A few days on the ground had been sufficient to show him that he was "up against it." A herculean task awaited him. The material he had to work with was none too good. The line was lacking in "beef" and the backs in speed. There were exceptions, notably at center and full and quarter; and here his falcon eye detected the stuff of which stars are made. But it takes eleven men to make a team and no individual brilliancy can atone for a lack of combination work. "A chain is no stronger than its weakest link," and, in a modified sense, a team is no stronger than its weakest player. That one weaker player would be unerringly "sized up" by the sharp-eyed scouts of the opposition and they would plunge against him like a battering ram. Usually, at the beginning of the fall season, there would be an influx of promising candidates from the leading academies and preparatory schools. Fellows who had starred at Andover and Exeter and Lawrenceville, some of them giants in bulk or racehorses in speed, would come in as Freshmen and give the Sophs or Juniors a tussle for the team. But "nothing succeeds like success," and the failure of the Blues for two seasons in succession had tarnished their prestige and turned toward other colleges the players emulous of football glory. The "Greys" and "Maroons" had "gobbled" the most likely "future greats" and the Blues had been replenished by a number limited in quantity and mediocre in quality. Of his veterans, the right guard and left tackle had graduated that summer, and their places in the line would be hard to fill. Not that the coach felt discouraged. He didn't know the meaning of the word. It simply meant that he would have to work the harder. Like Napoleon, the word "impossible" was not in his dictionary. It was said once of a famous educator that "Mark Hopkins at one end of a log and a student at the other would make a university." With equal truth it could be declared that "Bull" Hendricks on the coaching line and eleven men on the field would turn out a 'Varsity team. His task was the more difficult just now because he was practically alone. It was too early in the season for the "old grads" to put in an appearance. By and by they would come flocking in droves from all quarters of the compass, eager to renew their youth, and to infuse into the raw recruits some of the undying enthusiasm that they felt for their old Alma Mater. Then every separate player on the team could have the benefit of the advice of some famous former player in his own position, who would teach him every trick and turn by which he had won his own reputation. But at present most of the work devolved on him. He had to teach the backs how to kick, the ends how to run down under a punt, the guards and tackles how to interfere; and into all he had to infuse the deathless determination to win that is the very heart and core of the game. Like a new Atlas, he was carrying the football world on his shoulders, alone.