Oh, You Bonehead!

“What did the Coach say to him?” asked Harris.

“You’ll fall over when I tell you,” Dana replied.

“The fellas hadn’t started takin’ off their suits. They were waitin’ to hear Dickie get his. Some of ’em were cryin’ and I was blubberin’ a bit myself. Dickie sat in front of his locker, white as a sheet. The Coach came in and stood there a minute, lookin’ us over. Everybody in the room expected him to cut loose on Dickie. Dickie himself expected it. And why shouldn’t he?

“Well, the Coach, as I say, just stood there a minute, lookin’ us over. Then he went right up to where Dickie was sittin’, and I thought he was goin’ to punch him. Dickie thought so, too, ’cause I could see him sort o’ cringe; but the Coach smiled at him⁠—yes, sir, smiled. And then he said:

“ ‘Dickie, I want to shake hands with you. You didn’t quite put it over, but you gave ’em a good scare.’

“Well, Dickie broke down then and cried worse than any of us; but the Coach kept right on smilin’.

“ ‘Don’t let it bother you anymore,’ he said. ‘We’ll get ’em next year when we’re not all crippled up.’ Then he turned to the rest of the bunch. ‘Why don’t you get those dirty suits off?’ he said. ‘There’s no use sittin’ there like mourners at a funeral. The beans are spilled, but we gave ’em a mighty good fight. Everybody expected ’em to run all over us, and holdin’ ’em to three points is a credit to you, boys. We can’t help it if they’ve got a good kicker. Without him it would have been 0 to 0.’

“ ‘And if it hadn’t been for me,’ said poor Dickie, ‘we’d have licked ’em 7 to 3.’

“ ‘If it hadn’t been for you,’ said the Coach, ‘they’d have licked us 20 to 0. Hurry up now, boys; get those suits off and quit thinkin’ about it. You can do what you please tonight and tomorrow, and I’ll see you Monday.’ ”

“What do you know about that!” Harris exclaimed.

“It’s got me beat,” replied Dana. “Course, after he got through I didn’t feel like sayin’ what I thought. He went away and left us, and I haven’t seen him since. I stuck in there a while with the boys, but finally it got too painful. You could cut the silence with a knife. So I followed the Coach’s example and left.”

“Do you s’pose Dickie really knew he’d pulled a boner?”

“How could he help knowin’ it? The whole bunch lit into him before we ever left the field. And I could hear some of the crowd hollerin’ ‘Bonehead!’ at him while we were comin’ off. He knew it, all right.”

“If it was me,” said Harris, “I’d buy a cannon and blow out my brains.”

“How could you blow out your brains,” demanded Dana, “if you didn’t have any? If he’d had even half a brain he’d have known better than to pull what he pulled. There was absolutely no excuse on earth, and⁠—”

The gym door opened and the Coach came in.

“Hello, Bert!” he said, and shook Harris’ hand. “How’s my trusty scout? And how did they look to you?”

“Mighty good, Coach!” was the reply. “They’ll give us all we can handle. It’s the best team I’ve looked at in two years.”

“Did you get anything on ’em?” asked the Coach.

“Sure! Enough to write a book. Some of their signals too.”

And Harris drew a notebook from his pocket and handed it to his chief.

“I’ll look it over after a while,” said the Coach. “I want to tell you two boys that we’ve got to go some this week to keep those fellas keyed up. I’m afraid that game Saturday has taken the heart out of ’em. If we’d won that one, Doane would be easy for us. And we could have won it just like that!”

“It was a rotten shame!” said Harris.

“It was a shame,” agreed the Coach. “I s’pose Dana’s told you all about it?”

“He told me enough,” Harris replied. “He told me you let Dickie off mighty easy.”

“I should think you did!” Dana put in. “If I’d been him I’d have been disappointed if you hadn’t knocked my block off.”

The Coach smiled.

“Just between us,” he said, “I felt like killin’ him. I b’lieve I would if I could have got hold of him right after he pulled it. Maybe you noticed that I was a little late gettin’ in here afterward. I didn’t come in till I was cooled off. I wanted to be sure to keep myself in hand when I saw him.”

“You certainly kept yourself in hand,” said Dana. “If you’re askin’ me, you were a whole lot too good to him. You’d have given your right eye to win that game, and he went and lost it for you. If he’d dropped a punt or missed a tackle I wouldn’t think anything about it. Anybody’s li’ble to do those things. But⁠—”

“But he lost his head,” the Coach interrupted. “All he had to do was use common sense and we’d have trimmed ’em. He went out of his way to pull a boner and you fellas think he should have been called for it. You wonder why I didn’t cut loose on him. Well, I’m goin’ to tell you a little story and then maybe you’ll understand why Dickie got the glad hand instead of a lot of abuse.”

The Coach pocketed Harris’ notebook and sat down. His two assistants, who had risen at his entrance, resumed their seats on the rubbing table and were ready to listen.

If you fellas followed the dope you’ll remember Joe Draper. He was quarterback two years ago, my last year at Leighton. You must have read about his track work anyway. He ran the 100 and the 220 and the high hurdles, and was first in both dashes in the intercollegiate of 1911 and 1912. He tied the 220 record twice and could do the 100 in even time whenever he wanted to. Leighton finished second in the meet both those years, and if it hadn’t been for him they’d have dropped out of the bottom. He was their whole track team.

He was an Alpha Delt and the Alpha Delt’s were the real cheese at Leighton. He was as smart as a whip and there never was a bit of danger of the faculty keepin’ him out of athletics; in fact he was just about the best student in college and everybody was predictin’ a whale of a career for him. He was a boy a great deal like Dickie. He was popular with everybody, but he never ran round nights or cut up any, and it wasn’t a particle of trouble to keep him in shape.

His only dissipation was the prettiest girl on the campus. Nobody could blame him for pursuin’ her. He seemed to have all his speed on that track, too, ’cause they were engaged before he was through his junior year.

She was from St. Louis and the best-lookin’ girl I ever saw, bar one. Her family were well fixed and the boys had a license to envy Joe. At that, he wasn’t gettin’ any the better of the bargain, ’cause he was a handsome kid and good-natured as they make ’em, besides bein’ so smart that it was a cinch he’d get somewhere.

Joe and the girl were together all the time he wasn’t in the classroom or gym. In the vacation before his senior year he went down to St. Louis to meet her folks and made a big hit. They didn’t think anybody was quite good enough for her, but Joe came as close as any boy they could hope to find. She was a year behind Joe in school, but she was figurin’ on passin’ up her senior year so they could be married as soon as Joe got through.

Joe came from Cedarville, a little burg in Iowa. He’d played football in the high school and he tried out for our Freshmen team in his first year at Leighton. He made the team at quarterback and I was tickled to death to see him there, ’cause I figured I could use him to good advantage the followin’ fall. It didn’t take a stop watch to tell you how fast he was. In the practice against my bunch and the scrubs he got away often and there was no catchin’ him in a clear field. Course I had McGill for quarter at that time and he was only a second-year man; so I was plannin’ to make a halfback out of Joe. But one night the kid broke his arm scrimmagin’ with the scrubs, and the Freshmen had to go along without him the rest of the season.

That winter Joe showed Murphy, our track coach, what he could do in the sprints and hurdles, and the Freshmen bunch cleaned up in every meet they had. He went outdoors in the spring and did even better than Murphy expected. He could run the 100 backward in .10 flat, and he went over the sticks so fast you thought he was flyin’.

Well, I went up to Leighton in June to see how many of the good-lookin’ Freshmen I could count on for that fall. Almost the first fella I ran into was Murphy. I started kiddin’ him about his varsity track team, which had finished sixth in the intercollegiate.

“Wait till next year,” said Murph. “If I don’t land second or better my name’s Goldstein.”

“What’s up your sleeve?” I asked him.

“The most consistent sprinter I ever saw,” said Murph. “I can tell you to a fifth of a second what his time’s goin’ to be before he ever starts runnin’. He can go the 100 in .10 five times a day durin’ the week and as many times as he has to on Saturday. What’s more, the boy’s good enough to beat the world in the 220 and the high sticks.”

“You kept him pretty well under cover in the big meet,” I said.

“He’s a Freshman,” answered Murph.

“What’s his name?” I asked.

“Joe Draper,” said Murph.

“Oh, I know him,” I said. “He was quarter on the All-Fresh.”

“Yes, till he broke an arm,” said Murph; “but he’s through with football now.”

“What do you mean⁠—through with football?” said I. “You’ll find him playin’ halfback for me this fall. I’ve been countin’ on him all winter.”

“I’m sorry you’ve been countin’ on him,” said Murph; “but I might as well break the news to you. He’s promised me to stick to track and pass up everything else. I’m not goin’ to have that baby spoiled; so you can just keep your hands off him. It won’t do you any good to meddle anyway. I’ve got his promise and that means something to a boy like him.”

“You’ve got a lot of nerve!” I said. “I s’pose everybody’s got to step out of the way to make room for your rotten old track team.”

“Be decent!” said Murph. “You know very well I’m not hurtin’ you any. You’ve got McGill at quarter for two more years and you’ve got two halfbacks that anybody’d be glad to have, now that Bixby’s eligible. What you need is big tackles; and if young Draper could help you out there I’d let you have him, and welcome.”

Well, he made me own up that I wasn’t exactly starvin’ to death for lack of good backs and I finally promised him I’d leave Draper alone. Maybe one reason I promised was because I knew it wouldn’t do me any good not to.

McGill was pretty near a perfect quarterback for my style of game. He could use his head as well as his legs and his right foot. I b’lieve that with him in the back field alone, I could have scored on anybody; but he had a good supportin’ company too. Bixby, who’d been on the All-Fresh, could run and grab passes with the best of ’em; and when the other side spraddled their defense all over the field to stop my open game, I had Conrad and Meeks to shoot through the holes.

In the next two seasons we were scored on just twice and nobody came near tyin’ us. You remember what we did to Pelham in 1911. We licked ’em 27 to 0 and that was the worst beatin’ they got in fifteen years. But 1911 was McGill’s last year, and Conrad’s and Meeks’ too. The Pelham papers all came out after the season and said our days of glory were about over; that losin’ McGill and Conrad and Meeks, besides some of the linemen, would leave us up against it, and Pelham, which had all their good ones comin’ back, would probably get plenty of revenge the followin’ fall.

I figured this dope was pretty near right and I was wishin’ my contract with Leighton had run out that season instead of holdin’ over another year; but the fact that the next was goin’ to be my last season, and that Pelham figured on givin’ us a good trimmin’, made me all the more anxious to beat ’em. And I didn’t think or dream about anything but football all that winter long.

In January I wrote to Murphy. I pointed out to him that I didn’t have a quarterback to take McGill’s place; there was nothin’ on the scrubs or Freshmen that looked even fair. I told him I thought I could make a dandy out of Draper, and I didn’t think it would be any more than right for Murphy to give me a whack at him after I’d laid off for two whole seasons. I said my chances of turnin’ out a team that wouldn’t disgrace Leighton for life depended on my gettin’ hold of a boy with Draper’s speed.

I made it pretty strong and Murphy fell. He said he would release Joe from his promise and if I could persuade him to come out for football, all right. So then I sat down and wrote to the kid. I gave him a nice little spiel about comin’ to the old school’s rescue, and told him that if I had a man of his speed in there we’d hang a surprise on Pelham and Marshall, and the rest of ’em, and he’d have a lot more honors to add to those he’d won on the track.

He wrote back a gentlemanly little note. He said he wasn’t after any glory for himself; but Leighton had been good to him and he felt as though he owed it to her to come out for football if I really needed him. And if Mr. Murphy was willin’ to release him from his promise I could count on him to show up in the fall. He asked to be excused from reportin’ early ’cause he had made engagements for the first two weeks in September. About the time he was writin’ this note to me he was gettin’ engaged to the girl I told you about, and the date he had for the followin’ September was with her people down in St. Louis. I found that out afterward.

Bixby’d been elected captain and I knew I’d have him to figure on. There was a big, strong kid named Ashton that I’d used as substitute for Conrad, and I was countin’ on makin’ a regular fullback out of him. I’d have to dig up another halfback and a kicker; I didn’t know then that Draper could kick. I’d lost my four best linemen, so there was another problem starin’ me in the face; but I gritted my teeth and said to myself that the bigger the handicap was I had to work against, the more fun it would be to put somethin’ over. And I thought and thought and figured and figured, till it got so bad that I’d wake myself up in the middle of the night, callin’ signals.

Bixby and the rest of the boys I’d invited showed up the first week in September. I started ’em all kickin’ and found that there wasn’t a man in the crowd that could punt one from here to that wall. As for drop and place kickin’, none of ’em could raise the ball off the ground. After three days I gave up and decided to wait till college opened and the rest of the squad showed up.

Then Draper came out and I got the surprise of my life. Just foolin’, his first day on the field, he dropped a couple of goals from forty yards out, and he cut loose some punts that would have made Pat O’Dea jealous. They went way up in the clouds and they averaged a good fifty yards. You can bet all you’ve got that I was tickled.

“Where did you learn to kick?” I said to Joe.

“I was a pretty fair kicker in high school,” he said.

“Well,” I said, “I’m sorry we didn’t have you the last two years.”

“You got along all right without me,” said he, smilin’.

“Yes,” said I; “but you’ll fit in very nicely this year and, if you’re willin’, you’ll get three years’ work crowded into one.”

“That suits me,” he said. “When I go into a thing I like to go into it hard.”

Well, things went along pretty good and we opened up our season with Brandon. We beat ’em 13 to 0. We could have made it 40 to 0 without strainin’ ourselves; but I took pretty near the whole first string out when I saw how easy they were. I let Joe do a little puntin’ in the game, but I was keepin’ the other part of his kickin’ a secret. I told our newspaper boys about it and asked ’em not to say anything. They agreed, and then I knew I was safe and could give Joe plenty of practice shootin’ at goals without any danger of it gettin’ into print.

Honest, I never saw his equal as a point kicker; and I don’t except Eckersall or Brickley, or any of ’em. Give him proper protection, and he could score from forty yards out just as often as he tried.

That simplified matters a whole lot. Instead of workin’ up an offense that would get touchdowns, which was no cinch when I didn’t have a good plunger, all I had to do was figure somethin’ that would take me inside their forty-yard line. I knew there wasn’t much danger of Joe’s gettin’ hurt; he was a rugged kid for his size and, besides, I intended to play him safe. So I just went ahead and built round that right foot of his. I worked up some open stuff for him and Bixby that would gain if it wasn’t used often. Most of it was fakes from kick formation, ’cause, of course, I was goin’ strong to the puntin’ game with a feller like that to send ’em away.

Only when the gates were locked tight did we practice those plays of Bixby’s and Joe’s. The rest of the time we plunged or else we kicked; and people must have thought I was crazy to stick to the plungin’ game when I didn’t have a plunger who’d go into the line frontward. But we went through the practice season without showin’ anything else; and we went through clean too. Our line smashers didn’t smash. They backed up. But they were good enough, along with Joe’s puntin’, to win from Barnes and Riverside and Hotchkiss and the Indians. Even if they hadn’t been I wouldn’t have cared. I was out to trim Pelham and Marshall, and if those little dubs had licked us I’d have just laughed.

We had some mighty close shaves and everybody who saw us thought we’d get everlastingly slaughtered in our two big games. That’s just what I wanted ’em to think and it didn’t make any difference to me how much abuse I got. The New York papers were sayin’ I was loafin’ on the job ’cause it was my last year at Leighton. They said it was a crime for a coach that had as good a man as Bixby not to build an attack round him. They said I might be holdin’ somethin’ back, but they didn’t b’lieve so, ’cause the fellas I had in my backfield, outside of Bixby, didn’t even look capable of keepin’ a secret. They said the burden of bein’ captain was takin’ some of the football out of Bixby. And they said I ought to do somethin’ with Draper’s speed or else set him on the side lines, where there was no danger of his gettin’ hurt. One of the experts said he’d be willin’ to bet that Ashton, my fullback, could plunge three times into a bathtub full of water without makin’ a ripple. He was about right too.

Well, I was glad they thought I was soldierin’ on the job and that I didn’t have anything; but don’t imagine that I was enthusiastic over what I did have. My chance was better than anybody figured, but it wasn’t much good at that.

I had the best punter and point kicker I’d ever looked at, and he was a fast man too. Then I had Bixby, who’d made All-America the year before; but his strength was in his open-field work and his defense. He couldn’t plunge a yard against the wind. And I had one guard that was alive, and a pair of ends who could smash things up, but who weren’t worth a nickel apiece to catch a pass. They couldn’t have covered an ordinary man’s punts, either; but Joe’s went so high you could have driven a hearse down there and beat ’em to the fullback.

I worked for days at a time fixin’ up protection for Joe’s kicks. He made that part of it less of a job for me by learnin’ to get ’em off in next to nothin’. And when the week of the Pelham game came round I was pretty well satisfied that nobody’d break through in time to block ’em.

I’ll tell you just what I told the boys⁠—and I was tellin’ ’em the truth too. I said:

“Boys, we’re goin’ into this game the underdogs. You know just what we’ve got and I know what Pelham’s got. I’ll give it to you straight that Pelham’s got more than we have; but they think we’re a lot worse than we are. That’s our chance. They’re goin’ into this game overconfident and we’re goin’ into it determined. If you show all the football I’ve taught you, and if you never quit fightin’ from start to finish, you’ll beat ’em, ’cause they’ll be surprised to death. But if you ease up for a minute, or if you don’t carry out instructions, you’ll get the worst lickin’ in history. I’m not askin’ much of you. You haven’t got a complicated set of signals to think of. All you have to do is fight.

“I’m lookin’ to you linemen to see that they don’t get through on Joe’s kicks, and he’s goin’ to kick on pretty near every first down when the ball’s in our territory. I don’t have to tell you what your duty is if he gets a chance to shoot at their goal. We won’t score any touchdowns on ’em without a lot of luck; but we will score from the field if you boys hold up your end. And we’re li’ble to score more from the field than they can score against us, if Joe’s properly protected.

“You ends want to remember that Joe and Bix can’t get loose unless you knock those red sweaters galley-west. Keep your eyes open for red jerseys on those plays and drive into ’em. And when they’ve got the ball smash that interference if it breaks your necks. Remember that Winslow and Smith will run wild if you don’t bust up their interference so Bix and Ashton can get at ’em.

“You linemen can stop Eaton if you’re not afraid to get down. Pelham plays a high line, and that gives you fellers all the best of it if you keep at ’em and keep low. Eaton’s got a big reputation as a plunger, but you boys want to remember that the best plunger in the world can’t gain if he’s stopped before he gets to the line. Bix will tell you what defense to play and the minute he gives it to you, you do it, without stoppin’ to ask questions. This is his third game against those fellers and he knows what they’re up to better than you do.”

That’s what I told ’em the week of the game. I kept drivin’ it into those ends that our chance was to score from the field, and the only way we could get close enough was for them to cover Joe’s punts, or, on our fake plays, to put three or four red jerseys out of business.

I may as well tell you what our attack was; it won’t take but a minute. I figured Pelham would play their defense open all the time, ’cause they knew we couldn’t plunge and thought we might pass once in a while when we weren’t puntin’. So I had a shift that took the whole line except the left end over to the right of center. Then I had Joe back in the kickin’ position and Bixby pretty near as far back and over on the right side. Ashton and my other halfback, Warner, were up on the line, on the strong side. The ball was passed back to Joe and he made a bluff to throw it down the field on the strong side. I played my left end in the guard’s position, and the minute the ball was passed he’d let the man playin’ against him come on through. Bixby’d wait till this feller got pretty near on top of Joe and then he’d take the ball off Joe’s hand and run to their weak side. I figured on his speed to get him out of the way of the feller my left end had let through. After my end was free, he was supposed to knock their right halfback out of it. It was a good deal like the play Dickie and Benson have been usin’ all fall. It was to be used a couple of times, with shifts to both sides.

Then I had a fake kick that relied just on Joe’s speed and wouldn’t work more than once, and maybe not at all, ’cause they’d be layin’ for it and they had the men to stop it. And I had a pretty fair onside kick that I figured would work once or twice, ’cause Joe could kick ’em up in the clouds and Bixby wasn’t afraid to grab ’em when they came down.

And I had a lateral and forward pass from Joe to Ashton to Bixby. It was to be used just once. I was pretty sure it would go through, ’cause all my other passes were fakes; and, though Ashton wasn’t worth dependin’ on for anything in most plays, I’d drilled him so hard in this one that he got to doin’ it pretty good.

And then I had one pet. I’m goin’ to give it to the boys when I get ’em out there this afternoon. We called it Number 91 and it was a double-X special. The whole line except one man shifted to the right side. Then my backs lined up in tandem formation, close to the line on the right side, with Draper in the regular quarterback position. He’d call a long string of signals; and, when the other side thought the ball must be snapped pretty soon, Ashton, my fullback, would butt in and holler: “Wait a minute! Signals!”

Well, sir, nine times out of ten the other team would raise up and kind of stretch themselves while they were waitin’ for the signals to be started again; and the minute they raised up the ball was passed to Joe and he’d scoot wide round their weak end. We’d fooled the scrubs with it even when they knew what was comin’.

That was my offense. Ashton and Warner were to be sent into the line four or five times to give Joe and Bix a rest and to keep Pelham guessin’; but I knew neither of ’em could gain a foot.

Joe was to keep kickin’ and kickin’ till we were in the middle of the field, and then try somethin’ that would get us to where he could take a shot.

I had more different formations for defense than I had for attack. Pelham’s team was practically the same as the year before and I knew their plays like a book. Bix knew ’em, too, and I could rely on him to call the right defense for whatever they sprung; but I couldn’t rely on my men to do their part of it. If they’d been as strong and smart as my 1911 gang I’d have been willin’ to bet that the formations I’d planned would stop anything Pelham tried. But these boys were awful, awful green and all I could do was try to get ’em worked up to the fightin’ point and keep ’em there. I was backin’ up the line with Carey, my big guard, and I knew we were gone if anything happened to him.

Carey, Bixby and Draper⁠—that’s what I had. And I was actually plannin’ to beat eleven seasoned football players with those three, and two of ’em had never been in a real game.

We went over to Pelham Friday mornin’ and I rode with Joe all the way, tellin’ him what I expected of him.

“You’re the baby,” I said. “If you put this over there’ll be more glory in it for you than you could win in twenty track meets or ten college courses. Keep the ball high up and you’ll gain ten yards on every swap. Don’t forget that you’ve got to stick in the game. Don’t get hurt. Signal for a fair catch every time they kick to you, no matter where you are. And don’t be a bit afraid to take a shot at those uprights whenever you’re within forty yards. You can do it.”

I had ’em out at Pelham Field on Friday afternoon. I didn’t let Joe drop kick, ’cause, as I told you, nobody but our bunch knew he could; but he punted and he caught punts till he knew what the wind was apt to do in that stadium of theirs. The rest of the boys just warmed up and I didn’t keep ’em out there long⁠—I was afraid they might see some of those big, husky Pelham birds and get scared.

The bettin’ against us was 3 to 1. Those odds were about right on the showin’ we’d made and on the looks of the two teams on paper; but if I’d been anybody but who I was I’d have grabbed some of that short end, ’cause I knew we weren’t so long a shot as that.

Well, a couple of trainloads came from Leighton on Saturday morning. They were a brave gang to make the trip, ’cause ninety-nine out of every hundred of ’em thought we’d be murdered.

Joe’s girl was in the crowd. I’d seen her lots of times and admired her from a distance, but I never saw her look prettier than when he introduced her to me in the hotel lobby that mornin’.

“Is there any hope?” she asked me.

“A little,” I said. “It’s right there with you.”

Then she and Joe looked at each other and smiled, and she said:

“Well, if he’s it we’ll win, sure.”

“We will if he keeps his head,” said I.

“Oh,” said she, “there’s no danger of his not doin’ that. It must be you haven’t heard how clever Joe is.”

“I can see right now that he’s clever,” said I. And they smiled again and walked away.

Well, I took the boys out to the field late, so they wouldn’t have time to get nervous. I gave ’em one final talkin’ to in the dressin’ room; and I got Joe and Bix off to one side and told ’em, for the five-thousandth time, what they were to do. My last word to Joe was:

“Don’t be afraid to take a shot,” I said. “If you’re in good position it’s better to try one on the first down than run the risk of losin’ the ball on a fumble.”

That’s how sure I was that he could score from the field. I wish now I hadn’t been so sure.

I won’t have to waste much time tellin’ you about the game. They had the wind in the first quarter, but Joe held his own at that. Big Carey was a whale. He not only stopped Eaton, but he spilled most of their open stuff before they could get it started. Only twice did Smith or Winslow get loose, and then Bixby nailed ’em before they’d gone far. But the ball was in our territory all the while and we didn’t do anything but kick. I was pullin’ for Smith to muff one of those high punts, but he was as sure as taxes.

Well, it looked pretty good. We’d have the wind the next quarter and then Joe’s foot would put us up somewhere close. I was so anxious to get that wind back of us that those first fifteen minutes seemed like a week. Finally it came time for us to change goals; and then, sure enough, Joe lifted one over Smith’s head and she rolled out of bounds on their six-yard line. They brought her in and made one play to get out in the middle of the field. Eaton kicked against the wind and Joe grabbed her for a fair catch on their thirty-five-yard line. He was off to the side quite a bit; so he sent Bix out to the middle with her on the first play and then he dropped back for his first try.

“Now we’ll see if he’s there in the pinch,” I said to myself.

He was. The ball went about twenty feet above the crossbar and right straight between the posts. I wish you could have heard that crowd! Our little bunch made more noise than the German Army, and the whole Pelham gang let out a groan. It sure was a shock to ’em. They’d never suspected we had a Brickley and they couldn’t have been more surprised if we’d come on the field in nightgowns. I looked over to where Joe Bentley, their coach, was standin’, and I could see him scowlin’ clear across the field.

Well, the rest of the period was all puntin’, and we gained every whack, but not enough to get us within range again. My boys were playin’ like crazy men on defense and our only danger was that they’d wear out and let up. I was tickled to death when the end of the half came and they had a chance to rest.

“You’re goin’ to be against the wind this next quarter,” I told ’em. “You’ll have to work your heads off for fifteen minutes more, and then you’ll get that old breeze back of you again and it’ll be all over but the shoutin’. They’ll try to rough you from now on, Joe. Keep out of their way all you can. That one long punt put you in right that time. Maybe you’ll have another piece of luck like that; but, if you don’t, remember, they haven’t seen any of our plays yet and they all ought to work⁠—what there is of ’em. You’ll be All-America, Carey, if you keep goin’. Don’t ease up for a minute, boys! We’ve got ’em in a hole now and all you have to do is fight.”

I was right about their roughin’ Joe, but they were too smart to get caught at it. They didn’t bump him after he’d kicked; but occasionally they got a chance at him while Ashton and Warner were givin’ a demonstration of how to get stopped on a crossbuck. They’d come through and fall into my star performer as though it was an accident; and I might have thought it was if I hadn’t known it wasn’t. But Joe seemed to be standin’ the gaff all right. He never had to ask for time. Bixby, though, was dropped for the count twice in succession and I began worryin’ about him.

I could see that my whole bunch were gettin’ tired along in the last end of that third quarter, but I couldn’t relieve ’em, ’cause my substitutes were an awful bunch of cheese. I did send in one new tackle, with instructions to have somebody lay down after every play, so the boys could get plenty of rest. They were too green to do that without tellin’ ’em.

We still had ’em 3 to 0 goin’ into the last quarter. The wind was with us now and I wasn’t lookin’ for any trouble. But it came. They had the ball on their own forty-yard line, with three to go on the fourth down. Eaton dropped back to kick. It was a fake and Winslow came scootin’ round our right end. I saw he was goin’ to make his distance, but I wasn’t really scared till Bix missed him.

I don’t know yet how he could have, ’cause Winslow was straight up and didn’t even dodge. Well, he got by Bix somehow and it looked for a minute as though Joe’d miss him too; but Joe finally chased him out of bounds. They were on our twelve-yard line.

I knew they’d plunge with Eaton now. Bixby knew it too. He called the right defense for it, but the boys were all in. They couldn’t stop him. He went over in five punches and somebody kicked the goal.

“Good night!” I said to myself; and I was as happy as a Belgian farmer.

There was about seven minutes to play and my kids were dyin’ on their feet. The crowd was hollerin’ so I could hardly think. There didn’t seem to be much use of thinkin’ anyway. Two minutes before we’d looked like a cinch. Now we were a million-to-one shot.

The ball was kicked off and punted back and forth before I realized they were playin’ again. I suddenly woke up to the fact that Joe was still puntin’ on first downs. I grabbed one of my cheesy substitutes off the bench. I hustled him out there to tell Joe to cut loose with all he had.

“Try the bluff passes; and if they don’t work give ’em your onside kick.” That’s what I told him.

It was our ball on our own twenty-five when my messenger went in. We had three minutes to play. Joe called a fake pass play and I thought Bix was goin’ to get away, sure; but he stumbled and tackled himself after he’d gone ten yards.

Then the onside kick, and it worked better than I ever saw it. Joe sent the ball just far enough for Bix to get it on the dead run, and he was off down the field like a shot. If he’d been fresh Smith couldn’t have stopped him with a lasso. He was actually past Smith once and there was nothin’ between him and the goal; but he’d played himself out, poor boy, and he couldn’t make a finish. Smith nailed him from behind on their eight-yard line and they went down together like a ton of brick. And Bixby didn’t get up.

They carried him off the field and he was ravin’ like a wild man. He was tellin’ ’em he’d scored and the officials had robbed him. He started cussin’ me out, but I didn’t have time to listen⁠—I was too busy givin’ my order to the kid that was to take his place.

“Tell Joe Number 91,” I said. “Don’t forget it! Number 91! Number 91!”

There we were, on their eight-yard line, with a minute to play. Old 91 would score just as sure as taxes!

Pelham was scared stiff. They were ready to be licked and that’s the play that would do it. Their defense was drawn in, ’cause we were so close up and ’cause they didn’t think we had anybody to run their ends, with Bixby out of it.

The kid dashed in and gave Joe the dope. We lined up, and all of a sudden Joe dropped back to his kickin’ position. That wasn’t 91 and I saw there was somethin’ wrong. But what could I do? I started on the field myself, and then I started to send in another sub. But it was too late! Joe, standin’ back there on the eighteen-yard line, called for the ball and shot another drop kick square between the posts!

Don’t say a word! You can’t say anything I didn’t say. I was out there among ’em myself when the next kickoff was caught, but it didn’t make any difference. Time was up before a play could be started, and then I got Joe. Right in front of my team and part of Pelham’s, I gave it to him:

“You bonehead!” I yelled. “You boob! You blockhead! You’re smart, are you? You’re the bright boy in your class, are you? You ignorant bum! Why don’t you study arithmetic, you poor numskull! Where did you learn that six was more than seven? Who told you that three and three was eight or nine? Four points behind and you dropkick! Why didn’t you take the ball and run back to your own goal? Why were you in there if you didn’t know the game? Go into the gym and drown yourself in the shower! Get out of my sight before I murder you!”

The Pelham team were hollerin’ at him too. And you ought to have heard the crowd!

“Oh, you bonehead!” they were yellin’⁠—Pelham, Leighton and everybody.

There’s no use describin’ what came off in the gym. Poor Bixby was still off his nut, but the rest of ’em hopped into Draper as though they’d cut his throat. And they were as much to blame as he was. When they heard the signal they should have stopped him; but they didn’t think of that, and I couldn’t think of anything. All I could do was rave.

The kid I’d sent in with the orders established his alibi right off. He’d done his duty. Joe admitted it. Joe said he was rattled and thought 91 was one of our dropkick signals; that he got it balled up with 19.

“How could you do that?” I barked at him. “How could you think I’d tell you to drop kick, with the ball on their eight-yard line, a minute to play, and the score 7 to 3 against us?”

“I lost my head,” said Joe.

“Impossible!” said I. “You couldn’t lose what you never had.”

Pretty soon Bixby came to. He asked for the score and we told him. We told him what had happened, and he lit into Joe pretty near as hard as I had.

Reporters generally miss the important details of a football game, but not a one of ’em missed Joe’s boner. There were whole columns about it. The Pelham papers went to it strongest, ’cause Joe’d been showin’ up their track team for two years and they loved him like a snake.

I’ll give you the windup in a few words. Nobody saw Joe from the time he left the Pelham dressin’ room till a week after the Marshall game, which wound up our season and my career as coach at Leighton. Marshall beat us by the narrow margin of 40 to 0.

Joe’d gone home, and he’d gone home intendin’ to stay; but his people felt so bad he couldn’t stand it. They got him to promise that he’d finish his senior year. So back he came to Leighton.

I ducked out right after the season was over, but I heard all about Joe. He didn’t even last through the semester. There were some fellas in college decent enough to treat him as though nothin’ had happened. There were others who couldn’t resist the temptation to get back at a boy who’d outshone ’em in athletics and scholarship and everything else. They kept pestering him and they finally had him so he was cuttin’ classes to keep away from ’em. He lost that smile of his. He also lost some of his good habits. And he lost the girl.

I’ve figured since that she wasn’t worth keepin’ if she’d quit under fire like that; but naturally Joe couldn’t see it that way. The worse your girl treats you, the better you like her. That’s how I’ve got it doped. Anyway, that’s how it worked on Joe. It was the finisher for him.

I’m keepin’ a line on him yet and the latest report is hopeful. He’s still mopin’ down in that burg in Iowa, but he’s showin’ occasional signs of life and smilin’ once in a great while. I won’t get a good night’s sleep, though, till he’s all over it. I’m afraid that won’t be for a year or two more. I wrote him a letter that I thought might cheer him up. He never paid any attention to it.

I wrote the girl a letter too. I told her it was my fault⁠—that Joe had pulled the play under orders; but she didn’t fall for it. She wrote back that she was grateful for my interest and appreciated my motives in tellin’ her what wasn’t true. The break between her and Joe, she said, had nothin’ to do with football. She’d just decided that they weren’t suited to each other. Some bunk, eh? A hero was what she was after, and I hope she gets one that’ll make her wish she’d stuck to Joe⁠—not wishin’ her any bad luck.

Don’t think I haven’t been punished for my part in it. I’ve told you that I couldn’t sleep, thinkin’ about the poor kid; but I haven’t told you about the pannin’ I got from Murphy, Leighton’s track coach.

I went back there the followin’ spring as a favor to Chandler, my successor. I went to give him the dope on his material. I was lookin’ for him in the athletic office when I bumped into Murph.

“Hello, Murph!” I said, but he didn’t even look at me. I stepped right in front of him. “You’re certainly cordial!” I said. “Can’t you say anything to a man you haven’t seen for six months?”

“I can say plenty,” he answered, “but I don’t b’lieve you’ll like to hear it.”

“Sure I will!” said I. “Go ahead and shoot.”

“All right,” said Murphy; and he sailed into me. I can’t remember his exact words, but they were somethin’ like this:

“I s’pose you’re proud of what you’ve done to my track team. I s’pose you’re glad you’ve broken it up. But I don’t care about that. What I do care about is your breakin’ up that boy’s life. You coaxed him into football and he made it possible for you to scare Pelham with a team that Pelham ought to have licked 50 to 0. You found out the boy was a star and you used his ability to the limit. If you’d trimmed Pelham he’d have got a little credit, maybe, and you’d have hogged most of it. And, without him, you’d have felt like forfeitin’ the game. Your team showed what he was worth to it when you played Marshall with him gone, and got licked 40 to 0.

“You gave him orders to drop kick on first down whenever he got within their forty-yard line. He carried out your orders and you called him a bonehead. You say that he ought to have used judgment, and yet you knew he was just a kid, twenty years old, and that he’d never played in a real game of football before.

“You wanted to make the world think you were a wizard. You saw a victory over Pelham right in your grasp, and you could almost hear the people sayin’ what a wonderful man you were to win with nothin’. Then you lost in the last minute of play and it drove you insane. I’m givin’ you the benefit of the doubt when I say you were insane. I certainly hope you weren’t in your right mind when you called Joe those names.

“The trouble with you football coaches is that you expect too much. You forget that your players are just boys, hardly out of their teens. You want a kid twenty years old to think as much football as you yourselves, and you’ve been studyin’ and teachin’ the game for fifteen years. And if the kid doesn’t learn in one short season all you’ve learned in fifteen years you call him a bonehead and ruin him. Do you call it sport to shove more responsibility on to a kid than a grown man should be asked to bear, and then jump all over him when he fails? What’s a football game compared with a boy’s career! When you called him a numskull you were talkin’ to the wrong party. You should have been lookin’ in a mirror!”

That’s all I can remember of it, and that’s plenty. Pretty near everything he said was true, and I knew it. He left me without sayin’ goodbye, and I beat it out of town without seein’ my successor. I wanted to get away somewhere and think.

I did think, boys, and I thought hard. The more I thought the worse I felt. I was mighty sore at myself when I got up home again; and I figured maybe I’d get a little sympathy if I told my wife the whole story. Course she knew how we’d lost that game, but I’d never given her the dope about Joe’s finish. She sure was sympathetic⁠—for Joe.

“Poor young kid!” she said. “If I didn’t think you were sorry I b’lieve I’d leave you.”

So you can see why I shook hands with Dickie on Saturday instead of scoldin’ him. He was disobeyin’ orders, but he thought he was doin’ somethin’ brilliant. He fooled everybody but the other team, and he cost us the game; but I’m goin’ to need that fightin’ spirit of his against Doane next Saturday. And you just watch his smoke!