That Tuesday afternoon practice was the hardest of the season. For four
twelve-minute periods, the Scrubs, driven to desperation by Dick’s
reiterated assertion that this was their last chance to show what they
could really do, eternally prodded by Captain Nostrand and taunted
until they were fighting mad by Quarterback Farrar, drove at the
Varsity as if their future salvation depended on the utter demolition
of the adversary! Nostrand thumped them on the backs, even kicked
them none too gently when they crouched too high on defense, shouted
threats and pleas until his voice cracked. Pete Farrar shrilly called
them names: “bone-heads,” “quitters,” “babies,” “pups,” and dared them
to show one tiny scrap of intelligence, of fight! And Dick, hobbling
from one side to the other, scolding, instructing, praising sometimes,
egged the opponents on. Even George Cotner, umpiring, took a hand
in――or, rather, lent a voice to――the vocal confusion.
But the Varsity stood firm on defense and was irresistible on attack,
and the Scrubs, yielding grudgingly, were forced back and back toward
their goal time and again. But how they did fight that day! One would
have thought that the two teams were the bitterest enemies to have
watched them “mix it up!” Fudge played himself out by the end of the
third period and had to yield to a substitute, as did others before
time was finally called. The Varsity scored twice in the second
quarter, once in the third and again in the fourth when a fumble
gave them the ball on the opponent’s twelve yards and Lanny in three
tries shot across for another six points. Twice the Scrub got to the
Varsity’s five-yard line and twice she failed to score. Field-goals
were barred to both teams and it was rush, pass or nothing, and the
Scrubs piled themselves up against a defense that was like a concrete
foundation. Later, just before the game ended, the Varsity, by two
well-managed forward passes, took the pigskin to the Scrub’s twelve
yards. Less than a minute of time remained and, after an ineffectual
attack at right guard by Nelson Beaton, Hull, who had taken Chester
Cottrell’s place, called “39――69――408!” He jumped a step to the right.
Beaton went back to kicking distance. Again the signal “39――69――408――――”
Back sped the ball to the fullback. The lines heaved and swayed. Off
dodged the ends, right and left. Beaton trotted to the right, poised
the ball. Right half hurled himself against an obtrusive tackle,
recovered and sped toward the side line. Then the line broke, the
Scrubs came piling through, leaping, panting, arms upstretched. Hull
went down under the onset. But Beaton, his gaze on an upthrust hand
near the goal line, dodged a Scrub forward and hurled the ball straight
and true above the mêlée. Too late the Scrub backs saw the trick. The
pigskin flew into right end’s arms and that youth romped across the
last white mark and sank to his knees between the posts! Number 8 had
worked once more!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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