"All ready, Ballard?" The Referee's call brought an affirmative from the
Orange and Black leader.
"Ready, Bannister?"
"Ready!" boomed big Butch Brewster, with a final shout of encouragement to
his players.
The biggest game was starting! Before ten thousand wildly excited and
partisan spectators, the Gold and Green and the Orange and Black would
battle for Championship honors; with Thor out of the struggle, Ballard,
three-time Champion, was the favorite. The visitors had brought the
strongest team in their history, and were supremely confident of victory.
Bannister, however, could not help remembering, twice fate had snatched
the greatest glory from their grasp, in Butch's Sophomore year, when Jack
Merritt's drop-kick struck the cross-bar, and a year later, when Butch
himself, charging for the winning touchdown, crashed blindly into the
upright. Old Bannister had not won the Championship for five years, and
now—when the chances had seemed roseate, with Thor, the Prodigious
Prodigy—smashing Hamilton out of the way, Fate had dealt the annual blow
in advance, by crippling him.
"Oh, we've got to win!" shivered T. Haviland Hicks, Jr. "Oh, I hope I
don't get sent in—I mean—I hope Bannister wins without me! But if I do
have to kick—Oh, I hope I send it over that cross-bar—"
A second later the Ballard line advanced, the fullback's toe ripped into
the pigskin, sending it whirling, high in air, far into Bannister's
territory; the yellow oval fell into the outstretched arms of Captain
Butch Brewster, on the Gold and Green's five-yard line, and—"We're off!"
shrieked Hicks, excitedly. "Come on, Butch—run it back! Oh, we're off."
The biggest game had started!
THE GREATER GOAL
"Time out!"