THE PHILLIPSBURG GAME
There were not as many in attendance at the game as was usual at
Parkinson, although Phillipsburg was a fair-sized city and Warne only
an overgrown town. Perhaps the fact that Phillipsburg Academy was a
very long mile from the city had something to do with the meagreness of
the audience. At all events, aside from the rival cheering sections the
stands showed long empty stretches, and Cardin, who shared an end of
the bench with Dick, resented it.
“Guess they must think this is a practice game,” he grumbled.
“Well, Mr. Driscoll seems to think so, too,” said Dick. “He says we’re
all to have a show before it’s over.”
“He’ll forget that, though,” replied the other pessimistically, “when
we need a score to tie or something. Coaches are always making cracks
like that and then forgetting ’em. Bet you I won’t get in, Bates, and
bet you you won’t.”
Dick shook his head. “I might bet about you, but I wouldn’t wager an
old straw hat on my chances. Still, he _said_ we would. There we go!”
Long, who was at right half, had pulled down the home team’s kick-off
and started across the field with the ball, but the advance was
short-lived, for a speedy Phillipsburg end soon had him, and it was
Parkinson’s ball on her twenty-two yards.
Kirkendall shot through the enemy left for three and then lost half
the distance on a similar attempt. Stone punted to the Phillipsburg
forty, a high kick that found both Peters and Furniss waiting when it
came down. The catcher was downed in his tracks. Phillipsburg started
in merrily with a twenty-yard pass diagonally across her line, but
Peters smashed it aside and the ball went back. A second forward, this
time to the opposite side, grounded, for Warden had run the receiver
far out of position. Phillipsburg stabbed the Parkinson centre once
in a half-hearted way and got a bare four feet and then punted. The
ball, rising near the thirty yards, corkscrewed beautifully down to the
opposite thirty-five where Warden got it but was stopped immediately.
On the exchange Parkinson had gained ten yards. Kirkendall smashed the
centre and got two, Warden added three and Stone again punted.
This time he managed a better ball, for it had both height and
distance and was nicely placed in the left-hand corner of the field.
With Peters and Furniss both on his heels, the Phillipsburg quarter
made no attempt to catch, and it was Furniss who finally seized the
bounding oval and downed it on the enemy’s twenty-seven. Phillipsburg
split her line and shot the quarter through on a tricky dash that
fooled the opponent nicely. When the quarter was stopped he had
reeled off twelve yards and the ball was close to the boundary. The
Phillipsburg rooters cheered lustily. An attempt to advance on the
short side was foiled and the ball was paced in. On second down
Phillipsburg was caught off-side and set back. A run half across the
field netted but four yards and Phillipsburg punted from near her
thirty-five, the ball going out at the visitor’s forty.
Kirkendall got clean away on the first run from kick formation and,
with excellent interference, put eighteen yards behind him. Long was
stopped and Warden made three. Kirkendall, again called on, tried left
tackle and managed to make three more. Stone again punted.
On the side-line Coach Driscoll was frowning intently. Dick, noting,
thought he understood. He had heard the final instructions in the
gymnasium and recalled the coach’s words distinctly: “Keep out of
their line, Stone, until you’re certain you can’t get your distance any
other way.” Now Stone seemed to have forgotten those instructions, for
not once had a forward-pass been tried, while at least a half-dozen
plays had been aimed inside the Phillipsburg tackles. Dick didn’t see
what Bob Peters had gained by giving the kick-off to the enemy and
then promptly punting the ball back into her hands, nor what Stone’s
idea was in kicking regularly on third down, irrespective of the
distance lacking. However, it was possible that Stone had something up
his sleeve, and when Phillipsburg had failed at a well-tried “bunch”
forward and been stopped at the opponent’s left end and had punted
to mid-field, Dick looked for another forward-pass. But it didn’t
materialise. Instead, Stone tried a delayed pass and got away with the
ball very neatly along the left side. But an obstreperous Phillipsburg
lineman wormed through and nailed him short of any gain. Kirkendall
again retired to kicking position and, with the ball snuggled, shot
off at a tangent for the enemy’s right. But the play worked less well
this time. The interference was split and a Phillipsburg half nailed
Kirkendall three yards past the line. Then the delayed forward-pass
came and Warden tossed across to Peters. Peters tipped the throw but
lost it. Again Stone punted, this time making a miserable failure of it
and landing the ball but twenty yards away. It descended in the midst
of a pushing crowd of opponents, leaped toward the side-line and was
finally landed a few feet away.
For another three or four minutes the play hovered about midfield,
neither side showing any indication of a consistent attack, and then
the whistle blew. Coach Corliss summoned Cardin to him. Dick watched
them in conversation a bit enviously. Then Cardin sped on, followed by
Bartlett, a right guard, and Gross, a left tackle.
When play began again Stone was somewhat dourly looking on from the
bench and Cardin was in command. Phillipsburg had made no changes.
Phillipsburg shot a breath-taking forward from her thirty-seven yards
to Parkinson’s thirty-five, but, although it deserved to succeed,
Bob Peters had his man guarded too closely and the pass grounded. A
second attempt on a third down went better and Phillipsburg got seven
yards, three more than needed. Then, on her forty-five, she started
an advance that only slowed when she was under the Brown-and-White’s
goal. Two forward-passes, each short but certain, took her well past
midfield. After that two tricky split-plays let her clever quarter
through for scandalous gains, and, almost before Parkinson realised
what was happening, the ball was on the Brown-and-White’s twenty-one.
There was much shouting from the stands, much anxiety on the benches
as Phillipsburg stabbed the line once for practically no gain and then
dropped a tackle back to kicking position.
“Any fool could make a goal from there,” growled “Tip” Harris, who,
deposed from left tackle position, had seated himself beside Dick.
“It’s dead in front of goal and not thirty yards!”
“But do they mean to try?” asked Dick. “Seems to me one of those short
forwards of theirs----”
“Yes, but I guess they want the three points, Bates. There’s a lot
in getting first blood. Say, he doesn’t act as if he meant to kick,
though! By jiminy----” Tip raised his voice imploringly: “Watch a run,
Parkinson! Watch that man, Bob!”
Mr. Driscoll, nearby, turned disapprovingly. “Cut that, Harris,” he
ordered. Tip subsided, muttering. From the teams came many warnings:
“Hold that line, Phillipsburg! Hold that line!” “Break it up! Block
this kick, Parkinson!” “Watch that half!” “Signals! Signals!” “Come
on! Here we go!”
Back shot the ball to the tall tackle’s waiting hands. The lines
plunged and heaved. The tackle swung a long leg under him. But the ball
hadn’t left his hands, and now, pushing it into the crook of his left
elbow, he sprang off to the left, the other backs closing in about
him. As quickly as he had started, he stopped, swung directly about
and, with two Parkinson men trying to reach him past his interference,
raised the pigskin on high and threw far and swiftly. Thirty yards
away a Phillipsburg end was streaking toward the corner of the field.
Now he was past the line, well into the end zone, and not an opponent
was near him. Straight for his upstretched hands flew the ball, like a
brown streak, and not until too late did Parkinson see her danger. Then
half a dozen of her defenders sprang toward the lone enemy. But the
deed was done. Into his hands settled the ball, he turned on his heel
and plunged toward the goal and when he had been rescued from under
three brown-and-white legged opponents the pigskin was half-way between
side-line and nearer goal-post.
Phillipsburg waved and cheered, and stood on the seats and howled,
while from across the gridiron came a fainter but defiant “Parkinson!
_Parkinson!_ PARKINSON!” Mr. Driscoll turned his countenance to the
bench and shook his head, smiling ruefully. “Half our team asleep,
fellows,” he said. “Scoville, go in for Furniss! Warm up, Gaines!”
Phillipsburg missed a fairly easy goal after the touchdown and play
began again in midfield. There was no more scoring in the quarter
although Gaines, restored to his place at half, twice almost got clear.
Under Cardin’s direction, Parkinson thrice tried forward-passes and but
once succeeded. Then Gaines, catching, reeled off a dozen yards before
he was forced out of bounds. The half ended with the score still 6-0.
There was some hard, plain talk in the gymnasium for the Parkinson
audience. Mr. Driscoll was far from pleased and he didn’t hesitate to
make the fact known. “You fellows have been taught football for two
years, some of you longer, and yet you went out there and just stood
around all during the first period. That sort of thing won’t win games!
Do something! Try something! If you can’t do anything else, worry your
opponent. All you did was to hand him the ball back. Stone, a lot of
that was up to you. You had your instructions to try out your overhead
game, and your running game, and what did you do? You went at the
line every time you got the ball! Now I’m going to start in with the
beginning of this last half and use the bench. If you don’t want to
get licked, use your heads and play football! You can score if you try
hard enough. You ought to score at least twice. And if you let those
fellows get close enough to your goal to pull another of those forwards
over the line you deserve to lose! You were all asleep, every man Jack
of you! Long, where were you when that happened? And you, Gross? And
you, Stone? Someone’s got to watch the end of the line, fellows! You
can’t all go off visiting like that! You’ve each got a duty to perform
on every play and you each know it, but just because the other fellow
pulls something you haven’t met up with since last year you forget
everything and go straggling after him to see what he’ll do! You stay
in position after this, no matter what the other fellow does. Another
thing--and I’m aiming this at you, Wendell, more than anyone--watch
your hands. The rules require that no part of your body shall be ahead
of the line of scrimmage. If the umpire was strict he’d have called you
off-side twenty times. Keep your arms down and your hands back until
the ball’s in play. After that I don’t care how fast you bring them
up. Now, then, we’re going to play fast ball this half. Pryne, you’re
quarter. Keep the team on the jump every minute. Start your signal the
minute the whistle blows and make your men hustle to positions so that
the play can snap off quickly. You’ve been loafing for two periods.
Now I want to see some _work_! I want a score inside the next twelve
minutes. Here’s the line-up.”
That the coach meant to “use the bench” was very evident. Of the
original starters only three remained, Kirkendall, Upton and Peters.
Save for the former, the backfield was all new: Pryne at quarter,
Skinner and Curtis at half: and in the line were five second- and
third-string players. That Parkinson could win with that aggregation
was far too much to expect, and there were plenty who said so on
the way back to the field when half-time was over. Stone was still
disgruntled and very pessimistic, and he and Cardin grumbled together
all during the third period. Usually they had little to say to each
other, but today their wrongs drew them together.
That third period, in spite of the “crape hangers,” showed the visiting
team to far better advantage. Although, as it turned out, Parkinson
neither scored or came dangerously near scoring, she played a hard,
earnest game and stopped every attempt of the opponent to get to her
last line. In the first three minutes of the quarter Phillipsburg
attempted a hopeless place-kick from the thirty-eight yards, but it
landed far short, and after that her desperate forward-passes were
always spoiled. It is only fair to say that luck favoured the visitors
more than once, however. With an even break of fortune there might have
been a different story to relate.
Pryne ran the team according to directions as best he could. He lacked
experience, though, and if the play went faster than before it was
due more to the eagerness of the substitutes than to Pryne’s efforts.
Those substitutes did themselves proud, even if they weren’t strong
enough to score, and, although many fellows on the bench wished that
Coach Driscoll had cared more about winning and less about developing
substitute material, it was generally agreed that much credit was due
the “rookies.” Before the quarter was ended Captain Peters was added to
the retired list and Findley took his place.
The third period ended with Phillipsburg making several changes,
something she had refrained from doing before, and the ball in
Parkinson’s possession on her twenty-nine yards where Skinner had
been downed after a punt. More changes were made. Trask went in for
Kirkendall and Dean for Upton, at centre, and four other substitutes
trotted nervously on. One of them was Dick.