’s charge, but
instead dodged past the Seaton man close to the ground on the defensive,
and charged his hips on the offensive. Gains behind Butler became less
frequent; twice his man stopped the Seaton play behind the line.
Wolcott kept his own counsel after the Bates game, but his treatment of
Butler when he next lined up against him was different. When the first
had the ball, instead of dashing himself against his opponent, he dived
past him on his knees. Twice he overran the ball because he did not keep
his head up to see where the play was going; twice he lost his footing,
and was useless; but several times he was through in season to smash the
interference as it was forming, or drive the runner in a wasteful
circuit. When his own side had the ball, the play was not so easy; but
by diving into his opposite the very instant the ball moved, he at least
succeeded in keeping him out of the way.
“It was a good game you put up to-day, Lindsay,” said the coach, as the
line broke. Lindsay thanked him, beaming with joy.
On the way down Laughlin joined him. “Good work you did to-day; keep it
up.” Wolcott nodded and smiled again. But the smiles and the joy were
not due to the compliments, nor to the reawakening of fatuous hopes of
swift promotion to the school eleven. His present ambition was centred
on holding his own against Butler, and now he knew he had his man.