When the hundreds of Hillcrest enthusiasts saw the slim Kentucky boy rise from his place on the bench, throw himself through a series of wild antics to set his blood racing, then walk quietly to his place behind the line, a strange silence came over them. This lasted for some twenty seconds then, like the coming of a wind storm in summer, there arose a sound that increased second by second until at last it filled all the sky. Speaking of it long after, Punch Dickman said it made his ears tingle. “It was a sign,” he added. “A sure sign of victory.”
But was it? At the start things went badly. Three line-bucks failed. The punt that followed shot straight into the air. Rabbit almost retrieved the ball, but failed. Fighting like tigers, the Naperville boys battled their way to Hillcrest’s twenty-yard line.
As Dynamite scanned the faces of his men, he read their dogged determination, but something else—a note of despair. Kentucky was not like that. He was smiling. His eyes shone. His lips were parted. He was murmuring something. Dynamite listened. What he heard sounded strange: “It’s a wet day. Somebody’s going to drop the ball.”
Then the thing happened. On a third down, the opposing team tried a forward pass. It struck the receiver’s hands, seemed to rest there a split second, then went spinning into the air. When it next came to rest, it was in Kentucky’s hands. Like a rushing prairie fire he streaked down the side line for the far away goal. Once again, in his own mind, he was in old Nicodemus’ pen. It was moonlight. A shadow approached him, a Naperville man. Flash! He was past that shadow. Another, another, and another. Flash, flash, flash, he was past them all. Two tall, slim shadows stood out before him—the goal posts. Flash, he was past them as well. Then, with a deafening roar in his ears, he came to rest standing up. A touchdown for Hillcrest. The kick was good. The score was tied.
“We can’t let it stand there,” Kentucky said tensely as Dynamite came up. “We must not!”
“You’re wonderful, Kentucky,” his team mate whispered. “But think if only one of them had hit you!”
“Dynamite,” the Kentucky boy whispered to his running mate, “I had three uncles in the great war. Only one came back. Do you think they asked themselves about machine gun bullets and shells? Football is war, Dave.
“Besides,” he added, “they can’t get me. Nobody can. Even old Nicodemus couldn’t.”
The battle was begun once more. Enheartened, Dynamite took a chance. He put his team through that five-men-back formation. Somehow it failed. The tackle was thrown for a loss. Doggedly determined, he tried again. One more loss. Third down and seventeen to go. A punt and the enemy had the ball.
By four brilliant forward passes Naperville carried the ball back to Hillcrest’s ten-yard line.