All-American (16 page)

Once more there was moisture in his eyes. Doggone, it’s cold, it’s awfully cold! What was he crying for? Keith and Eric and Tommy Gilmore would have roared. Certainly it was a good thing Meyer and Jim Stacey were at his elbow. It was the wind, the cold. Sure it was the wind.

But in his heart he knew it was not the cold. It was Tom LeRoy leaving his girl and it was the look on her face after the train pulled out that made tears come to his eyes.

When you win, when passes click, when the interference forms smoothly in front and you cut in for five, ten, twenty yards, when the sun shines and your girl’s sitting up there in the High School stands and the score mounts, yes, then football’s fun. That’s grand, that’s something like.

But this sort of thing wasn’t fun; it was agony. For almost the first time since he began playing football he longed to hear the sound of the whistle.

Of all days to have it rain, the day of the Academy game, the one day we want a good dry field and firm footing! The rain pelted down his neck, oozed into his shoes, made each pad a sodden lump of lead. He looked around. The 16-yard line! One more touchdown and we’ll be licked; surely, positively licked. Ruefully he remembered standing on the same spot and saying that same thing to himself before the second touchdown. And the third.

Then the whistle blew.

The team picked itself out of the mud and straggled across the mire into the gymnasium. Into the lockers and clean clothes; relief from that incessant pounding, a chance to rest, to stretch out quietly, to pull themselves together.

The familiar room was warm and dry; in one corner steam was hissing cheerfully from the pipes, and the sight of those little piles of fresh, clean clothes before every locker was comforting. They trooped in, sodden and dripping, saying nothing because there wasn’t much you could say, chucking their headgears across the benches in disgust, despondent and disappointed. 19-0. What could anybody say about that kind of a score? To think this was the team that had been talked of as possibly playing an Intersectional game!

“Ok, boys.” The coach brought up the rear, slamming the door on an especially severe gust of wind and rain. If he was distressed by the upset he showed no evidence of it. “Ok now, boys, get those clothes right off. Mike! Give us a hand here. Goldman, I’ll fix that cut up over your eye. Doc, take a look at Jake’s leg.”

They hauled off their clothes, wet, soggy, disagreeable to touch, and dropped them to the floor. A small pool of water immediately collected about each pile. Mike and the Doc and the assistant coaches went around rubbing them down, repairing them for the second half. Ah, that’s good. Good to be stretched out and relaxed on the hard board while Mike assailed you with the coarse, dry towel. But that score, 19-0. Gee, that’s terrible, you can’t laugh that off. And we were the team mentioned in the papers as going south to play Miami High. Sure, in all the newspapers!

Slowly they dressed once more. Dry socks, underwear, supporters, pads, pants, jerseys, and shoes. There. That’s better. That’s something like. The coach came past and slipped to the bench where Ronny was leaning over to tie his shoelaces.

“Ronald!” His voice was low. “What seems to be the trouble out there this afternoon?”

Ronny knew perfectly well what the trouble was but he didn’t like to say. So he just kept leaning over his shoes. When he didn’t answer, the coach continued in a low voice. “I know it’s wet out there; this kind of weather hurts the T-formation the worst way. But from the bench it kinda looks as if the boys aren’t together.”

Nope, we surely aren’t together. Of course we aren’t together; how can we be together when some of the crowd are set on something beside winning a football game? That’s what he wanted to say, tried almost to say as loud as he could; but it refused to come out. He mumbled something about the bad weather, the storm, the wet ball, the footing.

The coach rose. He clapped his hands. The squad gathered about, everyone’s hair still wet and damp. Behind in the rear Mike passed with an armful of soaking uniforms and equipment.

“Boys, this weather is certainly tough. No use talking. I recognize what you are up against out there. The T-formation needs good firm ground to be effective. But I still feel somehow you’re better’n what you’ve shown, and I’ve still got confidence in you to win, yes, even with this score. I have confidence, that is, if you’ll only get going. Nineteen points a lot? Sure. But the test of a player is what he can do when he’s tired. This half go out and play the kind of ball you can.”

Then they were outside, out in that deluge once more. Across the way the Academy stands rose in a roar as Keith led his team at the same moment onto the field. Over the end zone was the scoreboard with those dreadful figures staring at them:

H.S. 0    Visitors 19.

The ball was low, and from his position Ronald could watch the backs of his teammates converge on the runner, on Keith, no, on Heywood. That big halfback, heavy, powerful, fast, had been slashing holes in their line all afternoon. In the mud and slime he seemed impossible to stop, and Ronny himself had tackled him half a dozen times.

The teams lined up. Heywood took the ball once more for a sizable gain. But Ronald was noticing something else; he was watching Mike and two others break through and pile up on Keith. It was what they’d been doing ever since the kick-off. To his astonishment some of his teammates hadn’t forgotten Goldman’s injury of the previous season. They were still trying to pay Keith for his share in it.

There’s a guy we don’t like, so we’ll bang him off at the start. This was their attitude. Ronny knew what they didn’t seem to know, that Keith could take it. All the time they were attempting to bang him off, Steve Ketchum and Heywood had plowed through for those touchdowns.

Once again Heywood sliced into the line and out into the secondary. He was nearly clear before he slipped and fell. That’s a break, that is. On the next play they made a first down, and then Keith got loose off tackle, his most dangerous run. It was Ronny who, seeing the danger on that sloppy field, managed to knock him outside after a thirty-yard gain. He picked himself up, now as wet and soggy as he had been at the end of the first half.

“C’mon, gang, get in there, get in there and play ball like you can, will ya? Block that end, Mike, watch him every minute; get in low, Jake.”

But slowly, surely, steadily, the Academy came toward their goal, toward a fourth touchdown, toward the worst licking the High School had ever taken. Keith charged in low and hard between Vic and Don Westcott who alone seemed to be holding up the center of the line, playing a magnificent defensive game. Don slapped at him and threw him off his stride as Ronny came running up. The whole play was clear before him. Keith with one arm out, stumbling in the mud; Mike and Dave rushing in hard to fall on him so that if he wasn’t knocked out he’d at least know he’d been hit. It made Ronald furious. He closed in, determined not to permit them to get away with it, to block off Dave anyway. He did block him off, and as he did so Mike accidentally slipped and hit him on the chin with the full force of his fist.

He saw stars. When he came to they were standing around in the mud. Doc Roberts was leaning over, wiping his face and holding smelling salts under his nose.

“I’m ok, Doc.” He rose unsteadily, feeling dizzy, tried to step out a little, managed to trot a few steps. “I’m ok.” But he was not ok, and he was mad clean through. This had to end. One thing or the other. They’d have to quit and play ball—or he would.

“Cm here, gang. This way. Look. This has gotta stop. It’s gotta stop or I quit. If you guys don’t lay off that bird, I’ll leave the field, here, right now, and I’ll tell Coach why. C’mon, gang, what say, gang, let’s go. Let’s forget that stuff. Let’s get together, let’s play against that crowd there, not against each other.”

“You’re dead right, Ronald!” Jim Stacey, adjusting his headgear, stepped in toward the center. “Listen, you guys, lay off that fella from now on and play ball. I’ve been watching you, and Ronny’s quite right. We’ve been playing against each other, not together. Let’s all shoot together for the team.”

“Ok, Jim.”

“All right, Jim-boy.”

“Sure, let’s go, gang.”

“Yeah, let’s go.”

“All right now, get in there, you guys.”

The whistle blew. The teams lined up. Ronald looked around. He was standing on the 8-yard line!

It was raining harder than ever. The Academy leaned over the ball. It was snapped to Heywood, who for the first time started a fraction of a second too soon. The ball was over his shoulder, he stabbed at it, deflected it in the air. A wet figure dashed past and snatched at it in the mist. He had it. Never missing a stride he was five yards down the field before anyone turned.

“Go on, Ned, go on, Ned-boy, for Pete’s sake, go on. Don’t slip, Ned, go on, Ned!”

The two teams picked themselves up out of the mud and streamed along behind him, but the fleet colored boy gained with every stride.

“Yeah, team! Team, team, team. Yeah, team!” The cymbals clashed and clanged from the High School side of the field. The first chance they had had to cheer since the kick-off.

Now then, we’re moving. We’re really moving. For the rest of the third quarter the teams slithered up and down the center of the gridiron, both Keith and Ronald punting and handling that juicy sphere as if it were dry and easy to hold. Somehow they managed to cling to the thing.

Then toward the end of the quarter the High School team got moving. A quarterback sneak was good for a long gain. On the Academy 30-yard line, however, they were held for two plays. Third and six. They went into their huddle.

“Ok, gang. 39 on 5 count.” He was winded, he puffed hard. This was Meyer’s play. They went into formation.

“Hike. 27... 38... 40... hike...” He leaned over, his hand on Don’s wet rump. The ball came and for once the play was perfectly executed. He faked with his empty left hand to Jake, the halfback, and then in the same motion tucked the ball in Meyer’s stomach, continuing back himself as if he were about to throw a pass.

Meyer roared off Roger Treadway’s end into the secondary, he bounced off Steve, straightarmed Rex Heywood, and carried Keith along on his back almost five yards. The High School stands were jumping, shrieking, yelling.

Then someone shouted. Over to the left in clear territory a figure lay in the wet. Jim had gone down on the play to fake catching a possible forward and draw in one of the defensive backs in their 5-4-2 alignment. Doing so he had turned, slipped, and fallen in the open. When Ronny reached him a group of players was huddled round and he was writhing in agony on the ground.

The Doc rushed up, shoving them aside. He knelt down in a puddle, began feeling of the thigh, the leg, the calf, the ankle.

“Ouch!” Jim jerked up. “Ow... that hurts... ow...”

The Doc beckoned to the sidelines. “You lay still, young man. Lay still now, don’t move.”

Silence came over the field, and Ronny could hear them from the stands. “It’s Jake... naw... it’s Perry... no, he’s up, there... it’s Jim Stacey.”

Two managers ran out with a stretcher. They rolled him over, protesting. Ronny saw he was in acute pain. On the bench Jack Train, his substitute, leaned over toward the coach. Then they were carrying Jim from the field.

The team stood disconsolately in the rain. Aw, shoot! Shucks, don’t we get the breaks against us! How’s that for rotten luck! First this stinking lousy weather. Then we lose our captain, the key of our passing attack, the man who was our best pass catcher.

Jack Train came running on, adjusting his dry headgear. His uniform was unsoiled, his hands were fresh and clean. Ronny looked at him almost with disgust. Heck! What good is he? Couldn’t catch a dry ball at ten feet. What use is he on a day like this?

They tried a play. Then another. Something had gone, the mainspring of their nervous energy had snapped, there was no punch left. Baldy was a bear on scouting other teams, and Ronald well knew they’d been told that with Stacey out the High School’s passing attack wasn’t to be feared. He saw the defensive halfback in one zone slide up. Ideal for a pass if only he had a receiver.

Looking over the situation he called for a fake split buck-end run with Jake carrying the ball. But they were waiting, and although Meyer blocked out the defensive end, the halfbacks smeared the play for a small gain. Third and nine! Shoot! Just as we were rolling, too. That’s lousy luck all right. Then he heard a voice at his elbow as they went into the huddle. It was Ned, who never raised his voice, who never spoke unless you spoke to him first—Ned, who was the best defensive end in the State but never carried the ball.

“Ronny. Lemme have a look at that thing. Shoot me that flat pass up the center. I b’lieve I kin hang on to that thing.”

Why not? They were stopped now. Why not have a try at it? “Ok, gang. Number 46 on 4. Got it, everyone?” He looked round at their muddy faces, heard their panting, saw their affirmative nods. “C’mon now. Formation T. 46 on 4. Hike. 27-38-40-39... hike...” He leaned over, patting Don on his wet back. Here it comes!

Taking the ball, he turned and scuttled to the rear. Careful. Keep your balance. Watch your feet now. Both defensive halfbacks anticipating a thrust at the line had sneaked up, and Ronald, as he’d been coached, shot the flat pass over their heads into empty territory. Like lightning Ned was there, cutting in with a swerve and taking that greasy thing in midair on the dead run. He had it! Doggone, he had it! He was off. Ronald could see nothing more, for he himself was buried under a swarm of resentful tacklers.

He didn’t need to see. When he shook himself free and got the mud out of his eyes, Ned was standing beneath the goal posts and the umpire had his hands high in the air.

Another touchdown. 19-13.

You can’t keep a good gang down! The band blared, squeaky noises came from the brasses, but the cheering drowned everything. Yeah, team! Team, team! Watch it, Meyer. Watch it, boy; watch that kick, it’s terribly important. He remembered the coach’s words as the ball was snapped back to Bob who always held it for Meyer. Give Meyer a chance, and he’ll come through. He’s only missed two out of the last fourteen tries.