Football -- Juvenile fiction; Schools -- Juvenile fiction
Dinner--or luncheon as it really was--was served in a small and very
musty smelling room on the second floor, a room evidently dedicated to
the yearly banquets of the Odd Fellows and the annual conclave of the
local Order of White Elephants. There was a faded red carpet on the
floor and three long walnut tables were arranged around as many sides
of a square. The chairs matched the tables and dated back to about the
period of the Hayes and Tilden campaign. But the food wasn’t bad and
the two coloured waiters, in spite of the infirmities of age, managed
to get it to the table fairly hot.
After the meal was finished Coach Driscoll explained the plans for
the afternoon game. Phillipsburg Academy had a light-weight and
supposedly speedy team that relied on passing and running more than
on line-smashing. Her punters were exceptionally good and her ends
fast. To meet the Phillipsburg style of offence Parkinson would play
her ends back and her tackles out, with Stone and Warden dividing the
field. Phillipsburg made use of both the “bunch” and the “one-man”
pass and used a lateral pass as well. If Phillipsburg switched her
attack to the centre of the line, the Parkinson tackles were to come in
again, but there were always to be two men up the field. On attack the
Brown-and-White was to try out several new running plays and to use the
forward-pass whenever practical inside the neutral zone.
“We’ve got a good chance, fellows,” said Mr. Driscoll, “to try out
our passing and end-running plays against a team who has a scientific
defence against them. If we make our passes go we’ll have reason to
be a bit satisfied with ourselves, for Phillipsburg has worked out a
pretty good defence against the passing game. What she can do to stop
end-runs remains to be seen. But you’ve got to start quick today and
run hard and watch the holes, you backs. You’ve got to show about twice
the speed you showed against Cumner last week. If you don’t, these
chaps will make you look mighty poor.
“I’m going to see that every fellow has a look-in at some time during
the game. We may lose the game, but we’re going to get experience.
Mind, I’m not saying we shall lose it or that we ought to, because I
don’t think for a moment that Phillipsburg is a bit better than we are,
even if we use third-string players. If you’ll use your heads today,
and play as fast as you know how, you’ll come out on top. I want to see
that Number 12 play go smoothly today. It’s a winner if you pull it
right, but you’ve got to get together on it. All right. Any questions,
fellows?”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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