MAKING THE 'VARSITY NINE.
Frank Armstrong returned to college in the fall with a reputation.
His remarkable jumping which won the deciding event of the meet at
Queen's Club in London, and no less the picturesque manner in which
he had made his way from Brighton that eventful day, had been spread
widely in the newspapers, and no one within reach of the cable or
telegraph but knew the details of the story.
But the publicity and adulation in no way disturbed Frank's balance.
He was much too level-headed for that, and went about his work the
most unassuming of his classmates. "Nothing to make such a fuss
about," he used to say. "I simply had to do it. That's all there is
to it."
The luck of the room drawings had landed our three friends in
Connecticut Hall, that century and a half memorial to old Yale.
"Comfortable and musty," was the Codfish's comment when he had
heard the news. David Powers had drawn a room in Welch Hall
directly opposite. It was David's secret ambition to win a position
on the Literary Magazine, and to this end he had applied himself
industriously in the Freshman year. He succeeded in getting several
essays and a poem accepted by the august editors. He had tried
himself out, and was now going after the coveted honor with high
determination.
Out on the football field the annual preparation for the great
struggles with Harvard and Princeton was going on. James Turner and
Frank Armstrong were enrolled as members of the squad, and took their
daily medicine on the second eleven. Frank's lack of weight--he was
still only about one hundred and fifty pounds--prevented him from
competing on an even footing with ends twenty pounds heavier, with
which the 'Varsity was well supplied that year. The quarterback
position was so well filled that he despaired of winning his way
there and the coaches, evidently of the same opinion, kept him where
he had played on the Freshman team. Turner, on the other hand, had
added weight and was in a fair way to win a place somewhere in the
back field. Frank put in a great deal of time under the direction of
the punting coach, and made good progress at that department of the
game, but at drop-kicking he had little opportunity.
"Drop-kicking isn't Yale's way of scoring," said Jimmy Turner one
night when the day's work was being discussed in the Connecticut Hall
room before a crackling fire of log-wood. "The coaches want a team
that can carry the ball over the goal-line, not one that can boot it
over the cross-bar."
"I know it looks better to have the force drive the other fellow back
across his own goal, but since these new rules went into effect it's
mighty seldom you ever see it in a big game. But I'm not knocking.
I'll keep at the drop-kicking and hope for a chance."
But the chance for Frank did not come. In two of the smaller games he
was called in the fourth quarter with a number of other substitutes,
and when the team play was badly disorganized because so few regulars
were in the line. He played at end in each case and was pulled back
for the punting. Once with a good opportunity for a field goal on the
opponent's twenty-yard line, a poor protection allowed a lineman to
get through and block the ball--a thing which very nearly resulted
in a touchdown against Yale, for a free end picked up the loose ball
and was not brought down until he was well into Yale's territory.
While Armstrong was not at all to blame, the general crowd saw only
that his kick was blocked and considered him unsafe as a drop-kicker.
Turner won his Y in the Princeton game when he was sent in to relieve
Cummings, the right halfback, a few minutes before the final whistle,
but Armstrong's chance didn't come. He sat through the four quarters
and saw the Yale team win at the very end. A week later Armstrong
was among the blanketed figures on the side-lines, who watched the
struggle of Yale and Harvard up and down the gridiron, with hopes
rising and falling as the tide turned one way or the other. At the
very end of the game, with the score against Yale, a fumble in the
Harvard back field gave Yale possession of the ball on Harvard's
thirty-yard line. The Yale stand rose en masse and begged for a
touchdown, but two assaults were stopped with scant advance. The
coach ran down the line, looking among his substitutes.
"Armstrong, get ready to go in," he said in a quiet, tense voice, but
even as Frank jumped to his feet to obey the summons, the whistle
blew and the game was over.
"Another year coming," Frank said quietly as Jimmy, with arm across
his roommate's shoulder, on their way from the field, protested
against the hard luck.
"You're pretty cheerful about it," commented Turner, "and you
deserved the chance as much as I did."
"If I had been good enough, I'd have gone in before. The coaches know
what they are about. If I ever get enough weight on me, I'll have a
better chance to make the eleven."
"And then you'll not be able to jump twenty-three feet," said Turner;
"for every compensation there's some setback. That's the way of life."
The Codfish was bitter in his condemnation of the entire coaching
system which did not discover Armstrong's "supreme merit." "The idea
of not using you, Frank, when they had every chance in that last
quarter. I call it a murdering shame! They might have pulled out the
game."
Frank laughed. "I recognize your talent as a musician and your
loyalty as a friend and your virtue as a gentleman, but I still think
the coaches knew their jobs, and that when they didn't send me in
they had good and sufficient reason for it. I'm not kicking. Anyway,
I have two more chances, so what's the use of crying?"
The Codfish continued to growl about the "injustice" for several
days, and then, like everyone else, forgot all about football and
turned his attentions to the future.
Before the fall Frank had taken occasional dips in the pool when not
overtired by the work at the Field. Max, foreseeing a recruit for his
swimmers, took pains to encourage him, and, later, at the suggestion
of Captain Wilson of the swimming team, Frank became a member of the
squad. After the close of the football season, being well up in his
studies and glad of the opportunity to take up a form of athletics
which appealed to him strongly, he went at the work with great
earnestness.
In the try-outs Armstrong won his right to a place on the team in
the fifty and one hundred yards, having covered these distances in
good time, and, when the intercollegiate meets came along, he did his
share in point-winning for Yale.
"Armstrong," said Captain Wilson one afternoon as the two were
resting after a practice spin of one hundred and fifty yards, "did
you ever try to swim a two-twenty?"
"Used to go more than that distance in open water, but never in the
tank. Why?"
"Well, McGill, the Canadian university, is sending a team down here
in February. They have two or three crackajacks up there and they are
making a little southern trip. I've just wired them the date and I'd
like to make as good a showing as possible."
"We ought to be pretty good excepting in the two-twenty," said Frank.
"And if you'll work for that distance we ought to be pretty good
there, too. I'll take care of the hundred as well as I know how, and
I'll let Hobbs swim the fifty."
"And who swims the two-twenty for McGill?"
"Hopkins, the Olympic champion."
Frank gave a long whistle. "And so you want me to be the goat? All
right, Mr. Captain, I'll do my best and lead the goat right up to
the altar to be sacrificed by the Olympic champion. But to do it
gracefully, I ought to have some coaching in that distance."
"And you're going to get it. I've sent for Burton to come up and
give us a little advice. He was one of our best men at the distance
as well as at the hundred."
"Yes, I know him. Taught me to swim."
"Really! Well, that's fine. He has the knack of teaching, and can
tell you the tricks of the furlong if anyone can."
The McGill meet was only two weeks off, and Frank began his training
in earnest. Twice a day he swam the furlong, first at a moderate gait
and then quickening the stroke until he was traveling at good speed
throughout the distance.
Burton came up from New York and spent a portion of two days with
him, and, before the coaching was over, Frank had the satisfaction of
beating out his old teacher of the crawl stroke.
"You're too good for me now," gasped Burton as he pulled himself out
of the water at the end of the race. "I'll have to leave you to the
tender mercies of Hopkins himself."
The night of the meet finally came around, and the building was all
too small to hold the hundreds who crowded to the pool doors. Every
seat was sold long in advance and standing room was crowded almost
to suffocation. The attraction was, of course, Hopkins, who had been
taking the measure of every swimmer at his distance that he had met,
and who was heralded as the greatest swimmer in the world over the
furlong distance.
After Wilson had won the hundred and Hobbs had lost the fifty-yard
contest, Hopkins sauntered carelessly from the dressing room, clad in
a black silk racing suit. He proved to be a tall and powerful young
man, heavily muscled. Alongside of him, as the two stood perched on
the pool end, Frank looked very slender, but there was a suggestion
of concealed strength in the latter's well-rounded limbs and of
vitality and staying power in the deep chest.
"Two-twenty yards even!" sang out the referee. "Eight lengths and
sixty feet. Hopkins, the Olympic champion on the left for McGill;
Armstrong on the right for Yale. Ready! Get set! GO!"
At the word, both bodies shot through the air and hit the water like
one. The champion used a long, rather slow but powerful trudgeon
which was peculiarly mixed with the crawl in the leg action;
Armstrong used a quicker crawl, in which the legs were scarcely bent
at the knee, but were thrashed rapidly in a very narrow angle. The
crowd expected the champion to pull away at once, but when the two
turned at the far end of the pool, they turned at exactly the same
instant. Down to the starting point the swimmers came, moving with
great speed, but still the Yale man stayed with his big opponent
with grim determination, and even finished the fifty a fraction of
a second in advance of his Canadian opponent, shooting away on the
second fifty still in the lead. Twice more the swimmers covered the
length of the tank without relative change in position.
And now the crowd, with nearly half the race over, seeing that their
representative was holding his own, rose to their feet and delivered
a wild yell which echoed among the high girders of the place, and
from that time they did not cease to yell at the game fight waged
in the water below them. At the one hundred and fifty-yard mark,
Armstrong, putting on a burst of speed, led his great rival by five
or six feet. Hopkins, who had never changed his steady drive for a
moment, now quickened his thresh perceptibly, and in another length
of the tank had almost overhauled the Yale man who was kicking along
with every pound of energy in his body. Armstrong still led, but as
they approached the two hundred-yard mark, there was less than a
yard separating them.
"Armstrong! Armstrong! Armstrong!" yelled the crowd.
But the boy who was causing all the excitement was not conscious of
anything but a dull roaring in his head. The noise of the cheering
came to him faintly, much more faintly than the splash, splash of
Hopkins's arms just behind him, and, even as he looked out of the
corner of a water-filled eye, the relentless Canadian drew up nearer
and still nearer.
"Sixty feet to go!" Frank heard in a dull sort of way the official's
voice. Could he do it, that impossible distance? His throat was
parched and his chest seemed bursting with the strain of the pumping
heart. Could he live for sixty feet more? It was a thousand miles.
Summoning every last ounce of will pressure, he drove ahead blindly,
following mechanically the swimming lines on the pool bottom with no
help from smarting eyes. Somewhere near was Hopkins, he could feel
the swirl of water from his powerful arm drives, but whether Hopkins
was ahead or behind he could not tell. His arms were like lead, his
legs paralyzed. A great weariness settled upon him, a great and
compelling burden which benumbed all the faculties of brain and body.
About fifteen minutes later Frank found himself lying on a couch in
the room of the 'Varsity swimming team, with several anxious faces
looking down at him, among them that of Hopkins.
"What's the matter?" he asked in a bewildered way.
"Nothing, 'cepting you drowned yourself," said Captain Wilson, "dead
as a door nail."
"Did I finish?" he asked very weakly.
"You certainly did, you finished the race and yourself at the same
time. Two of us had to go to the bottom for you," said the Captain.
"You sank like a stone."
"That's where I went to sleep, then?"
"I guess so, you had us scared, I tell you."
"You gave me a great race, Armstrong," said Hopkins, "one of the
hardest I ever had. It wasn't record time, but it was as fast as the
two-twenty is generally done. I only won by a few inches, and mighty
lucky to get it at that," admitted the Canadian generously.
"If I made you work, I'm satisfied," said Frank weakly. "I hadn't a
ghost of a chance to win, but I set out to make you work for your
victory."
"And you did," returned Hopkins laughing.