A howl of derision went up. “Now we know you’re lying, George!” declared Sears.
“Maybe it’s Mr. Grayson,” sneered Bingham, and a laugh went up at that and the gathering broke up in better humor as the gong summoned them back to work.
As a matter of fact, the school at large did not learn the identity of the new coach that afternoon, for at nine o’clock that evening the candidate for the honor was still holding off. He sat in the little parlor of his home on E Street, a pair of crutches beside him, and listened doubtfully to the insistence of Lanny White, George Cotner and Gordon Merrick.
“There’s no use in your saying you can’t do it, Dick,” declared Lanny, “because you can. We understand that you don’t know football as well as Joe Farrell does, and of course you’ve never played it, but you do know a lot about it theoretically and you’ve followed the game for years. What we want is someone in authority, even if he doesn’t know everything and can’t get into togs himself, and you’re just the fellow, Dick. Every chap on the team would be tickled to death to take orders from you. Look at the way you had us crawling around on our tummies last summer when you managed the nine! Hang it, Dick, you’ve just got to do it! There’s no one else, I tell you!”
“Lanny’s right,” said George earnestly. “What we need is a fellow who can sort of sit up aloft, as it were, and see how things are going and tell us when we’re making mistakes. And we need to get up a plan of battle, too, work out a campaign. Why, as it is now, we’re just going along from game to game and trusting to luck. Lanny can’t play football and coach too.”
“Be a good fellow, Dick,” urged Gordon.
“I won’t deny,” replied Dick, “that I’d like to try it. As you say, I’ve never played the game, but I have watched it and I do know the rules and I have got theories. And—and maybe I could get the fellows to do what I say. But—well, look here, now; suppose I did take hold and my ideas of coaching a team proved all wrong and we came an awful cropper at the end of the season? After all, I’ve never done it and it would be a risky sort of an experiment, Lanny. My football may not be the sort that succeeds, you see.”
“We’ll risk it, Dick. And we’ll promise that whether we lick Springdale or get beaten we’ll never make a whimper.”
“But what about the other fellows?” asked Dick, with a smile.