"BRIGGS, Bayard Newlyn, Hammondsport, Ill., I L, H 24."
That's the way the catalogue put it. Mostly, though, he was called "Bi"
Briggs. He was six feet and one inch tall and weighed one hundred and
ninety-four pounds, and was built by an all-wise Providence to play guard.
Graduate coaches used to get together on the side line and figure out what
we'd do to Yale if we had eleven men like Bi.
Then after they'd watched Bi play a while they'd want to kick him.
He got started all wrong, Bi did. He came to college from a Western
university and entered the junior class. That was his first mistake. A
fellow can't butt in at the beginning of the third year and expect to trot
even with fellows who have been there two years. It takes a chap one year
to get shaken down and another year to get set up. By the time Bi was
writing his "life" he had just about learned the rules.
His second mistake was in joining the first society that saw his name in
the catalogue. It was a poor frat, and it queered Bi right away. I guess he
made other mistakes, too, but those were enough.
In his junior year Bi was let alone. He was taking about every course any
of us had ever heard of--and several we hadn't--and had no time for
football. We got licked for keeps that fall, and after the _Crimson_ and
the _Bulletin_ and the _Graduates' Magazine_ and the newspapers had shown
us just what ailed our system of coaching, we started to reorganize things.
We hadn't reorganized for two years, and it was about time. The new coach
was a chap who hadn't made the Varsity when he was in college, but who was
supposed to have football down to a fine point; to hear the fellows tell
about the new coach made you feel real sorry for Walter Camp. Well, he
started in by kidnaping every man in college who weighed over a hundred and
sixty-five. Bi didn't escape. Bi had played one year in the freshwater
college at left tackle and knew a touchdown from a nose-guard, and that was
about all. Bi was for refusing to have anything to do with football at
first; said he was head-over-ears in study and hadn't the time. But they
told him all about his Duty to his College and Every Man into the Breach,
and he relented. Bi was terribly good-natured. That was the main trouble
with him.
The fellows who did football for the papers fell in love with him on the
spot. He was a good-looker, with sort of curly brown hair, nice eyes, a
romantic nose, and cheeks like a pair of twenty-four-dollar American
Beauties, and his pictures looked fine and dandy in the papers. "Bayard
Briggs, Harvard's new candidate for guard, of whom the coaches expect great
things." That's the way they put it. And they weren't far wrong. The
coaches did expect great things from Bi; so did the rest of us. When they
took Bi from the second and put him in at right guard on the Varsity we all
approved.
But there was trouble right away. Bi didn't seem to fit. They swapped him
over to left guard, then they tried him at right tackle, then at right
guard again. Then they placed him gently but firmly back on the second. And
Bi was quite happy and contented and disinterested during it all. _He_
didn't mind when six coaches gathered about him and demanded to know what
was the matter with him. He just shook his head and assured them
good-naturedly that he didn't know; and intimated by his manner that he
didn't care. When he came back to the second he seemed rather glad; I think
he felt as though he had got back home after a hard trip. He stayed right
with us all the rest of the season.
I think the trouble was that Bi never got it fully into his fool head that
it wasn't just fun--like puss-in-the-corner or blind-man's-buff. If you
talked to him about Retrieving Last Year's Overwhelming Defeat he'd smile
pleasantly and come back with some silly remark about Political Economy or
Government or other poppycock. I fancy Bi's father had told him that he was
coming to college to study, and Bi believed him.
Of course, he didn't go to New Haven with us, He didn't have time. I wished
afterwards that I hadn't had time myself. Yale trimmed us 23 to 6.
The papers threshed it all out again, and all the old grads who weren't too
weak to hold pens wrote to the _Bulletin_ and explained where the trouble
lay. It looked for a while like another reorganization, but Cooper, the new
captain, was different. He didn't get hysterical. Along about Christmas
time, after everyone had got tired of guessing, he announced his new coach.
His name was Hecker, and he had graduated so far back that the _Crimson_
had to look up its old files to find out who he was. He had played right
half two years, it seemed, but hadn't made any special hit, and Yale had
won each year. The _Herald_ said he was a successful lawyer in Tonawanda,
New York. He didn't show up for spring practice; couldn't leave his work,
Cooper explained. Bi didn't come out either. He couldn't leave _his_ work.
At the end of the year he graduated _summa cum laude_, or something like
that, and the _Crimson_ said he was coming back to the Law School and would
be eligible for the team. Just as though it mattered.
We showed up a week before college began and had practice twice a day. At
the end of that week we knew a whole lot about Hecker. He was about
thirty-six, kind of thin, wore glasses, and was a terror for work. When we
crawled back to showers after practice we'd call him every name we could
think of. And half an hour later, if we met him crossing the Square, we'd
be haughty and stuck-up for a week if he remembered our names. He was a
little bit of all right, was Hecker. He was one of the quiet kind. He'd
always say "please," and if you didn't please mighty quick you'd be sitting
on the bench all nicely snuggled up in a blanket before you knew what had
struck you. That's the sort of Indian Hecker was, and we loved him.
Ten days after college opened we had one hundred and twenty men on the
field. If Hecker heard of a likely chap and thought well of his looks, it
was all up with Mr. Chap. He was out on the gridiron biting holes in the
sod before he knew it. That's what happened to Bi. One day Bi wasn't there
and the next day he was.
We had two or three weeding-outs, and it got along toward the middle of
October, and Bi was still with us. We were shy on plunging halfs that fall
and so I got my chance at last. I had to fight hard, though, for I was up
against Murray, last year's first sub. Then a provisional Varsity was
formed and the Second Team began doing business with Bi at right guard
again. The left guard on the Varsity was Bannen--"Slugger" Bannen. He
didn't weigh within seven pounds of Bi, but he had springs inside of him
and could get the jump on a flea. He was called "Slugger" because he looked
like a prizefighter, but he was a gentle, harmless chap, and one of the
Earnest Workers in the Christian Association. He could stick his fist
through an oak panel same as you or I would put our fingers through a sheet
of paper. And he did pretty much as he pleased with Bi. I'll bet, though,
that Bi could have walked all over "Slugger" if he'd really tried. But he
was like an automobile and didn't know his own strength.
We disposed of the usual ruck of small teams, and by the first of November
it was mighty plain that we had the best Eleven in years. But we didn't
talk that way, and the general impression was that we had another one of
the Beaten But Not Humiliated sort.
A week before we went to Philadelphia I had a streak of good luck and
squeezed Murray out for keeps. Penn had a dandy team that year and we had
to work like anything to bring the ball home. It was nip and tuck to the
end of the first half, neither side scoring. Then we went back and began
kicking, and Cooper had the better of the other chap ten yards on a punt.
Finally we got down to their twenty yards, and Saunders and I pulled in
eight more of it. Then we took our tackles back and hammered out the only
score. But that didn't send our stock up much, because folks didn't know
how good Penn was. But the Eli's coaches who saw the game weren't fooled a
little bit; only, as we hadn't played anything but the common or garden
variety of football, they didn't get much to help them. We went back to
Cambridge and began to learn the higher branches.
We were coming fast now, so fast that Hecker got scary and laid half the
team off for a day at a time. And that's how Bi got his chance again, and
threw it away just as he had last year. He played hard, but--oh, I don't
know. Some fellow wrote once that unless you had football instinct you'd
never make a real top-notcher. I think maybe that's so. Maybe Bi didn't
have football instinct. Though I'll bet if some one had hammered it into
his head that it was business and not a parlor entertainment, he'd have
buckled down and done something. It wasn't that he was afraid of
punishment; he'd take any amount and come back smiling. I came out of the
Locker Building late that evening and Hecker and Cooper were just ahead of
me.
"What's the matter with this man"--Hecker glanced at his notebook--"this
man Briggs?" he asked.
"Briggs?" answered Cooper. "He's a dub; that's all--just a dub."
That described him pretty well, I thought. By dub we didn't mean just a man
who couldn't play the game; we meant a man who knew how to play and
wouldn't; a chap who couldn't be made to understand. Bi was a dub of the
first water.
We didn't have much trouble with Dartmouth that year. It was before she got
sassy and rude. Then there were two weeks of hard practice before the Yale
game. We had a new set of signals to learn and about half a dozen new
plays. The weather got nice and cold and Hecker made the most of it. We
didn't have time to feel chilly. One week went by, and then--it was a
Sunday morning, I remember--it came out that Corson, the Varsity right
guard, had been protested by Yale. It seemed that Corson had won a prize of
two dollars and fifty cents about five years before for throwing the hammer
at a picnic back in Pennsylvania. Well, there was a big shindy and the
athletic committee got busy and considered his case. But Hecker didn't wait
for the committee to get through considering. He just turned Corson out and
put in Blake, the first sub. On Tuesday the committee declared Corson
ineligible and Blake sprained his knee in practice! With Corson and Blake
both out of it, Hecker was up against it. He tried shifting "Slugger"
Bannen over to right and putting the full back at left. Jordan, the Yale
left guard, was the best in the world, and we needed a man that could stand
up against him. But "Slugger" was simply at sea on the right side of center
and so had to be put back again. After that the only thing in sight that
looked the least bit like a right guard was Bayard Newlyn Briggs.
They took Bi and put him on the Varsity, and forty-'leven coaches stood
over his defenseless form and hammered football into him for eight solid
hours on Wednesday and Thursday. And Bi took it all like a little woolly
lamb, without a bleat. But it just made you sick to think what was going to
happen to Bi when Jordan got to work on him!
We had our last practice Thursday, and that night we went to the Union and
heard speeches and listened to the new songs. Pretty poor they were too;
but that's got nothing to do with the story. Friday we mooned around until
afternoon and then had a few minutes of signal practice indoors. Bi looked
a little bit worried, I thought. Maybe it was just beginning to dawn on Me
that it wasn't all a lark.
What happened next morning I learned afterwards from Bi. Hecker sent for
him to come to his room, put him in a nice easy-chair, and then sat down in
front of him. And he talked.
"I've sent for you, Mr. Briggs," began Hecker in his quiet way, "because it
has occurred to me that you don't altogether understand what we are going
to do this afternoon."
Bi looked surprised.
"Play Yale, sir?"
"Incidentally; yes. But we are going to do more than play her; we are going
to beat her to a standstill; we are going to give her a drubbing that she
will look back upon for several years with painful emotion. It isn't often
that we have an opportunity to beat Yale, and I propose to make the best of
this one. So kindly disabuse your mind of the idea that we are merely going
out to play a nice, exhilarating game of football. We are going to simply
wipe up the earth with Yale!"
"Indeed?" murmured Bi politely.
"Quite so," answered the coach dryly, "I suppose you know that your
presence on the team is a sheer accident? If you don't, allow me to tell
you candidly that if there had been anyone else in the college to put in
Corson's place, we would never have called on you, Mr. Briggs."
He let that soak in a minute. Then:
"Have you ever heard of this man Jordan who will play opposite you to-day?"
he asked.
"Yes, sir; a very good player, I understand."
"A good player! My dear fellow, he's the best guard on a college team in
twenty years. And you are going to play opposite him. Understand that?"
"Er--certainly," answered Bi, getting a bit uneasy.
"What are you going to do about it?"
"Do? Why, I shall do the best I can, Mr. Hecker. I don't suppose I am any
match for Jordan, but I shall try----"
"Stop that! Don't you dare talk to me of doing the best you can!" said the
coach, shaking a finger under Bi's nose--"for all the world," as Bi told me
afterwards, "as though he was trying to make me mad!" "'Best you can' be
hanged! You've got to do better than you can, a hundred per cent better
than you can, ever did, or ever will again! That's what you've got to do!
You've got to fight from the first whistle to the last without a let-up!
You've got to remember every instant that if you don't, we are going to be
beaten! You've got to make Jordan look like a base imitation before the
first half is over! That's what you've got to do, my boy!"
"But it isn't fair!" protested Bi. "You know yourself that Jordan can
outplay me, sir!"
"I know it? I know nothing of the sort. Look at yourself! Look at your
weight and your build! Look at those arms and legs of yours! Look at those
muscles! And you dare to sit there, like a squeaking kid, and tell me that
Jordan can outplay you! What have you got your strength for? What have we
pounded football into you for?"
Over went his chair and he was shaking his finger within an inch of Bi's
face, his eyes blazing behind his glasses.
"Shall I tell you what's the matter with you, Briggs? Shall I tell you why
we wouldn't have chosen you if there had been anyone else? Because you're a
coward--a rank, measly coward, sir!"
Bi's face went white and he got up slowly out of his chair.
"That will do, sir," he said softly, like a tiger-puss purring. "You've
done what no one else has ever done, Mr. Hecker. You've called me a coward.
You're in authority and I have no redress--now. But after to-day--" He
stopped and laughed unpleasantly. "I'll see you again, sir."
"Heroics!" sneered the coach. "They don't impress me, sir. I've said you're
a coward, and I stand by it. I repeat it. You are a coward, Briggs, an
arrant coward."
Bi gripped his hands and tried to keep the tears back.
"Coward, am I? What are you, I'd like to know? What are you when you take
advantage of your position to throw insults at me? If you weren't the head
coach, I'd--I'd----"
"What would you do?" sneered Hecker.
"I'd kill you!" blazed Bi. "And I'll do it yet, you--you----"
"Tut, tut! That's enough, Briggs. You can't impose on me that way. I
haven't watched you play football all the fall to be taken in now by your
melodrama. But after to-day you will find me quite at your service,
Mr.--Coward. And meanwhile we'll call this interview off, if you please.
The door, Mr. Briggs!"
Bi seized his hat from the table and faced Hecker. He was smiling now,
smiling with a white, set, ugly face.
"Perhaps I am wrong," he said softly with a little laugh. "I think I am.
Either that or you are lying. For if you are really willing to meet me
after to-day's game you are no coward, sir."
Then he went out.
We lined up at two o'clock.
There was a huge crowd and a band. I didn't mind the crowd, but that band
got me worried so, that I couldn't do a thing the first ten minutes. It's
funny how a little thing like that will queer your game. One fellow I knew
once was off his game the whole first half because some idiot was flying a
kite over the field advertising some one's pills.
We had the ball and began hammering at the Yale line and kept it up until
we had reached her fifteen yards. Then she got together and stopped us;
held us for downs in spite of all we could do. Then she kicked and we
started it all over again. It wasn't exciting football to watch, maybe, but
it was the real thing with us. We had to work--Lord, how we had to work!
And how we did work, too! We made good the next time, but it took us
fifteen minutes to get back down the field. Cooper himself went over for
that first touchdown. Maybe the crowd didn't shout! Talk about noise! I'd
never heard any before! It was so unexpected, you see, for almost everyone
had thought Yale was going to do her usual stunt and rip us to pieces. But
in that first half she was on the defensive every moment. Seven times she
had the ball in that first thirty-five minutes, but she could no more keep
it than she could fly. Altogether she gained eighteen yards in that half.
It was one-sided, if you like, but it was no picnic. It was hammer and
tongs from first to last--man's work and lots of it.
We didn't rely on tricks, but went at her center and guards and just wore
them down. And when that first half was over--11-0 was the score--the glory
of one Jordan was as a last season's straw hat. A new star blazed in the
football firmament; and it was in the constellation of Harvard and its name
was Bi Briggs. What I'm telling you is history, and you needn't take my
word alone for it. I never really saw a man play guard before that day--and
I'd watched lots of fellows try. Bi was a cyclone. To see him charge into
Jordan--and get the jump on him every time--was alone worth the price of
admission. And as for blocking, he was a stone wall, and that's all there
is to it. Never once did the Elis get through him. He held the line on his
side as stiff as a poker until quarter had got the ball away, and then he
mixed things up with the redoubtable Jordan, and you could almost see the
fur fly! Play? O my! He was simply great! And the rest of us, watching when
we had a chance, just felt our eyes popping out. And all the time he
smiled; smiled when he went charging through the blue line, smiled when he
took Toppan on his shoulder and hurled him over the mix-up for six yards,
smiled when we pulled him out of a pile-up looking like a badly butchered
beef, and still smiled when we trotted of the field in a chaos of sound.
But that smile wasn't pretty. I guess he was thinking most of the time of
Hecker; and maybe sometimes he got Hecker and Jordan mixed up.
When we came back for the second half we weren't yet out of the woods, and
we knew it. We knew that Yale would forget that she was bruised and
battered and tired and would play harder than ever. And she did. And for
just about ten minutes I wouldn't have bet a copper on the game. Yale had
us on the run and plugged away until we were digging our toes into our
twelve-yard line. Then we held her. After that, although she still played
the game as though she didn't know she was beaten, she was never dangerous.
We scored twice more in that half. When there was still ten minutes of play
the whistle blew, and Jordan, white, groggy, and weepy about the eyes, was
dragged off the field. Bi had sure used him rough, but I'm not pretending
Jordan hadn't come back at him. Bi's face was something fierce. The blood
had dried in flakes under his nose, one eye was out of commission, and his
lip was bleeding where his tooth had gone through it. But he still smiled.
When we trotted off for the last time the score board said: "Harvard, 22;
Opponents, 0." And those blurry white figures up there paid for all the
hard work of the year.
It was past seven when we assembled for dinner. About all the old players
for twenty years back were there and it sounded like a sewing circle. Bi
was one of the last to come in. He pushed his way through the crowd about
the door, shaking off the fellows' hands, and strode across to where Hecker
was standing. Hecker saw him coming, but he only watched calmly. Bi stopped
in front of him, that same sort of ugly smile on his face.
"We've broken training, sir?" he asked quietly.
"Yes," answered the coach.
Then Bi's hand swung around and that slap was heard all over the room.
There was a moment of dead silence; then half a dozen of us grabbed Bi. We
thought he'd gone crazy, but he didn't try to shake us off. He just stood
there and looked at Hecker. The coach never raised a hand and never changed
his expression--only one cheek was as red as the big flag at the end of the
room. He held up his hand and we quieted down.
"Gentlemen," he said, "Mr. Briggs was quite within his rights. Please do
not interfere with him."
We let Bi go.
"The incident demands explanation," continued the coach. "As you all know,
we were left in a hole by the loss of Corson and Blake, and the only man
who seemed at all possible was Mr. Briggs. But Mr. Briggs, playing as he
had been playing all year, would have been no match for Jordan of Yale. We
tried every means we could think of to wake Mr. Briggs up. He had, I felt
certain, the ability to play football--winning football--but we couldn't
get it out of him. As a last resort I tried questionable means. I asked Mr.
Briggs to call on me this morning. I told him we must win to-day, and that
in order to do so he would have to play better than he'd been doing. He
told me that he would do his best, but that he knew himself no match for
Jordan. That spirit wouldn't have done, gentlemen, and I tried to change
it. I told Mr. Briggs that he was a coward, something I knew to be false. I
insulted him over and again until only my authority as head coach kept him
from trying to kill me. He told me he would do so when we had broken
training and I promised to give him satisfaction. What I did is, I am well
aware, open to criticism. But our necessity was great and I stand ready to
accept any consequences. At least the result of today's contest in a
measure vindicates my method. You who saw Mr. Briggs play will, I am sure,
find excuses for me. As for the gentleman himself, it remains with him to
say whether he will accept my apology for what passed this morning, taking
into consideration the strait in which we were placed and the results as
shown, or whether he will demand other satisfaction."
Half a hundred surprised, curious faces turned toward Bi, who, during
Hecker's statement, had looked at first contemptuous, then bewildered, and
finally comprehending. For about ten seconds the room was as still as a
graveyard. Then Bi stepped up with outstretched hand like a little man, and
for the second time that day we went crazy!
Bi was hailed as the greatest guard of the year, and they put him on the
All-American team, but I don't think Bi cared a button. Anyhow, when they
tried to get him to come out for the eleven the next fall he absolutely
refused, and nothing anyone could say would budge him. He said he was too
busy.