Chapter XVI: One Minute to Play

On the following Monday evening a meeting of the team was called by Coach Dizney. When they gathered in the back room of the Blue Moon, the players found a blackboard hung upon the wall. Lines, circles, and arrows had been drawn upon the board.

“Next Saturday, as you all know,” the coach began, “we are to play Pitt Tech. And I’m giving you fair warning that we are up against a stiff proposition. Like the other teams we’ve played, they’re heavier than you are, ten or twelve pounds to the man. Worse than that they are fiends at breaking up forward passes. I’ve looked up their record for this year.

“So,” he paused, “so what shall we do?”

“New plays,” suggested Stagger Weed, the center.

“That’s it,” the coach smiled. “Newer, bigger, and better plays and trickier ones. Now here,” he turned to the board, “here is a play that’s a humdinger if you boys have the brains and the nerve to carry it through.”

“Yeah brains,” Punch Dickman laughed, “we check them in the class room before we pass out.”

“You better bring them along next Saturday,” the coach snapped back.

“Now this,” he began once more, “as you will see, as far as the line goes, is a balanced formation. The right half is behind his own tackle, full-back behind right guard two yards from line of scrimmage and left half three yards back behind center. Quarter is in regular position.

“Now,” he drew in a long breath, “the ball goes back to quarter. Right end and right tackle plunge ahead prepared to block any interference. The right half and center drop in to fill these places, to prevent a break through the line. The left half-back goes out about five steps directly to the right, then turns and starts back.

“Are you following me?” He did not wait for a reply. “When the quarter gets the ball he immediately faces left and the left end comes round like an end-around play. The quarter fakes giving him the ball but hugs it tightly to his noble breast. When the Pitt line has swung round after our left end, the quarter leaps to position and laterals the ball to Old Kentucky.”

“And Old Kentucky goes racing forward to a touchdown,” Rabbit Jones the right half breathed. “How sweet!”

“It’s a keen play,” Red Dynamite exclaimed. “If we only know it well enough.”

“You’re going to know it well enough!” the coach struck the table with his fist. “That one and two or three more as hard to learn and as swell to play, if only you know how. Will you do it?”

“Yea—yea—yea—” they exclaimed in unison.

“We’ve just got to do it!” Stagger said with solemn emphasis.

“And now the next play,” the coach wiped the board clean, drew more circles then started explaining a second trick performance.

All that week, sweating and toiling, working the old beans overtime, the team went through the business of acting out plays that in the beginning were confusing but in the end as natural and clear as the bright light of day.

More than once, during those gruelling hours as Johnny stood beside him watching, the coach turned to him with a smile to exclaim low:

“Good boy, Johnny! You sure found us a player. I never saw anything like the way that Kentucky boy takes in those new plays. Quick as a whip too! I suppose it’s his Kentucky breeding.”

“Sure is,” Johnny grinned. “There are times down there in the mountains when there are just two classes of people. The quick and the dead. The quick one gets his gun out from under his coat, the other just naturally goes to the cemetery. Kentucky’s grandfather was killed in a feud. His father had a silk handkerchief drawn through his chest once, where a bullet had gone first.”

“Whew!” the coach whistled, “No wonder he’s quick!”

Strangely enough, despite the coach’s warning, apparently disregarding all their trick plays, Dynamite, who was captain and called the plays, started the game with a series of forward passes. The first two were blocked. The third, almost a lateral pass, was good for a gain of five yards.

They punted, held the opposing team to a single first down, then, as the opposing team punted, began again with forward passes. The second of these was intercepted and, but for a lightning-like tackle by Old Kentucky—which brought the spectators to their feet—might have resulted in disaster.

“What’s the good?” Stagger grumbled. “Lose our shirt, first thing we know.” Dynamite made no reply.

Once again as they came into possession of the ball, the opposing team failed to gain. They tried for a field goal at forty yards. No good.

Hillcrest’s ball on their own twenty-yard line. Once more a pass. This time, by great good fortune, it was received by Dynamite who blasted his way down to the enemy’s forty-five-yard line.

After that more passes. Scarcely was the Hillcrest team in a huddle when a certain half-back began shouting: “Pass! Pass!”

Then something strange and startling happened. The team lined up and, as the ball was snapped, Kentucky, Artie Stark and Tony Blazes raced to receiving positions. The enemy, eager to block or intercept a pass swarmed after them.

But the ball was not passed. Just as Punch, the full-back, posed the ball for the throw, like a blackbird after a cherry, Dynamite seized it from behind, went sweeping away around left end which was all but deserted, bumped squarely into one lonesome Pitt player, sent him sprawling and romped away to a touchdown.

“Did you see that?” a letter-man of other days exclaimed. “The old Statue of Liberty play. And gloriously executed!”

“Glorious!” echoed his companions. “Say! These boys are making football history! And I’m told that more than half of them are working their way. Quite wonderful!”

“Wonderful and terrible,” was the other’s reply. “We old grads ought at least to furnish a training table, where they could eat without cost during the season anyway.”

The score, after the kick, stood 7-0. The boys were jubilant. They were playing a supposedly superior team and beating them.

That was the end to forward passes. All the passes that had gone before were in preparation for this one grand stroke. Now it should be something else.

The next play they tried was too difficult. Artie Stark was smeared for a loss of three yards. Worse still the ball bounced from his grasp and was pounced upon by the enemy.

After that, despite the team’s heroic efforts to block them, their heavy weight enemies battered their way to a touchdown. The kick was good. The first half ended a tie.

The Hillcrest team received the ball at the start of the second half. Punch Dickman carried it back to his own forty-yard line. When the team went into a huddle, Dynamite hissed two words that made them gasp: “Modified suicide!” This was all he said. It was enough. Every boy’s nerves tingled as they lined up for the play. It was a strange formation, five men to right of center, one, the end, at the left. Kentucky was in his usual position only two yards back. Rabbit Jones, the other half-back, was thirty yards out from the end of the line. Center and full-back crouched behind the line. Signals were to be called on this play.

Artie Stark was calling, “Six—ten—seven—ten—”

Dynamite was listening. Stagger Weed, big, a little too fat and very obviously the center, moved uneasily, but no one noticed this. As the last “ten” was called, Dynamite stepped in behind Stagger’s great bulk. Rabbit Jones moved forward to the line of scrimmage. Someone from the bleachers roared, “Forward pass!” He was right, more right than he knew.

The eyes of the opposing back field were on Rabbit Jones. “Six—seven—nine—eleven” Artie droned the numbers. The ball was snapped. It went to Punch, the full-back. He leaped to the right, took three backward steps, then threw the ball high and far, not to the right, but to the left. Not to Rabbit Jones, but to Stagger, the center. Stagger gathered the ball to his ample bosom then went lumbering like a freight train toward the distant goal. And why not? There was no one to stop him.

Then such a roar as went up from the Pitt side of the bleachers. How the Pitt team crowded around the referee.

“He’s their center!” they protested. “Their center! The center is not eligible to receive the ball.”

“You’re all wet,” was the good natured referee’s reply. “When the ball was snapped, there was no player at the left of center. That made him left end. And so-o—”

He did not finish. There was no need. The disconsolate Pitt players, wandered back to the line.

The kick was good. “Fourteen to seven,” Dynamite exulted. “If only we can hold it. And we must!”

They did not hold it, at least not for long. There is something about being totally deceived, that makes men see red. The Pitt men had been thoroughly tricked. They saw red, very red indeed. In the next five minutes they took the ball from Hillcrest, made three first downs, threw a long forward pass, then went over the line. The kick, however, went wild. They were still beaten unless—

The whistle blew for the end of the third quarter.

“We’ve got to hold ’em!” Dynamite muttered to Kentucky as they lay on the grass. “We’ve just got to.”

“Best way to do that is to better our lead,” was Kentucky’s courageous reply. “Remember how we went through left tackle?”

“Sure.”

“Try it again.”

Dynamite did try it again and with results he could not foresee.

The very first time Kentucky took the ball and Dynamite blasted him a trail, they went clean through the defense line of the enemy and were away. Then the fighting flight was on. Dynamite hit a husky opponent and sent him spinning. A second man appeared on the horizon. Dynamite took him on. He was big and powerful. Perhaps he fouled by holding, Dynamite did not quite know. At any rate they went down in a heap and Kentucky, the slim, fast-footed half-back sped on.

A vast shadow loomed before him—the opposing team’s safety man. Grinning, Kentucky sprang forward to offer him the ball.

Perhaps the giant had heard of this trick. Perhaps he was too dumb to want the ball. Whatever it may have been, he did not reach for the ball. Instead, he lammed straight at the slim youth. Kentucky was not quick enough. With an impact that could be heard all over the field, they went down in a heap. And Kentucky did not get up. Even when the referee took the ball from his hands, he did not stir. He was out for keeps.

“Poor Kentucky!” It was Jensie who spoke these words. She had seen it all and had come racing onto the field. It was she who directed the boys that picked him up, ever so gently, and carried him from the field.

Meantime the game went on. Football is the game of war. When a few wounded have been carried from the field, a battle does not stop.

It was a grim battle that followed. No one blamed that big full-back, not really, and yet—They must not win now. Pitt must not!

The crippled Hillcrest team battled hard but could not gain. They punted. Pitt carried the ball far into their territory. Two brilliantly executed passes by Pitt men brought the ball to the Hillcrest ten-yard line. One line buck and the distance to a touchdown was cut to five yards, one more line buck and a slim yard stood between Pitt and victory.

The Hillcrest bleachers were screaming: “Hold that line! Hold that line! Hold that line!” From the wall of blue on the opposite side came the words of a song: “Forward! Forward! March against the foe!”

Little more than one moment to play with the ball on Hillcrest’s one-yard line. It was a tense situation. Pitt went into a huddle, snapped out of it quickly, crouched like tigers, shuffled uneasily for ten seconds, then—the ball sped. Dynamite followed it with his eye. “There! There! There it is!” His muscles registered a sensation that may never have reached his brain.

The Pitt full-back had the ball—that same giant whose hurdling force had crushed poor, slender Kentucky. Dynamite bore him no grudge—it was all in the game. And yet—“It’s all for Old Kentucky!” he hissed as, straight as an arrow, he shot at the full-back. He struck him with the sudden, solid impact of a bullet. The ball leaped from the opponent’s hands. By some strange chance, it shot straight into the air. It came curving down into Artie Stark’s arms. Too astonished to believe in his luck, Artie started streaking down the field. Only one opponent half-heartedly followed. The moment was all for Artie. So too was the game for, a half minute after the play, the whistle blew and Hillcrest’s most exciting, most astonishing game was at an end.