OFF-SIDE
Lorimer always gave a scrappy argument. In fact, she had on one
occasion argued so well that a tie score had resulted. This year she
looked better than usual when she went onto the field for practice,
and there were those on the stands who, perhaps naturally pessimistic,
shook their heads and predicted a defeat for the Gray-and-Gold.
They had reason on their side, too, for Lorimer was known to have a
practically veteran team while Alton’s team was still in the throes of
constructing itself around no more than four proven warriors. And the
visitors had superior weight in both line and backfield, although the
superiority was not vast. So the pessimists had plenty of arguments
with which to support their dismal prophecies.
Coach Cade put his best foot forward when the game started, using the
best material he had in the hope of getting a safe lead in the first
half. After that he could use his substitutes with discrimination
and, he believed, hold the enemy at bay. But the safe lead didn’t
materialize according to his program. Gains through the Lorimer line
were few and difficult to make, and before the game was ten minutes old
it was apparent that, with the few plays Alton had at present, she was
going to be hard put to score unless the breaks came her way. In the
first period the only break came when Lorimer blocked Steve Whittier’s
try at a field goal on her thirty-three yards and a Lorimer tackle
scooped up the trickling ball and sped to Alton’s twenty-seven yards
before he was brought down from behind by Billy Frost. It looked very
much like a Lorimer score just then, and when the enemy had tossed a
forward pass across the center of the line for six yards more it looked
vastly more like it. It took Lorimer the next three downs to get the
rest of her distance and fetch up just inside the seventeen. Doubtless
the pessimists were gloomily happy then. But Lorimer didn’t have the
punch to score, for, after one smash at left tackle had been stopped,
an end run had lost half a yard and a forward pass had grounded near
the side-line, her try for a goal from near the twenty-five-yard line
failed.
Alton had some success with a full-back run from kick-formation, Crumb
carrying the ball, and got off one forward-pass of twenty yards, Crumb
to Kinsey, and worked the pigskin back to mid-field and then into
Lorimer territory. But the invasion petered out in a punt that the
Lorimer quarter-back took on his five-yard-line and laid down finally
on his thirty-one. The Lorimer rooters thought well of that incident
and let the fact be known. Alton displayed scarcely any signs of
delight. That ended the first ten-minute quarter.
As if to play even, Fortune favored the home team soon after the second
period began by giving her a chance to score when Billy Frost poked his
way outside tackle and got free for a thirty-eight-yard scamper that
put the ball down on the adversary’s twenty-six. Crumb hit the right
of center for two and got three more outside tackle. Billy Frost tried
the left end, was thrown for no gain, and Steve Whittier dropped back
to the thirty while Quarter-back Kinsey knelt on the turf in front of
him and held his hands out for the ball. Alton was all ready to burst
into triumphant cheers, for Steve was a good place-kicker, and the ball
was directly in front of the goal. But Alton was reckoning without
Mr. Loring Cheswick, center. Loring set himself firmly and carefully,
measured distance and noted direction and then sped the ball a foot
above Pep’s reach!
So that ended that incident, except that Steve did all that was humanly
possible by chasing the bounding pigskin back to the forty-yard line,
gathering it up expeditiously and doubling back toward the Lorimer
goal. But the best he could do was to reach the thirty-four, close to
the side-line, where he was pulled to earth by no fewer than three
of the enemy. Alton seemed discouraged and Pep’s choice of plays was
not of the best. A plunge on the short side of the field netted but a
scant yard and didn’t take the runner over the side-line. Pep’s own
run to the left almost centered the ball but lost the first gain and
two yards more. A fake kick from placement, which fooled nobody, gave
Crumb four yards through center, and after a conference that was rudely
interrupted by the referee, Whittier punted to Lorimer’s three yards.
Lorimer kicked promptly and got distance, and Pep was downed where he
caught. On the first play Levering, at left end, was caught off-side,
and Alton was set back to the forty-seven yards. Two downs failed to
gain, and Alton punted again. This time Pep got height but not much
more and the ball was Lorimer’s on her thirty-one when the catcher
was stopped. It was there and then that the visitor began a march up
the field that would not be denied. Three first downs brought her to
Alton’s thirty-seven. Coach Cade sent in fresh linemen to the number
of three and for a moment the advance faltered. Then a forward-pass
gathered in eight yards and a plunge at center brought another first
down. Progress was slower but still apparently sure, and Lorimer
reached the sixteen in four plays. There, however, with the time-keeper
hovering fatefully near, Alton dug her cleats and spoiled two attempts
at her line. From the fourteen yards Lorimer brought off a tricky
forward-pass that was shot across the goal-line from behind a wall of
moving interference. That pass failed badly, though, for the receiver
was not in position, and after the ball had been juggled by two Alton
backs it grounded. Had Lorimer fulfilled the expectations of the
audience she might have ended the first half with a three-point lead,
for it was only reasonable to suppose that a try-at-goal from the
twenty-four yards would succeed. But Lorimer, perhaps reasoning that
her opponent was certain to score before the game was over, in which
case three points would not be sufficient for a victory, decided on all
or nothing. With eight yards needed for a first down she set the stage
for a drop-kick and then shot her quarter-back on a wide run behind
good interference. For a moment it looked as if she was going to get
what she was after, for when the quarter turned in he went romping
straight for the goal-line, threw off two tacklers and seemed safe for
a touch-down. But Hick Powers saved the day for the Gray-and-Gold,
plunging into the runner and lifting him back into a fighting mêlée.
The referee whistled and dug his heel into the five-yard line, and
then, after a look at the rods, waved his hand up the field. Alton
shouted relief and triumph. After Whittier had punted from behind his
line the half ended.
Jim went back to the gymnasium with the rest of the squad, feeling
for almost the first time that perhaps football did, after all, hold
compensations for all the drudgery and hard knocks entailed; that is,
if you were on the field instead of the bench! He began to wonder what
his chances were of ever taking a hand in a real contest, and what he
could do to better them.
Mr. Cade’s talk before the players took the field again was brief
and energetic. Jim, listening attentively from the outer edge of the
circle, had lost his unsympathetic attitude. There was sense in what
Johnny was telling them, and reason. After all, it _did_ seem necessary
to lick Lorimer, and, if you granted that, then there was excuse enough
for all this intensity of purpose. Jim added his own voice to the cheer
that followed the coach’s final grim, “Let’s go get ’em!”
There were changes in the line-up of each team when the ball was kicked
off again, but Alton presented more new faces than did her opponent.
There were new men in the line and two new men behind it. One of these
was Latham at quarter-back. Latham proved good medicine while he
stayed in, for Alton worked faster and with more vim than in the first
half. Yet for seven minutes of the ten neither team threatened. Then
a fumbled punt was recovered by Levering on Lorimer’s thirty-three
yards and suddenly the Gray-and-Gold visioned success and went after it
hard. Crumb, who had borne a great deal of the work in the first two
periods and had been taken out to rest, was hurried back and celebrated
his return with a fine off-tackle charge that took the ball to the
twenty-six. Latham gained a yard straight through center and Crumb made
it first down on the enemy’s twenty-two.
An end run put away a scant two, and Frost was stopped trying to get
inside right tackle. Steve Whittier went back to the thirty-three
yards as though to try a goal, but the ball went to Crumb and the
full-back got another two through right guard. With six to go on fourth
down a field-goal seemed the only hope, for Alton’s passing game was
still undeveloped, and when Steve again went back the eyes of the
Lorimer sympathizers sought the cross-bar. But Steve didn’t kick the
ball when he got it. He lifted it in his right hand and stepped back
and out to the left. Then he shot it diagonally across toward the
right-hand corner of the field, where Levering was speeding toward the
goal-line. The right end looked over his shoulder, stopped abruptly,
letting a Lorimer back go past, and pulled the pass out of the air
on the seven yards. He made the four before he was forced over the
side-line. When the ball had been brought in and a winded Lorimer man
had been administered to, Crumb tried the right of center and made a
scant yard. Pandemonium reigned in the stands. Latham tried to knife
himself through center and added part of a second yard. Crumb again
went straight at center. It seemed that Alton was determined to make
that score there or not at all. The linesman’s little iron stick moved
forward another two feet. Fourth down and still about two to go. This
time Crumb went back a little farther from his line, and when, once
more, he took the pass from center he was going hard when he reached
the swaying lines. Playing desperately but playing low, Lorimer might
have withstood this final attack by the heavy full-back had he stayed
on his feet, but he didn’t. He went up and over, and although he was
soon borne back again, he had reached the last white line first, and
that long-deferred score had been won at last!
When the last quarter started, a minute and a half after Captain Fingal
had missed the try-for-point by inches only, Coach Cade put back most
of his first-string players, and for the succeeding ten minutes of
playing time the Gray-and-Gold punted on first down as often as the
ball became hers inside her forty-yard line. She was frankly on the
defensive now and sought delay by all fair means. Twice, early in
the period, Lorimer started an advance by forward-passes that got
no farther than the thirty-five. The second one ended when Levering
intercepted a long heave and ran it back into enemy territory. On the
whole, that final quarter was all Alton’s, for the ball reached her
territory only three times and never stayed long. Lorimer’s passing
game failing her, she had little left to offer, for while her backs
could still gain through the opposing line the gains were too short to
score with.
When the quarter was almost over, Coach Cade ripped his team apart and
put it together again with many new components. It was risky, but the
results upheld him. Jim Todd, never for an instant expecting the call
to duty, failed to hear it until a neighbor ejected him from the bench
with a rude hand at the back of his neck. Jim, blinking, found Coach
Cade beckoning. “Go in at left tackle,” he commanded. “Roice is out.
Report to the referee and don’t speak to another person until the first
play is over. Let’s see what you can do, Todd. If any one gets through
you you’ll hear from me!”
Jim tried to remember all those instructions as he hurried on and
concluded that he had probably missed some of them. Probably he hadn’t,
though, for he fulfilled them all. No one threatened his position
seriously during the remaining three minutes of actual play. Or, if
any one did, Jim didn’t realize it. Once he got quite a thrill when a
scowling, dirt-smeared face crashed into his shoulder, and he seized a
writhing body and deposited it back where it had come from, and once
he got a terrific jar when, seeking to tackle a speeding Lorimer half,
he missed badly and landed, to the best of his knowledge, on the back
of his neck and did a wild and doubtless inelegant somersault. He
felt both hurt and foolish and wondered for an instant if any one had
observed his humiliation. There was, he concluded, quite a difference
between tackling the dummy and tackling an enemy runner. He made up
his mind that the next time he would do better. But, although he ran
around a good deal during the rest of the game, and got slightly winded
when some unknown person butted him in the stomach with a knee, he had
no opportunity to redeem himself as a tackler. To his surprise, he
discovered that he was considerably excited, so excited, in fact, that
after one play a horn squawked and a voice that Jim didn’t like at all
called: “Alton left tackle off-side!”
“_Me?_” demanded Jim in tones of outrage. “Who says so?”
He looked about for some one to discuss it with, but Pep Kinsey, back
at quarter, told him to shut up and watch what he was doing, and
then Lorimer’s signals came again and he had to accept the verdict.
Fortunately that five-yard set-back, occurring as it did well inside
Lorimer territory, made no real difference, and after a Lorimer back
had made a desperate effort to skirt the Alton left end and had been
piled on his head for a scant one-yard gain the game ended.
Going back to the gymnasium, with the lessening cheers of the Alton
supporters in his ears, Jim tried to convince Charley Levering that
some one had done him a great injustice. But Charley only grinned and
said rudely: “You’re cuckoo, Todd. You were off-side a yard when the
ball moved.”
“I was?” asked Jim, crestfallen, still incredulous.
“Of course you were. I saw you myself, didn’t I? You’ve got to be
mighty clever to beat the ball and get away with it nowadays, Todd. If
I were you I’d cut it out.”
“But I didn’t mean to! I didn’t know--”
“That’s what we all say,” jeered Levering. “But all it gets us is five
yards--backward!”
Jim was forced to the conclusion that the individual with the
unpleasant voice was probably right, after all. Jim recalled the fact
that at the moment he had been slightly excited. Maybe he had started
too soon. He wondered if Coach Cade would hold it against him. He must
take care not to do it again, anyhow!
There was a meeting of the Maine-and-Vermont Club that evening and
Jim didn’t see Clem to talk to until bedtime. Then, to Clem’s utter
surprise, Jim began a narrative, a most detailed and exhaustive story
of the last three minutes of the afternoon’s contest. Jim recounted
what he had done, what he had failed to do, what he had thought and how
he had felt during every one of the, approximately, six hundred seconds
that he had been on the field. Clem let him run down. Then he said:
“Well, Jim, I’ll say you did mighty well.”
Jim looked thoughtful while a slow smile encompassed his features.
“Well, I don’t know,” he answered modestly. “Do you really?”
“I certainly do,” affirmed Clem emphatically. “Of course, Lorimer was
probably pretty well tuckered out by that time, but, just the same, for
you to keep them from scoring was quite a stunt.”
“Well,” began Jim doubtfully.
“If you’d had any help it would be different, Jim, but for you, alone
and unaided, to do a thing like you tell about was great!”
“Alone?” faltered Jim, puzzled. “I didn’t say I was alone. Of course I
wasn’t alone, Clem!”
“You weren’t?” Clem registered surprise. “Oh, my mistake, old son.
You see, you didn’t mention any one else and so I naturally concluded
that--”
“Oh, gosh,” muttered Jim feebly.
“So you had help, eh?”
“For a rotten apple I’d punch your face,” replied Jim, grinning.
“Honest, I didn’t know I was bragging, Clem!”
“I don’t think you were, Jim. I was just having my little joke. Anyway,
for a chap who couldn’t see football at all a couple of weeks ago you
seem to be at least faintly interested in it!”
“I guess,” said Jim thoughtfully, “I’m going to like it!”