For the good of the team

by Ralph Henry Barbour

“Yes, sir, I’ll do my best.”

“That’s all I ask, Harven. Your best is mighty good!”

But, although Stuart had spoken confidently enough to the coach, he was filled with misgivings when he trotted out on the gridiron with a thundering cheer beating against his ears. Ten minutes was but ten minutes, and, unfortunately, Pearsall had won the toss and given Manning the kick-off. He was not through being surprised at his good fortune when Joe Cutts stepped forward and shot the pigskin away from the tee. He had hoped to get into the game for a little while; perhaps for a whole period toward the end; but that he should have been chosen in preference to Wheaton to start the game was something almost miraculous. Well, there he was, and Haynes looked for a score in the first ten minutes of playing time, which, thought Stuart as he raced down the field behind the ball, was a good deal to expect! But that wasn’t saying it couldn’t be done. No, sir, not by a long shot! Those chaps weren’t any better than old Manning. Maybe not so good. Haynes had said that it was spirit that counted——

Just then Stuart went slam into a Pearsall tackle, a whistle shrilled and on the Blue’s seventeen yards a carroty-haired half whom Stuart recognized as Connor rolled off the ball and scrambled to his feet.

Pearsall tested the Manning center for a yard, massed her whole backfield on Thurston for two more, gained three through Beeman and then punted. It was Billy Littlefield, playing back with Stuart, who caught, and Billy reeled off most of ten yards before he was toppled. Then, with the two teams facing each other across Manning’s forty-five, the Cherry-and-Gray began an onslaught that became history.

Statistics, if there was such, would show that ninety-nine times in one hundred the first attack by a team in an important game is made at the line. Ninety-seven times in a hundred the second play is also directed at the line. In short, the attempt is almost invariably made to try out the opposing defense in the first minutes of play. This rule is almost as inviolable as the law of gravitation. Recently, however, a famous scientist has shown that even the law of gravitation has its exceptions, and it is possible that knowledge of this fact may have emboldened a lesser scientist—for who dares say that football is not a science?—to conceive of an exception to the rule alluded to. All that as may have been, the rule was flagrantly disregarded. Instead of sending a back experimentally against the enemy’s line, Stuart watched the ball pass by him into the outspread hands of Leo Burns, saw the whole backfield, from balanced formation, dash to the right, saw the Pearsall end neatly boxed by Tasker and Littlefield and saw Burns tearing over the line. I say that Stuart saw all this, but it would be nearer the facts to say that he saw some of it and sensed the rest. For Stuart was busy himself. While Whaley blocked the opposing tackle, Le Gette and Stuart cleaned out a hole that wasn’t used and met the first onslaught of the enemy’s backs. Burns, running wide and without interference, took the pigskin over four white marks before he was pulled down by the Pearsall quarter. The ball was near the enemy’s forty-three when it came to light again.

Pearsall looked bewildered, even stunned. More than that, she looked hurt and injured, as though Manning had played an unfair trick on her. She had had her rush line all set, every husky player from tackle to tackle swinging and crouched, ready to repel the attack. And what had the enemy done? What, indeed, but outrage and transgress one of the fundamental rules and precedents and go scurrying off around an unsuspecting end! Pearsall was surprised, disgruntled and sore. The thing was never done, and Manning had done it! But the Blue had scant time to nurse her grievance, for never had a team sped back to positions and cried its signals as quickly as Manning did in the ensuing five seconds. The Pearsall quarter fairly had to run to get back up the field ere the ball again went into play. And in those few seconds the Manning stand was a bedlam of cheers unmeasured but thunderous.

Again [Stuart sent the ball to Burns on a direct pass] and again Burns crossed to the right. But this time the play went outside the tackle, and, because Cooper, the Pearsall left end, eluded the interference and managed to get himself in the way, the down netted but three yards, and it was Pearsall’s turn to cheer. But that was only a momentary pause in the advance. Littlefield found a hole awaiting him between guard and tackle and slashed through for three more, and Tasker, faking a punt, went hurtling into and over the opposing right tackle and, fighting, squirming, head-down, took the ball for the rest of the distance before the secondary defense piled on to him.