Right Tackle Todd

by Ralph Henry Barbour

That ended Jim’s social activities for some time. There were no more birthday parties among Clem’s friends, but Clem tried on several occasions to get Jim to accompany him on visits to other rooms, and Jim thanked him and declined firmly. Clem called him a hermit.

Following the Lorimer game Jim’s services were called on daily. Sometimes he got into the scrimmage for only a handful of minutes, infrequently he worked through a whole period. He had survived the second and last cut and had taken his place on the squad as a second-string tackle. There was even the possibility, indeed the probability, of getting into the Kenly Hall game, for the roster of tackles included only three others: Roice, Sawyer and Mulford. Jim was the least experienced of the lot, and at this stage he knew perfectly well that so far as playing ability went he was a bad fourth. But he had hopes of becoming as good as Mulford, at least. In more optimistic moments he even saw himself rivaling Willard Sawyer, who was the present incumbent of the right tackle position. What he couldn’t imagine was ever equaling Roice. “Rolls” was almost the best lineman on the team. Only Captain Fingal was graded above him by popular opinion.

Jim had not only held the weight he had brought back with him but had added three pounds to it, and while, later on, he frequently dropped those three during a hard afternoon, he always found them again. Had Jim been more experienced he might well have wondered sometimes at being retained on the squad. He had played football but three weeks or so before the present season and had not during those three weeks shown much ability. He was at least six pounds lighter than the position called for, since Alton always presented a heavy line. In general appearance, he did not suggest the ideal tackle. But Jim had seen little football and so it didn’t occur to him that there was anything unusual in his choice as a tackle. Not a few amateur critics, however, declared that Todd might be end material but would never be of any value as a tackle. He didn’t have enough weight, they said, and what he had wasn’t distributed properly. Besides, who was he, anyway, and what had he ever done to get where he was?

But Coach Cade wasn’t making a very great mistake. If Jim was somewhat lacking in weight—he was nine pounds lighter than Rolls Roice, for instance—he possessed two other of the necessary qualifications of a good tackle, and might later show that he had a third. Weight he lacked, mental ability he had not shown, but physical speed and stamina he did have. He was fast developing into the speediest candidate for his position, and Coach Cade, who held speed in the deepest reverence, was ready to forgive him many shortcomings. Also, Jim had hard muscles, muscles developed in the open air and at a greater variety of strenuous tasks than most boys know, and he had endurance. You might tire Jim, but you couldn’t tire him out. At least, no one ever had. Jim’s father could tell you of walking sixty miles between daybreak and sundown in the old days of logging in Maine; and Jim looked a whole lot like his father! Coach Cade couldn’t know of the boy’s stamina yet, but he did suspect it, and as time went on he was able to indulge in not a little self-gratulation, which is pleasant even to a football coach.

Once having become thoroughly interested in the game, Jim learned about twice as fast as he had before. At first he accepted instruction without giving it much thought. Now he sought the reason for everything he was taught, found it and understood what he was doing and why. Jim liked to know the logic of what he undertook. If he couldn’t discover a reason for doing a thing he didn’t do it unless some one forced him to. Then he did it only half-heartedly. His rules book helped him a lot. There were books that would have explained many things to him and saved him much thought, but he didn’t know of them; and studying things out for himself doubtless made him remember them better. He amused Clem about this time—I am speaking of the week between the Lorimer and Southport games—by buying a football of his own and keeping it on the closet shelf. Several times daily he would take it down and handle it; drop it on the floor and catch it as it rebounded, place it on the floor and pick it up with one hand, his long fingers wrapping themselves about the end like—as Clem phrased it—a starfish on a quahog. Sometimes Clem would look up to find Jim with the ball poised in his right hand as if he meant to hurl it straight through the window, and always when he studied his rules book the brown leather spheroid was in his lap. Clem told him one evening, in mild protest, that he was sickening.

“You fondle that silly thing like it was a baby! What’s the idea, Jim?”

“Just want to—to get used to it,” replied Jim. “Want to know what I can do with it. You see, shaped like it is, you can’t handle it just like you can a round ball, Clem.”

“My word! Think of that! And you discovered that all by yourself, too, didn’t you?”

“Shut up,” said Jim, grinning. “Say, just stand over there and toss me a few, will you?”