That is what he did with Gould after the Fayville High School game. As the Sophomore was getting dressed in the locker room the coach sent a boy downstairs to tell him that he wanted him to report to his office. Gould reported on his way out of the building and the coach treated the third baseman to one of the severest lectures that he had delivered to any boy and Gould in humiliation became very surly and ugly, and answered back in a manner that was decidedly disrespectful.
“Look here, Gould,” said the coach, concluding the grilling he was giving the Sophomore. “You are a fair baseball player when you want to try. But it isn’t very often you want to try, it seems to me. I’m about sick of it. I think you are not putting enough of yourself into the game. You are not giving enough of yourself to the team. You are just giving enough to slide by and that isn’t what I want. I want a fellow to play hard all the time. Play everything hard. You know that as well as I do. Let me see your hands.”
Gould wonderingly held out his hands. Mr. Rice looked at them closely.
“Hum, just as I thought. Trying to slide by. Giving some of your physical resources to smoking, eh? Oh, don’t try to deny it. I’ve suspected it for a long time and now I’m convinced. That’s nicotine on your fingers, isn’t it? You are one of those chaps who sneak out of bounds every night after supper and steal a smoke or two. Gould, you can’t match baseball against cigarettes. Every time you smoke you give just so much of your physical energy and resource to tobacco and you have just that much less to give to the team. You have doubtless hurt your wind and your heart by smoking. You have slowed up your brain just a little. Your eyes are a little duller. The coördination of your muscles isn’t quite so keen as it should be. You are lazy and willing to let down except when you have to exert yourself, and the exertion costs you just a little bit more than it does a boy who doesn’t smoke. I knew I’d find the answer to it all in cigarettes, or late nights or both. I’ve watched too many boys these years past to let you put anything like that over on me. I am sorry it has come to this, Gould, but until you can give me one hundred per cent of yourself, until you can give the team and the school all your interest and not divide it with cigarettes and pleasures, you will have to go back in the line of substitutes and give your position to a fellow who is willing to play hard and work hard, and give all his interest to the school, the team and to me.”
Gould was sullenly silent for several minutes after the head coach had stopped talking. Then he moistened his lips and spoke:
“Look here, Mr. Rice, you are accusing me of something that you are not certain of. Those yellow stains on my fingers may not be nicotine. Suppose I said it was iodine; that I hurt my finger in practice yesterday. What about that?”
“Why, if you told me that, Gould, and looked me in the eyes as you told me, perhaps I would believe you. But that wouldn’t make me change my opinion that you have not given everything you have to the team except when you had to. And I’m sick of such tactics. From now on you will have to fight for your place in the sun; your place on the team. You’ll have to give everything you have to the team or you will not be in the batting order very frequently. Saturday I am going to keep you on the bench and put Thatcher in for the whole game. And until you can convince me that you have taken baseball seriously and that you will play hard all the time I am going to keep him in the line up. Understand? That’s all, Gould.”
That was Wednesday afternoon. Thursday morning the team was posted for the next game, which was the first out-of-town game of the season and Jeff, as he entered the gym., that afternoon, was surprised to be greeted by Wade Grenville who had a broad smile on his face.
“Put her there, Old Hickey. You’ve made it at last.”
“Made what? What’s happened? What do you mean?” exclaimed Jeff, totally surprised.