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.
[CHAPTER XIII]
THE LAST QUARTER
Phillipsburg began that final period with all the confidence born of having held her enemy scoreless through thirty-six minutes of play. She had replaced many of her first-string men, but her captain was still in and so was the quarter-back who had started. On the Parkinson stand the audience was on its feet, imploring a touchdown.
Dick had been through some trying moments during his brief football career at Leonardville, but he had never felt quite so conspicuous, never so uncertain of himself, as when he trotted out and joined the group of brown-jerseyed players by the thirty-yard line. His heart was beating like a sledge-hammer and his palms were moist and there was a funny prickling sensation in his legs. Diffidence had seldom troubled him before, and he felt doubly awkward now for that reason. But there wasn’t much time for thought of his feelings, for he had hardly joined his team-mates when the whistle blew the end of the minute intermission.