FOOTBALL PROBLEMS
The next day Dick appointed three assistant coaches. Bert Cable was to
coach the linemen, Lanny the backs and Morris the kickers. Dick took
the ends under his immediate charge. There were now five candidates
for the end positions: Harry Bryan, Guy Felker, Jack Toll, Jim Grover
and Gordon Merrick. Dick had very distinct ideas on the subject of end
play and was fortunately able to convey them understandingly to the
candidates. Gordon did not at once take kindly to the new position nor
show any great aptitude for the duties involved. Except that he was
quick and fast on his feet, was physically well built for an end and
had a lot of sound sense, he was doubtless no more promising than half
a dozen others whom Dick might have selected for the training. But
Dick’s theory that it was easier to make an intelligent fellow into a
football player than to make a football player intelligent continued
to guide his plans, and already he was succeeding in vindicating that
theory.
Among the boys who had responded to the later call for candidates was a
fifteen-year-old sophomore named Perry Hull. Perry had never tried for
the team before and knew about as little football as it was possible
to know and live in a community where it was played every Fall. But he
was a bright-looking, quick-acting chap, with steady dark eyes and a
firm mouth and chin, and he wasn’t afraid of either hard knocks or hard
work. When he reported he expressed complete indifference as to where
he played, therein being much unlike the general run of candidates,
most of whom demanded to be made into backs or ends. They told a story
on Fudge Shaw which may not have been quite truthful, but in any case
illustrates the point. Fudge, so the story went, reported for football
in his sophomore year and, on being asked by Coach Farrell what
position he was after, replied, “Oh, captain or quarterback, I guess!”
Dick liked Perry Hull’s looks at once and watched him carefully for a
week. His lack of size was against him as a lineman and, in fact, left
few positions open to him. He might have developed into a satisfactory
substitute end had not Dick been quietly looking for a quarterback
with more powers of initiative than Orson Kirke showed. Kirke was a
good handler of the ball, was rather clever at gaining in a broken
field and could follow directions implicitly. But, left to himself, he
never knew what to do and was liable to make the most stupid blunders
in the matter of choosing plays. He had been third-string quarter
the year before and had been used only when both Putnam, the regular
quarter, and Cottrell, the first substitute, were unable to play.
Dick didn’t fancy Kirke as the sole proxy in the Springdale game and
seized on Perry Hull eagerly as soon as he had sized up that youth.
Hull was placed in the hands of Chester Cottrell for development and
inside of a few days had proved Dick’s acumen. Already, on the eve of
the Logan contest, Hull was the logical candidate for first substitute
quarterback, and Orson Kirke, who had theretofore looked on himself
as certain incumbent of that position, was ruefully doing his best to
outpace the usurper. Just now Kirke might be said to be still a full
lap behind.
Dick’s ability to connect player and position was in a way remarkable.
His sleight-of-hand trick in making Guy Felker, who had been playing
fullback for two years, into a competent end was still marveled at,
and his elevation of Partridge from the Scrub to the First Squad had
been equally successful. And now the school was watching with almost
breathless interest his experiment of molding a finished quarterback
from the raw material. In fact, the school found a good deal to wonder
at that Fall with regard to Dick. The Norrisville game had proved
pretty conclusively, fellows considered, that they had made no mistake
in their choice of a coach. Those who had openly scoffed were now
either silent or frankly admiring, while those who had hailed Dick’s
advent from the first were now noisily triumphant. The question one
heard on every hand was “How does Lovering know so much football when
he has never played it and never had anything to do with it?”
Dick could have told them had he chosen to. All his life he had been
forced to sit by and watch other boys do things; play baseball and
football and tennis, run races, leap hurdles, skate and enjoy all the
other sports from which he was debarred by reason of a weak spine. But
Dick had not been content to merely look on and envy. He had studied
while he watched, often, for his own amusement, imagining himself in
the place of some more fortunate youth and telling himself just what
he would do in such a case. To that end Dick read up on all the sports
until, theoretically at least, he knew more about them by half than
most of the fellows who participated. No one followed the baseball and
football and track teams more closely than Dick. He seldom missed a
contest. And, while others were content to observe results, Dick had
to know the reasons for them. Many were the football problems he had
worked out at home with a checkerboard and checkers, or with matches
on a table-top, and many the imaginary games he had captained. Dick,
in short, was a self-taught athlete, a book-learning one. But that
book-learning and self-instruction may produce results had already been
proved in the Summer, when he had piloted the baseball nine to many
victories, and was now in a fair way to being proved again.
Dick didn’t know it all, however. No fellow who has never actually
played as well as studied can possess an all-around knowledge of
the game. Dick was ignorant, for instance, of certain niceties of
line-play, tricks that are second nature to a seasoned guard or tackle
or center, but, realizing his ignorance, he didn’t pretend knowledge.
Quite frankly he asked information, solicited advice, even from the
boys he was coaching. When he made a mistake he acknowledged the fact.
One day when he was watching Squad A practice against Squad B, and
Chester Cottrell had sent a split-tandem play at the opposing line for
a loss of several yards, Dick found fault.
“You were wrong, Tupper,” he said. “You should have put out your man
and let Captain White clear up the hole. Try that again, Cottrell.”
Cottrell, on the impulse, started to answer sharply. “No, he shouldn’t,
Coach! That play――” Then he stopped as quickly, clapped his hands and
cried, “A Formation! Signals!” The others, returning to their places,
were silent, Lanny casting a doubtful look at Dick as he fell in behind
George Tupper again. Dick, however, had read the signs.
“One moment,” he said. “Am I wrong, Captain White?”
“I think you are,” replied Lanny frankly. “That play sends fullback
against tackle, with the ball. Tupper’s play is to engage the center
and fake an attack on that position. If he goes in too hard and puts
his man out too quick he doesn’t give Beaton time to get through
tackle. Same way with me, Coach. I’m supposed to draw guard in away
from the play. If I smash in too hard and fast――――”
“You’re right,” agreed Dick. “That was my mistake. We’ll try that again
later when they’re not looking for it and see why it doesn’t go. All
right, Cottrell!”
One or two of the linemen started to grin, but almost instantly changed
their minds. A coach who could make a mistake and own up to it as
frankly as that wasn’t a subject for ridicule! Farrell wouldn’t have
done it, they reflected. When Farrell made an error, and he sometimes
did, for all his experience, he bullied them into a sort of half-belief
that he had been right!
On Thursday Squad B became officially the Scrub Team and lined up
against the First, or Varsity, as the fellows liked to call it, for
the first real scrimmage. Tom Nostrand was captain and the roster
consisted of Jones, left end, Mander, left tackle, Gage, left guard,
Shaw, center, Nostrand, right guard, Peyton, right tackle, Smith, right
end, Farrar, quarterback, Burns, left halfback, Sawin, right halfback,
and Brimmer, fullback. Six other youths were retained as substitutes
and the balance of the candidates, eight in number, were dropped.
Fudge Shaw had not shown enough promise to warrant his retention on
the Varsity and had been released to Nostrand and tried as center, in
which position he was doing very well. For his part, Fudge was quite
satisfied, for his ambition had never really gone beyond a place on the
Scrub Team. It is doubtful, though, if Gage and Brimmer, both of whom
had played with the First Team prior to Dick’s advent, were as well
pleased! However, it was well understood that changes were still likely
to occur and that any fellow who proved his right to a place on the
Varsity would get it, a knowledge which served to cause the Scrub Team
players to do their best.
Tom Nostrand’s warriors showed up remarkably well that afternoon and
gave the Varsity a first-class argument. The best the latter could do
was make a touchdown in each half of twenty minutes and hold the enemy
scoreless. The Scrubs trotted from the field not a little proud of
themselves and with Dick’s commendation, “Good work, Scrub!” ringing in
their ears. Tom Nostrand had already announced to them that they were
to play the North Side team on the twenty-first, and they were more
than pleased.
On Friday the Varsity, contrary to custom, was put through as hard if
not harder practice than usual, and a full hour was spent in going over
the few plays to be used against Logan the next day. Also, there was an
extremely strenuous session with the dummy, and, after scrimmage was
over, the backs and centers were kept until it was too dark to see,
the centers passing to punters and the other backs running down under
kicks. Morris Brent practiced goals from the field and managed to score
about six out of ten, which, as some of the angles were extreme, was a
creditable performance.
Morris was something of a problem to Dick and Lanny. In spite of the
doctor’s permission, Dick had a feeling that Morris, if allowed to
play as much as he wanted to, was likely to peg out before the big
game. Lanny, too, shared this belief, and, while neither of them could
have given satisfactory reasons for it, they were agreed that the
wise course was to nurse Morris along, giving him only enough work
to keep him in condition, and bank all on his ability to reach the
Springdale contest in top-form. Meanwhile Lanny himself was doing most
of the punting, Chester Cottrell supplying short kicks from regular
formation. So far Morris Brent had been brought into the game whenever
a goal from field was necessary, but Dick was anxious to find another
player who could also be relied on to add an occasional three points in
that manner. So far, though, no one had shown much promise. Tupper and
Nelson Beaton were doing their best under Morris’s tuition, but they
didn’t seem to get on very fast. Dick heartily wished that he knew more
about drop-kicking himself, or, better still, that there was somebody
he could call on to come out and coach in that department of the game.
And in the meantime came the game with Logan, which, since it must be
played without Lanny and Cottrell, presented another problem!