Left Half Harmon

by Ralph Henry Barbour

  CHAPTER VII

  IN THE COACH'S ROOM

  Whether the comedy was good or not, it at least evoked much laughter,and was followed by a thrilling "big picture" that worked Willard toa pitch of excitement that lasted until he was out on State Streetagain. They ran into Mr. Cade in front of the theater and he fell intostep with them as they walked back toward the Green. He and Joe andBob talked about the show, while Martin and Willard followed behindand listened. At West Street Bob proposed drinks, and they crossed toThe Mirror and sat about a tiny table and drank colorful concoctionsthrough paper straws. The coach rather surprised Willard by displayingpositive enthusiasm for his tipple, which, as near as Willard coulddetermine, contained a little of everything that could come out of theglistening taps! Willard was a little bit too much in awe of the coachto feel quite at ease, and his contributions to the conversation werefew and brief. Not that the talk was very erudite, however, for Bobtalked a good deal of nonsense and Mr. Cade certainly didn't oppressthem with a flow of wisdom. On the contrary, he laughed at Bob a gooddeal and said one or two funny things himself, things at which Willardlaughed a bit constrainedly, not being certain that it was right togreet anything a head football coach said with levity. At Schuyler HighSchool the coach had been a most dignified and unapproachable martinetof whom everyone stood in admiring awe!

  When they went out Bob leaned carelessly across the counter andinstructed the young lady with the enormous puffs over her ears to "putthat down to me, please." Willard, following the others out, reflectedthat, while trading on a cash basis might be wiser, one missed manyfine moments by not having a charge account! (This, perhaps, is agood place to explain that the expression "fine moments" was widelycurrent at Alton that term. Like many other expressions, its origin wasa mystery, and, like them, its vogue grew by leaps and bounds untileven the freshmen were having their "fine moments" and Mr. Fowler, inEnglish 7, prohibited its use in themes.)

  Near the end of State Street, with the lights on the Green gleamingthrough the trees ahead, Mr. Cade proposed that the boys pay him avisit, and Willard found himself turning in at a little white gate.The old green-shuttered Colonial mansion on the corner was one ofseveral houses standing across from the Green that had at one time oranother, sometimes as a gift, sometimes by purchase, become Academyproperty. This particular mansion was occupied by three of the marriedfaculty members and, in turn, by the football and baseball coaches.Mr. Cade's apartment was on the lower floor, at the right, two huge,high-ceilinged rooms separated by what had once been a pantry but wasnow a dressing and bathroom. The furnishings were comfortable butplain, and in the front room a generous grate eked out the efforts ofa discouraged furnace. Tonight, however, the sight of the fireplacebrought no pleasurable thrill. Instead, it was the four big, wide-openwindows that attracted the visitors. Those in front opened on anarrow veranda set with tall white pillars, those on the side shedthe light of the room onto a maze of shrubbery and trees beyond whichthe illumined windows of the dormitories twinkled. There was a bigtable in the center of the living-room littered with books and writingmaterials, smoking paraphernalia, gloves, a riding crop, a camera, ablue sweater and many other things, a fine and interesting hodgepodgethat Willard, pausing beside it, viewed curiously. The object thatengaged his closest attention, though, was a board about thirty inchessquare. It was covered with green felt on which at intervals of an inchwhite lines crossed. On the margins were figures: "5," "10," "15," andso on up to "50." Stuck at random into the board were queer littlecolored thumb-tacks, twenty-two in all. Half of them were gray and halfof them were red, and each held letters: "L. H.," "R. G.," "L. E.," andso on. Willard was still studying the board, its purpose slowly dawningon him, when Mr. Cade spoke.

  "Looking at my 'parlor gridiron,' Harmon?" he asked. "Nice littleplaything, isn't it?" He came to Willard's side and lifted the boardfrom the table. "I made it myself, and I'm sort of proud of it, forI'm all thumbs when it comes to doing anything with my hands. Eachof the inch lines represents five yards, do you see? And I use thesethumb-tacks for the players. It's rather a help when it comes tostudying out a play; although I acknowledge that I can get on fasterwith the back of an envelope and a pencil stub!"

  "I think it's awfully clever," said Willard admiringly. "It's just halfa field, though, isn't it, sir?"

  "That's all; from the goal-line to the fifty-yard-line. That's allthat's needed, you see. Want to play with it?" The coach laughed andwheeled a deep-seated rep-covered armchair to the table. "Sit down andbe comfortable," he added. Willard subsided embarrassedly into thechair, still holding the miniature gridiron. Joe and Bob were seatedby one of the side windows--what breeze there was came from the westthis evening--and Martin and the coach shared an old-fashioned sofanearby. Willard, listening to the talk, began to set the thumb-tacks inplace along the thirty-yard-line. Presently he had become so interestedin arranging a forward-pass defense for the gray tacks that he hadforgotten all about the others. He wasn't quite certain that the Gray'sends should play all the way up into the line, and he set them backhalf the distance to the next white mark. Then he concluded that thepass would be made by that suspicious-looking red tack labeled "L. H."and that it would go to one of the red ends. Consequently, he advancedthe gray ends up to the line once more, but a trifle further out, sothat they might cut in quickly and spoil the throw. After that hepulled the Gray's quarter-back in another yard or two, chancing thatthe ball would not go more than fifteen yards. Then there was nothingto do but wait for the play, and, since it didn't materialize, he setthe board back on the table and gave his attention again to the others.

  "Two years ago," Mr. Cade was saying, "there were five of us in herefor almost a week: Levington and Sproule and Jack Tanner-- Who was thechap helped coach the tackles that year, Myers? Do you remember? Tallfellow who wore spectacles and--"

  "Clarke, sir? No, I know! Salters!"

  "That's right! Salters! He was a good hand and I'd like to get him backagain this fall. Well, there were five of us, I remember, and we werebunked all over the place; three of us in the bedroom and two of us inhere. We had rather a good time, but no one got much sleep. I rememberthe night before the Kenly game we sat up until nearly three o'clock.Our left tackle, Gadsden, had sprained his ankle that day; someonepushed him coming out of Academy; and we had to make over the wholeplan of battle. Gadsden, you'll remember, was our long punter and we'dmapped out a kicking game. To make things worse, it began to rain andsleet that evening, and we'd looked for a dry field. We certainly hadour hands full that night. It was Levington who suggested pulling theguards out and using them on end runs, and we won on those plays. Yousee our backfield was pretty light and the wet field slowed them up.You played awhile in that game, didn't you, Myers, toward the end?"

  "Yes, for three or four minutes. I was in when we made our secondscore. We dumped their end and Morgan shot around for four yards andthe touchdown."

  "That's right. It looked like a tie game until near the end. Kenly hada man who could boot a wet ball forty yards every time and we had noone to meet him with. But we certainly wore her ends to a frazzle. Sheused three pairs before she got through! It was nothing but fight anddetermination that won that game, fellows. On paper we figured aboutseventy per cent to their one hundred before the start. They had uslicked, but they didn't know it, and we never told them!"

  "What about this year, sir?" asked Martin.

  "How many snowstorms are we going to have in January?" asked the coachlaughingly. "It's rather too early for predictions, Proctor. But forall I can see now we've got a better show than we had two years ago,and we licked her then. We're certainly going to be in better shapethan last year."

  "We've got to find a full-back," said Joe dubiously.

  "Yes, and a new tackle and maybe an end. But we'll do it. There's a lotof good material to pick from this year."

  "I suppose you've heard, sir, that Kenly's got that fellow Timmons whoplayed left end on Millwood High last season," said Bob.

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p; "No, is that so? Is he good?"

  "They say so. Funny thing we don't seem to catch any of the stars, Mr.Cade."

  "We don't want them, Newhall. Stars are uncertain things. They havea mean way of going out unexpectedly! I'd rather have a bunch ofsatellites to work with and turn out my own stars!"

  The others laughed, but Bob shook his head, not altogether convinced."That's all right, sir, but you'd think we'd get more good playershere. It isn't as if Alton was a small school or a punk one. Of coursethose fellows with big reputations don't always pan out when you getthem, but, just the same, I'd like to see some of them head this waynow and then!"

  "I dare say it wouldn't hurt," agreed the coach. "But, fellows, thelonger I stick at this coaching game the more convinced I am thatwhen it comes to the last analysis it isn't plays or players thatwin games; it's _spirit_! Take eleven corking men, each one a masterof his position, and get them so that they play together like awell-oiled machine, and then run them up against a team of ordinaryplayers without much team-work or anything else except a great, big,overwhelming desire to win, and what happens three times out of four?Why, that inferior team wins! She may make mistakes, she may playragged ball, but grim determination and fight and _spirit_ get herthere! You see it happen all the time. I can tell you of twenty gameswhere the best team was beaten just because, while she wanted to win,she didn't want to win _hard_ enough!"

  "Yes, sir, I guess that's so," agreed Joe. "And I guess it's a loteasier to teach a team to play good football than it is to put theright spirit in them."

  "Of course it is! You've got to begin with the School, Myers, and workdown to the team. If the School hasn't got the right spirit, the teamwon't have it. And that's why I try to get as many fellows out forfootball at the beginning of the year as I can. Or, at least, it's onereason. Interest a fellow, no matter how little, in the team, andhe'll believe in it and work for it. Even if a fellow comes out onlyto be dropped three or four days later, he's 'smelled leather' and henever quite forgets it. He thinks well of his more successful companionwho has made good, even though he may be secretly envious of him, andthe team and its success means a lot more to him than it does to thechap who has never had anything to do with it. The team that feels theSchool behind it works hard and loyally and, when the big test comes,fights like the very dickens! And it's fight that wins football games,just as it's fight that wins battles. And that's that!"

  Mr. Cade ended with a little laugh that seemed to apologize for hisvehemence, but none of his listeners joined in it. After a momentMartin said: "There's a little school they call Upton Academy near myhome, Mr. Cade. It has only about a hundred and twenty students, Isuppose, and more than half of 'em are girls. But they meet teams frombigger schools and beat them right along. One of the teachers coachesthem and the girls go with them and cheer like mad and they wipe up thewhole county!"

  "I guess it's spirit in that case," said the coach. "And maybe thegirls have a lot to do with it. Ever notice what a deal of fightingspirit girls show? First thing we know--or our children know--thegirls will be playing real football. And when they do, fellows, lookout!" Mr. Cade chuckled at his direful prediction.

  A little later the boys arose to go and Mr. Cade, moving to the table,took up the felt-covered board and looked at it curiously. "Defensefor forward-pass, eh, Harmon?" he said. "Which of these red fellows ismaking the toss?"

  "I don't know, sir," answered Willard. "I was playing the Gray's end ofit. But I figured that left half-back was throwing to an end."

  The others gathered around to see and Mr. Cade looked speculatively atWillard for a moment before he smiled and laid the board back on thetable. "I'd pull my ends in further in that case," he said, "and bringthem nearer the play. What position are you after?"

  "Half-back, sir."

  "I see. Well, it's an interesting job, half-back's. Lots of chance forinitiative there. Quick thinking, too. Well, good night, fellows. Dropin again some evening. I'm generally home."