College stories; Sports stories; Yale University -- Juvenile fiction
"Drop-kicking isn't Yale's way of scoring," said Jimmy Turner one
night when the day's work was being discussed in the Connecticut Hall
room before a crackling fire of log-wood. "The coaches want a team
that can carry the ball over the goal-line, not one that can boot it
over the cross-bar."
"I know it looks better to have the force drive the other fellow back
across his own goal, but since these new rules went into effect it's
mighty seldom you ever see it in a big game. But I'm not knocking.
I'll keep at the drop-kicking and hope for a chance."
But the chance for Frank did not come. In two of the smaller games he
was called in the fourth quarter with a number of other substitutes,
and when the team play was badly disorganized because so few regulars
were in the line. He played at end in each case and was pulled back
for the punting. Once with a good opportunity for a field goal on the
opponent's twenty-yard line, a poor protection allowed a lineman to
get through and block the ball--a thing which very nearly resulted
in a touchdown against Yale, for a free end picked up the loose ball
and was not brought down until he was well into Yale's territory.
While Armstrong was not at all to blame, the general crowd saw only
that his kick was blocked and considered him unsafe as a drop-kicker.
Turner won his Y in the Princeton game when he was sent in to relieve
Cummings, the right halfback, a few minutes before the final whistle,
but Armstrong's chance didn't come. He sat through the four quarters
and saw the Yale team win at the very end. A week later Armstrong
was among the blanketed figures on the side-lines, who watched the
struggle of Yale and Harvard up and down the gridiron, with hopes
rising and falling as the tide turned one way or the other. At the
very end of the game, with the score against Yale, a fumble in the
Harvard back field gave Yale possession of the ball on Harvard's
thirty-yard line. The Yale stand rose en masse and begged for a
touchdown, but two assaults were stopped with scant advance. The
coach ran down the line, looking among his substitutes.
"Armstrong, get ready to go in," he said in a quiet, tense voice, but
even as Frank jumped to his feet to obey the summons, the whistle
blew and the game was over.
"Another year coming," Frank said quietly as Jimmy, with arm across
his roommate's shoulder, on their way from the field, protested
against the hard luck.
"You're pretty cheerful about it," commented Turner, "and you
deserved the chance as much as I did."
"If I had been good enough, I'd have gone in before. The coaches know
what they are about. If I ever get enough weight on me, I'll have a
better chance to make the eleven."
"And then you'll not be able to jump twenty-three feet," said Turner;
"for every compensation there's some setback. That's the way of life."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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