“Gee, it was awful! Sam threw the ball to me and I was all set for it when the crazy thing began running around my head in circles and making a noise like—like an automobile and I couldn’t catch it! Every time I’d make a grab it would dodge out of the way! And about a hundred fellows with big white mittens on stood and laughed at me. Gee, it was fierce!”
“White mittens?” chuckled Clem. “Well, you did have the Willies for fair! Calm yourself, old son, and nuzzle down again. It must be mighty close to daylight.”
[CHAPTER XXI]
ALTON VS. KENLY HALL
The players trundled away from school that Saturday morning at ten o’clock, cheered to the echo by some three hundred and fifty football-mad adherents. The rest of the student body left on the twelve-eight train, to which an extra day-coach had been added. Clem, sharing a seat with Landorf and Imbrie—Imbrie sat on the arm—beguiled the first part of the journey with the morning papers. Both the Alton paper and that published in the near-by city gave a flattering amount of space to the Alton-Kenly Hall game. Not unnaturally, the home journal predicted a victory for the Gray-and-Gold. The other favored Kenly. Some writer signing himself “Sporticus” told his city readers that he had seen both Alton and Kenly Hall in action and that it would take a much better prophet than he pretended to be to pick certainly the winner of to-day’s contest.
“Alton,” he continued, “has a fine-looking team that is well grounded in the rudiments, plays with unusual speed and has been developed steadily since the first of the season with the single purpose of reaching the apex of its power at two o’clock this afternoon. Starting with a practically green team, Coach ‘Johnny’ Cade has built around a nucleus of four veterans an aggregation that has shown a lot of football gumption and a good deal of strength during the last three games. The Gray-and-Gold looks to be better on attack than on defense, but the last week may have brought about an improvement in the latter department, and her line may prove strong enough to stop the efforts of the Kenly backs. If it can Alton will stand a good chance to cop the contest, for I like her attack. Rumor credits her with having developed a nice bunch of running and passing plays that have not, so far, been shown. Whether she has anything that will prevail against a defense as experienced and steady as Kenly’s, only developments can prove. Alton’s center-trio is quite as good as Kenly’s. Cheswick, at center, combines weight with speed and has shown himself a master at diagnosing the opponent’s plays. Captain Gus Fingal, right guard, is playing an even better game than last season when he was a large, sharp thorn in the side of the enemy. Powers, the other guard, lacks Fingal’s weight but is remarkably steady. He also has speed. Speed, in fact, is the outstanding feature of the Gray-and-Gold line from end to end. At tackles Alton will play Roice and either Sawyer or Todd. Sawyer has seen more service, but Todd has been coming fast for the last fortnight and, in spite of lack of weight, looks to have the call for the right side position. Levering and Borden, ends, have not shown anything spectacular so far except an ability to move fast, and they sure do that. In the backfield Alton will start ‘Pep’ Kinsey at quarter. Kinsey doesn’t look like a quarter-back, but he has held down the job satisfactorily most of the season and seems to get more out of his team than his alternate, Latham. Whittier and Frost are two good half-backs who will have quite a lot to say for themselves. Whittier is rather more of the defensive back than ‘Billy’ Frost, but he, too, is capable of gaining if given the ball. Frost is the lad for Kenly to keep an eye on, for he can hit the line like a five-ton truck and is a wonder at running. He will also be on the receiving end of some of the forward heaves that Alton is expected to pull off. The remaining back, Tennyson, is something of an unknown quantity, since he took the place of Crumb late in the season when the latter was injured.”
“Sporticus” gave an equal amount of space in his column to an appraisal of the individual members of the Kenly team and then summed up as follows: “On season’s performance, then, Kenly ought to win to-day’s fracas by two scores, but no football solon pins his faith utterly on performance. So when I predict a verdict for the Cherry-and-Black I have in mind one important fact that has been fully established, which is: The team with the power wins. Kenly has the power. She lacks the speed of her opponent and uses fewer plays. But she has a line that has proved practically shot-proof, and her attack, while not varied, has a relentless quality that makes it a ground-gainer. Of course, surprises may happen and upset the dope. Some of those trick plays that Alton is believed to have in her duffle-bag may catch Kenly napping. A forward-pass thrown at the right moment may land over the goal-line. But every student of the gentle Art of Football knows that where one game is won by forward-passes or trick runs nine are won by the plain, old-fashioned, garden-variety of football. That’s why I select Kenly; reserving an alibi, though, as set forth above.”
“Humph,” said Clem, when he had finished the article, “these newspaper sport writers are great guys to play it safe. This fellow just knows that Kenly is going to win—if! You’d think from the way he goes on that Kenly’s line hadn’t been shot more than once already. ‘Invulnerable’ he calls it. What about Lorimer? I suppose she didn’t get a touchdown against Kenly! And look at last Saturday’s game. Emmons scored twice, once by a pass from the ten-yard line and once from the field. If she found Kenly’s line invulnerable how the heck did she get within scoring distance? ‘Sporticus’ has his signals crossed!”
“Don’t be hard on the poor chaps,” said Imbrie. “They have to fill their columns somehow, old dear.”