ALTON SQUEEZES THROUGH
It was after the Hillsport game that the slump began. The first team
seemed to fairly droop under the shock of that unexpected reverse;
for to be played to a tie by that opponent was virtually no less than
a defeat. Last year, even on Hillsport’s own field, Alton had easily
beaten the other by 14 to 0, and for years past Hillsport had gone down
in defeat, often ingloriously. On this regrettable occasion, however,
the enemy had honestly earned her touchdown by outrushing Alton all
through the first two periods and, finally, by old-fashioned smashing
tactics, pushing across for a score. Had Hillsport possessed a more
adept goal-kicker she might have departed with a victory. Ned Richards’
scurry down the field for Alton’s touchdown in the last moments of the
third period had been a splendid piece of individual brilliancy, and
it had, in a measure, saved the day for the Gray-and-Gold, but there
was no blinking the fact that all of Alton’s efforts to gain through
the Hillsport line had failed and that against a heavy, fast-working,
clever team the Gray-and-Gold had showed up rather miserably. All
this, realized by the onlookers, had not been lost on the players
themselves, and the effect of the knowledge seemed to be paralyzing.
The team promptly passed into what Captain Mart feelingly termed a
“forty below” slump. Coach Cade sweated and scolded and planned and
pleaded, and all through the following week the second pushed and
tossed the big team about the gridiron with an amazing lack of respect.
The second, awaking to the evident fact that the opponent was not,
after all, invulnerable, took revenge for past abuse and aspersion and
bullied and maltreated the first eleven brutally. In this reprehensible
course they were aided and abetted, nay, even encouraged, by one Steve
Gaston. Steve had no mercy, or, at least, showed none. The second
jestingly referred to the daily scrimmage as the “massacre.” “Come
on,” Captain Falls would blithely call. “Let’s go over and finish ’em
up, second!” Now all this was fine for the morale of the second, as
was speedily proved. Success, instead of spoiling them, improved them.
It welded them more firmly together just as, doubtless, a successful
sortie by the Robber Barons of the Rhine in the old days produced an
increased _esprit de corps_. Probably a career of crime, such as the
second was now following, is like that. Anyhow, Steve Gaston secretly
rejoiced as he incited his desperadoes to greater atrocities.
The first didn’t take their drubbings meekly, you may be sure, but they
took them. They took them three times that week. They almost cried
at some of the indignities put upon them by an awakened and merciless
scrub, and they fought back desperately and staged many “come backs”
that never developed, and the School, attracted by the novel, well-nigh
incredible spectacle of a first team being baited and beaten by a
second, flocked to the field of an afternoon as for a Roman holiday.
They didn’t always see the helpless victim devoured by the ravening
lion, for twice the victim forgot his rôle and held the lion at bay,
and once--that was Friday--even sent him cringing back to his lair,
defeated! But in any case the spectators got their money’s worth in
thrills.
It would be nice to be able to say that Russell was the bright
particular star of the second, but he wasn’t anything of the sort.
Russell didn’t aspire to be a star, and maybe he couldn’t have been,
anyway. Besides, Steve Gaston didn’t hold with stars. He discouraged
them as soon as they lifted their heads into sight. His idea of a good
football team was one in which eleven men acted as one man and in which
none stood out above his fellows. Steve’s slogan was “Fight!”
“I don’t care,” he would say, “how much football a fellow knows if he
won’t fight. He’s no use on this team. Football’s fighting, from first
to last. Keep that in mind. The fellow who fights hardest wins. Fight
fair, but _fight_. Some of you chaps act as if you thought you were in
this to let the first slap your face and get away with it. You’re not,
by gumbo! You want to forget that the first team fellows are members of
the same frat! They’re your enemies from the moment the whistle blows,
and your business is to everlastingly whale ’em. Beat the tar out of
’em! Knock the spots off ’em! That’s football. That’s the game. The
harder you use those fellows, the harder they’ll use Kenly. Paste that
in your helmet!”
Russell took Steve’s earnest commands with a grain of salt; wherein
he was wrong, for Steve meant all he said. Russell liked football
and liked to play it hard, just as he liked to do anything else he
attempted, but he retained all through that unprecedented week a
sneaking sympathy for the first. Probably others of his mates did also,
even if they dissembled the fact most successfully. Russell made his
mistake in not thoroughly dissembling, which is why there was a knock
on his door that Friday evening and Coach Gaston entered.
As was his way, Steve got to business at once. “I’ve been watching you
playing pretty closely this last week, Emerson,” he began, settling
into a chair, “and I’m curious. Thought I’d come around and have a
little talk with you. Now, suppose you tell me, first off, just what
you think the matter is.”
“Matter?” echoed Russell. “What is the matter?”
“You tell me,” answered the coach. “I’ve seen fellows who could play
and fellows who couldn’t play--a lot more of the last kind than the
first, you bet!--but it’s sort of out of the ordinary to find a fellow
who can play and doesn’t. Must be a reason, of course, so I thought I’d
ask you.”
Russell looked every bit as puzzled as he felt. “But I don’t get you,
Gaston. Are you--do you mean _me_?”
Gaston nodded. “Of course. You’re the man. If it’s a private matter,
Emerson, and you’d rather not let me in on it--”
“But I _am_ playing, Gaston! I don’t understand what you mean!”
“Yes, you’re _playing_, and I guess that’s the trouble. Maybe some
one’s clipped your claws, eh?”
Russell couldn’t have said whether Gaston’s tone had been sneering or
not, but he flushed as he answered warmly: “If you mean that I’m not
trying my hardest and doing my best--”
“Uh-huh, that’s it,” replied the coach easily. “Why don’t you?”
“But I tell you I am!”
Gaston smiled gently and shook his head. “No, you’re not, Emerson.
Maybe you think you are, but you’re not. You go through the motions
very nicely. You follow the ball as closely as any of the fellows, you
sense plays well and you handle yourself finely. But you always hold
something back, son. I’ve seen it time and again. To-day, for instance,
you let Crocker get around you twice, and you tackled Austen on one
play there as though you thought he was made of glass and might break
in the middle.”
“I stopped him,” protested Russell.
“Sure, you stopped him! But, man alive, don’t you know that he was
carrying the ball? Don’t you know that a smashing hard tackle will
sometimes make the runner drop the ball? I’ve seen a college game won
by the team that tackled the hardest. Sooner or later a runner will get
a jar that’ll send the ball out of his arms. It doesn’t happen often,
but it does happen, and it’s worth counting on, Emerson, for games have
been won before now because of a fumbled ball.”
“But I don’t want to kill any one!”
“Don’t worry about that. Players don’t get hurt by hard tackling,
beyond a bruise or two. It’s because we count on hard tackles and stiff
blows that we train for the game as we do. No fellow who learns to take
a fall the right way gets anything broken. Emerson, you can’t play
football and consider the other fellow’s feelings. Now, as I’ve said,
I’ve watched you, and I like your style, but, by gumbo, son, you’re
not doing yourself justice! And you’re not playing fair by me! You’ve
heard me tell the team over and over that when the game starts those
other chaps aren’t friends of ours, they’re the enemy. And the enemy is
something to lick! I don’t care if the man playing opposite you shares
your room here, Emerson. When you’re playing against him he’s just as
much your foe as if he wore the red K on his sweater! Funny I can’t
drill that into you chaps. I’ve tried hard enough!”
“Seems to me,” said Russell, “that’s carrying it pretty far.”
“No, it isn’t. You think a minute. What are we in business for? To give
practice to the first team, eh? Sure! All right. Now suppose we’re a
poor lot. What’s the result? First gets feeble opposition. She walks
through us, holds us for downs, fools us on plays, out-punts us. She
gets the notion that she’s pretty good and is right pleased and cocky.
Then she runs up against a real team and gets knocked into a cocked
hat. What good’s that?”
“I know all that,” acknowledged Russell, “but we aren’t that bad,
Gaston.”
“Of course not, but don’t you see the point? We’re here to do our
honest, level best, Emerson, to fight hard every minute, to show the
first that she’s just a bunch of mutts, to knock her down and rub her
face in the mud and teach her to fight, _fight_! That’s our part in
licking Kenly next month. That’s our share of the big moment. The
better we are, the better the first will be.”
Russell sighed. “Maybe that’s all true, Gaston, but it doesn’t seem to
me that we have to play like muckers to do our share.”
“Muckers! Gosh, no! But there’s nothing muckerish in playing hard. Hard
playing isn’t dirty playing, Emerson. I’ll chuck any fellow on the
second who plays dirty, and do it before the umpire can open his mouth.
But I want my men to give me everything they’ve got, Emerson. When they
give it to me they’re giving it to the School. Next month you’ll sit
and watch the big team wallop Kenly, and you’ll say to yourself: ‘Some
team that, some team! And I helped build it! I blamed near wore myself
out, and maybe I won’t get the last bandage off before Christmas, but
it was worth it! That’s my team that’s winning, and I taught it how!’
Well, I must be going. There’s a conference at Johnny’s in ten minutes.
Think over what I’ve said, Emerson. Good night.”
And Steve was gone, having wasted no time on ceremony.
Russell did think it over, during the ensuing few minutes before Stick
came in and, later, when the light was out and he was curled up in
bed. He knew that Gaston was right, and before he went to sleep he had
determined that the second team coach should never again have cause to
reproach him for holding back. Maybe Gaston took the whole thing too
seriously, but that was up to Gaston. Russell’s duty was to obey orders.
The first journeyed to New Falmouth the next day and played High
School. New Falmouth was a manufacturing town and the High School bunch
was a very husky aggregation of youths who played the game of football
earnestly and in a manner that doubtless won the warm commendation
of Steve Gaston. It is possible, though, that they sometimes allowed
their enthusiasm to lead them into devious ways, for there was much
penalizing that afternoon and some cautioning, and if further proof
was needed there was Nichols’ ensanguined nose and Mart Proctor’s
extremely discolored eye! The game was lacking in science but not in
interest, for it see-sawed back and forth as the twelve-minute periods
passed and neither the goodly army of Alton supporters or the much
larger assemblage of enthusiastic and strongly prejudiced New Falmouth
cohorts dared predict a victory for its team. At the end of the first
quarter Alton was in the lead, 6 to 0. When the half was done the teams
were tied at 6 to 6. When the third period had passed into history,
the Gray-and-Gold was once more trailing, for again New Falmouth had
scored a touchdown, without, however, adding a goal to it. At the final
tooting of the horn Alton was victorious by the narrow margin of one
point, the complete score being 13 to 12. Mawson, succeeding where Mart
Proctor had previously failed, had added the deciding point amidst the
hostile howls and shrieks of the enemy. After that five minutes more of
play had failed to alter the figures.
Alton had certainly not done herself proud, but she derived some joy
from the victory and returned home with the notion that she had got her
feet back on terra firma once more and that, come Monday, she would
show that second team that it couldn’t bite her and get away with
it! That was the team’s notion. The School wasn’t nearly so set-up,
while Coach Cade, although he kept his own counsel, was not unduly
optimistic. That slump was still hanging around, as the day’s game had
shown, and he didn’t look for an immediate departure. Such maladies as
that which held the Alton football eleven in its grip are mysterious
and difficult to conquer. They must run their course, although that
course may be shortened by skillful handling of the case. Having tried
heroic measures for a week, Coach Cade now decided to try opposite
methods. On Monday there was no work for any of those who had taken
part in the New Falmouth game, and, consequently, no scrimmage with the
second. On Tuesday the work was light, and again there was no meeting
with the scrubs. The latter were chagrined and insulting. The first
didn’t dare face them, they declared. Johnny was afraid to have them
hurt. As a result of such charges there were two mix-ups between first
and second team players, one in the locker-room that was halted this
side of bloodshed, and one which was said to have gone four full rounds
to no decision. The latter was held back of Haylow and witnessed by an
appreciative audience in nearby windows. Neither affair did anything
towards fostering that spirit of forbearance so deplored by Steve
Gaston!
Meanwhile, from Kenly came bright reports of the Cherry-and-Black team,
and Alton Academy settled down into deep pessimism on the subject
of the big game. This, it was clear, was not to be an Alton year.
Youths of literary proclivities wrote indignant letters to the school
weekly--a few of which were published--and wherever two or more were
gathered together the invariable subject of discourse was What’s the
Matter with the Team? In such unsatisfactory way the early season
passed and the Mount Millard game loomed closely ahead.