Boarding schools -- Juvenile fiction; Football stories; School sports -- Juvenile fiction; Teenage boys -- Juvenile fiction
On Tuesday the Scrub had its first line-up and ran through a few
formations. Adams was at left end, Ames at left tackle, Greene at
left guard, Ridgway at center, Henning at right guard, Coles at right
tackle, Bingham at right end, Jackson at quarter, Kemble at left
half, Stiles at right half and Thayer at fullback. But as “Cocky”
explicitly stated that no one could be sure of his position until he
had definitely earned it, and as none save Henning and “Wink” Coles
kept his place throughout the whole half-hour, neither Clif nor Tom
indulged in self-congratulation. Clif had Patch and Gosman to fight for
the right end position, and Tom was always aware that Gillespie and
Heard were following close behind, awaiting their turns. Mr. Babcock
made them work hard, but they had plenty of enthusiasm and liked
working. Now and then a word, or perhaps a brief halt while the coach
stared silently toward the First Team players, kept the incentive in
mind. They were there to mold themselves into a first-class fighting
unit so that they might meet the friendly enemy on fairly even terms,
and so serve as the whetstone against which the latter was to be shaped
and edged into a conquering weapon. But――and they dwelt relishingly on
this――if the whetstone sometimes proved too hard for the steel, why,
so much the better for every one! In other words, duty demanded that
they prove themselves a worthy foe, and inclination kept a full jump
ahead of duty! There were no personal grudges being nursed: no player
on the Scrub had a bone to pick with any member of the other team; but
there was, nevertheless, the conviction, shared by all, that the wisdom
of the Head Coach’s selections had yet to be proved, and it was up
to them to show that proof didn’t exist! In such a spirit, then, the
Wyndham Scrub Team――or “Mr. Babcock’s Team,” as the _Lantern_ called
it――started forth.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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