On Your Mark! A Story of College Life and Athletics. Barbour Ralph Henry
month the spell had broken, and a week of hard, driving rain succeeded the bright weather. Until then Allan had spent almost every afternoon on the cinder-track, running the half mile at good speed, doing the mile and a half inside his time, occasionally practising sprinting, and, once a week, jogging around until he had left nine laps behind him and had covered a quarter of a mile over his distance.
For by this time Kernahan had decided that the two-mile event was what he was cut out for, but promised him, nevertheless, that at the indoor athletic meeting, in February, he should be allowed to try both the mile and the two miles. The trainer’s instruction had already bettered Allan’s form; his stride had lost in length and gained in speed and grace until it became a subject for admiring comment among the fellows.
The Purple, in an article on Fall Work of the Track Team Candidates, hailed “Ware ’07” as “a most promising runner, and one who has improved rapidly in form since the Fall Handicaps until at present he easily leads the distance men in that feature. It is Mr. Kernahan’s intention,” concluded the Purple, “to develop Ware as a two-miler, since this year, as in several years past, there is a dearth of first-class material for this distance.”
But the rains put an end to the track work, as they put an end to all outdoor activities save football, and training was practically dropped by the candidates. On three occasions, when the clouds temporarily ceased emptying themselves onto a sodden earth, the middle and long distance candidates were sent on cross-country jogs and straggled home at dusk, very wet and muddy, and much out of temper. A week before Thanksgiving the sky became less gloomy and a sharp frost froze the earth till it rang like metal underfoot.
It was on one such day, a Saturday, that the Robinson freshman football team came to town and, headed by a brass band, marched out to the field to do battle with the Erskine youngsters. The varsity team had journeyed from home to play Artmouth, and consequently the freshman contest drew the entire college and town, and enthusiasm reigned supreme in spite of the fact that a Robinson victory was acknowledged to be a foregone conclusion.
Allan and Tommy Sweet watched the game from the side lines; Tommy, with note-book in hand, darting hither and thither from one point of vantage to another, and Allan vainly striving to keep up with him. The latter had gained admission beyond the ropes by posing as Tommy’s assistant; the assistance rendered consisted principally of listening to Tommy’s breathless comment on the game.
“Oh, rotten!” Tommy would snarl. “Two yards more!.. Oh; perfectly rotten!.. See that pass? See it? What? Eh, what?.. Now, watch this! Watch – What’d I say? Good work, Seven!.. Now, that’s playing!.. Third down and one to – What’s that? Lost it? Lost nothing! Why, look where the ball is! How can they have lost – Hey! how’s that for off-side? Just watch that Robinson left end; look! See that?.. Three yards right through the center! What was Burley doing?.. Well, here goes for a touch-down. There’s no help now!.. Another yard!.. Two more!.. Did they make it? Did they?.. Hi-i-i! Our ball!”
It was a very pretty game, after all, and when the first half ended with the score only 5 to 0, in the visitors’ favor, Erskine’s hope revived, and during the intermission there was much talk of tying the score, while some few extremely optimistic watchers hinted at an Erskine victory. Considering the fact that the purple-clad team was twelve pounds lighter than its opponent, this was a good deal to expect, and Tommy, a fair example of conservative opinion, declared that the best he looked for was to have the second half end with the score as it then stood. But a good many guesses went wrong that afternoon.
Erskine had played on the defensive during the first half, and when, after receiving Robinson’s kick-off, she punted the ball without trying to run it back, it seemed that she was continuing her former tactics. The punt was a good one and was caught on Robinson’s thirty-yard line. The Brown accepted the challenge and returned the kick. It went to Erskine’s forty-five yards. Again Poor punted, and the ball sailed down to the Brown’s fifteen yards, where it was gathered into a half-back’s arms. Erskine had gained largely in the two exchanges of punts, and her supporters cheered loudly, while Robinson, realizing discretion to be the better part of valor, refrained from further kicking and ran the ball back ten yards before she was downed.
And then, as in the first period of play, she began to advance the pigskin by fierce plunges at the Erskine line. But now there was a perceptible difference in results, a difference recognized by the spectators after the first two attacks. Robinson wasn’t making much headway. Twice she barely made her distance; the third time she failed by six inches and, amidst cheering plainly heard on the campus, Erskine took the ball on her opponent’s twenty-five yards. The first plunge netted a bare yard, yet it carried the ball out of the checker-board, and a line-man dropped back. Tommy set up a shout.
“It’s Burley! They’re going to play him back of the line!”
There was no doubt about it’s being Burley. He loomed far above the rest of the backs, and even when, his hands on the full-back’s hips, he doubled himself up for the charge, he was still the biggest object on the field. The stands danced with delight.
So far there had been no hint of the big right guard taking part in the tandem attacks; in fact, his presence on the team was doubtful until the last moment, for Burley’s development as a football player had been discouragingly slow, in spite of his weight and strength and cheerful willingness. Even yet he possessed only a partial understanding of the game. He did what he was told to do, and did it as hard as he knew how; that constituted the extent of his science. The stands composed themselves, and breathless suspense reigned. Poor’s shrill pipe was heard reeling off the signals, and then —
Then the advance began.
Robinson had played hard every moment of the first thirty-five minutes, and she had played on the offensive. Erskine had played hard too, but her playing had been defensive. To attack is more tiring than to repel attack, and now what difference there was in condition was in Erskine’s favor. Her defensive tactics were suddenly abandoned, and from that moment to the final whistle she forced the fighting every instant of the time.
Peter Burley was, to use Tommy’s broken, breathless words, “simply great.” He knew little or nothing about line-plunging. He didn’t do any of the things coaches instruct backs to do. He merely waded into and through the opponents, without bothering his head with the niceties of play. If the hole was there, well and good; he went through it and emerged on the other side with half the Robinson team clinging to him. If the hole wasn’t there, well and good again; he went through just the same, only he didn’t go so far. But there was always a good gain – sometimes a yard, sometimes two, sometimes three or four.
When the whistle blew, Burley climbed to his feet and ambled back to his position, unruffled and unheeding of the bruises that fell to his share. Nine plunges brought the ball to Robinson’s five yards. There the Brown line held for an instant. The first down netted a bare yard, the second brought scarcely as much. The cheering, which had been continuous from the first attack, died down, and a great silence fell. Tommy was nibbling the corner off his note-book, and Allan, kneeling beside him, was nervously biting his lip. Poor drew Burley and the backs aside for a whispered consultation. Then the players took their positions again, and —
Presto! Erskine had scored!
Without signals, the tandem had plunged onto the Robinson left tackle, Burley’s leather head-guard had been seen for an instant tossing high above a struggling mass, and then had disappeared, and chaos had reigned until the referee’s whistle commanded a cessation of hostilities. When the piled-up mass was removed, Burley was found serenely hugging the ball to his chest a yard over the line.
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