“Oh, I don’t think that of Joe,” answered Dick, shaking his head. “Joe was always terribly loyal to Clearfield, George. Besides, he could easily have told the Committee if he thought he wasn’t getting enough salary.”
“Yes, and the Committee would have told him that he was getting all the school could afford to pay him. Well, I don’t know anything about it, more than I’ve been told, but that idea occurred to me. Lanny’s worried stiff about it. He’s had three different men on the string and not one of them has been landed. Two wouldn’t think of the job at the salary and the third had never done any football coaching. That was Bert Cable’s man, a fellow over in Bridgeport named Mooney. I guess we’d been moony if we’d taken him. It’s tough on Lanny, though. He’s trying to look after three squads at once and doesn’t really know what to do with any of them. And now Grayson is making a talk about getting along without any coach at all! And some of the grads on the Committee are more than half agreed with him. They say we haven’t much money and what we have we ought to use in fixing the field up and building a new grandstand. Wouldn’t that jar you? Fancy trying to turn out a winning eleven without a coach! And this is our year to beat Springdale—if we’re ever going to do it again.”
George Cotner scowled across the gridiron a moment and then continued with his grievance. “We’ve got pretty fair material this year, too, Dick, and we ought to come out on top, especially if Morris Brent comes around in good shape and turns out the drop-kicker and punter he threatened to be last year. But we ought to have a good coach to look after him. Lanny’s afraid to let him practice for fear something will happen to his bum leg again, and afraid to keep him out of practice for fear he won’t get in shape for Springdale. Even if Lanny could coach the First Team, there ought to be someone to look after the others. There’s the Scrub down there running around like chickens with their heads off, going through signals when they ought to be handling the ball and learning the a, b, c’s. Harry Partridge is trying to captain them, but he doesn’t know anything about it. He’s a good guard, but he’s never had any responsibility and he’s terribly unhappy right now. Besides, hang it all, we ought to be mapping out a campaign. But when I tell Lanny that he looks wild and runs his hands through his hair and says he has all he can attend to without bothering with plans. Why, if we had——”
But Manager Cotner’s speech was rudely interrupted by a football which, wandering erratically off the field, collided violently with the small of his back. By the time he had chased it and returned it at a round-arm throw to Pete Robey he had lost the thread of his discourse. The Scrub Team trotted past at that moment and Dick answered the waving hand of Gordon Merrick who was playing right half on that eleven.
“Want to see you after practice,” called Gordon. “Don’t go away. Important!”
“Me, too!” shouted Will Scott. “I want a ride home just as much as he does, Dick!”
Dick laughed and turned again to George Cotner who was ruffling the leaves of the red-covered memorandum book he carried. “It seems to me,” he said, “that some one of the graduates ought to come out and coach.”
“Sure, but there aren’t any; any who know football well enough to teach it, I mean. And that isn’t all, either. A coach has got to know how to get the work out of the fellows, and he’s got to be able to plan like a—like a regular planner, and scheme like a regular schemer. Take Joe Farrell, now. Joe isn’t exactly a brainy fellow, and he isn’t what you’d call well-educated, but, by Jove, Joe used to have the whole season all mapped out long before practice began. When he started he knew just what he was going to work for, and he worked for it. And got it—usually.”
“Oh, he was all right,” Dick agreed. “Wish he was coming back. I suppose, though, if he does come it’ll be too late for this season. Do you mean, George, that there isn’t a high school graduate in Clearfield able to coach the team? It doesn’t sound possible.”
“Well, name one! Name one and I’ll go and fetch him out here. All the good players have gone away, I guess. Lanny and I got a catalogue the other day and went through the alumnæ and couldn’t find a football man in the lot; no one we knew anything about, anyway. Of course, we might get some of the fellows who are in college to come back for a few days at a time and help, but that wouldn’t cut much ice. No, sir, you’ve got to have someone in charge, someone at the head. Even if he doesn’t know an awful lot of football he’s there; if you see what I mean.”