They obtained adjoining lockers in the gymnasium and changed into football attire. Then, since they were early for practice, they snooped around the building, upstairs and down. The gymnasium was new and well appointed. The floor was large enough for two basketball games to be played at once, there was a good running track above, and, occupying the second story of the wing, a rowing room and two other apartments variously used for fencing, boxing, wrestling and possibly other sports. Underneath was a large baseball cage and a dressing room for visiting teams. The basement, which was half above ground and well lighted, held the lockers, a swimming pool, shower baths and the trainer’s quarters. On the main floor, near the front entrance, Mr. Babcock had his office.
There were numerous trophies to be viewed and a wealth of pictures hung about the halls and rooms, most of the latter group photographs of teams and crews of former years. Here and there, however, was to be seen a picture of a football game or a view of a crew race. “‘1919—Wyndham 16—Wolcott 0,’” read Tom. “Huh! ‘1917—Wyndham by Seven Lengths.’ Say, it’s a funny thing you can’t find any photographs where we were licked!”
“Well,” laughed Clif, “here’s a football game we only tied. ‘Wyndham 7—Wolcott 7,’ it says.”
“That must have got hung up by mistake! But it’s a pretty nifty gym, just the same. Let’s go and see what the field’s like.”
Wyndham School had almost outgrown its athletic field, but the fact wasn’t apparent to Clif and Tom as they left the gymnasium and started across the grass toward the football gridiron. The farther line of the school property was indicated by a soldierly array of tall poplars. Against them, almost directly across from the gymnasium, was a commodious concrete stand. The quarter-mile track was in front, inclosing the First Team gridiron. Another pair of goals, farther away, provided a field for the second squad, while what was known as the class field lay, somewhat cramped, behind the school halls. There were two diamonds, although in the fall the Second Team gridiron infringed on the more distant one. A brook flowed across one corner of the property and had been dammed to make a sizable pond well south of the running track. In winter the pond supplied skating facilities and sufficient surface for two rinks, but at other seasons its usefulness was not so evident. When the soccer team played on the small expanse of turf awarded to them the small punt now moored to a stake was occupied by some Junior School volunteer whose duty was to recover errant balls from the placid surface of the pond.
There was only a handful of candidates present when Clif and Tom reached the shade of the covered grandstand and the latter clumped their way to a couple of seats and awaited the beginning of practice. It was a warm afternoon, with but little air stirring, and, although Freeburg was set well amongst the lesser slopes of the Berkshires, that air was decidedly humid. Tom mopped his forehead with the sleeve of a brown jersey and then tried to fan himself with an ancient headguard. “Hope the coach doesn’t give us much to do,” he muttered. “It’s too hot for football.”
“You might suggest it to him,” answered Clif. “I guess that’s he now; the man in the white shirt.”
Tom looked and said he guessed so, too, but he didn’t leave his seat to offer the coach any advice. A more self-assured fellow than Tom would have hesitated to approach “G.G.” on any matter not vitally important. “G.G.’s” name was George G. Otis. Some said the second “G” stood for “Grumpy,” but it really didn’t. It stood for Gray. Mr. Otis wasn’t very large—Captain Dave Lothrop, beside him, was four inches taller and quite as wide of shoulders; and even the long trousers of faded gray flannel didn’t wholly conceal the fact that he was slightly bowlegged. But there was plenty of body there, and the fact that his legs weren’t quite straight hadn’t kept him from winning a fair share of fame as a plunging half not many years back. He hadn’t greatly distinguished himself while at Wyndham, but his subsequent career had been linked with two football teams by which all later teams at his college were judged. He had a rather bullet-shaped head, with thin hair of a faded brown, sharp eyes of a brown that wasn’t the least bit faded, a short nose a bit too flat for beauty, a mouth that closed tight and straight and an aggressive chin. On the whole he wasn’t an Apollo. But he knew a lot of football and could teach it to boys; and teaching football to boys is a different and much harder task than teaching it to men.
“G.G.” didn’t seek popularity, and so he won it. He was a hard taskmaster, could act the tyrant on occasion and had a sharp, harsh tongue. He insisted on absolute obedience and had been known to use drastic methods to enforce discipline. He was sometimes intensely disliked by those who didn’t share his views on the necessity for obedience. But he was fair, could laugh as heartily as any one, off the field, and never made the mistake, a too common one, of expecting boys of preparatory school age to think or perform like collegians. Best of all, perhaps, from the point of view of the School, was the fact that during his three years as coach at Wyndham his charges had won twice from Wolcott. That was almost enough to account for popularity, but I think that there was another reason for it. Boys have a respect for despotism and a liking for being firmly ruled just so long as they are certain that the despotism is just and the ruler is worthy. And as a despot George G. Otis would have satisfied the most demanding!