“Dick Lovering’s all right,” they said, “but he’s a cripple, and even if he knew how to coach the team, he couldn’t do it on crutches! Wait till you hear Springdale laugh at us when they hear it!” Those who really knew Dick, on the other hand, hailed his choice with satisfaction. Perhaps Tom Haley voiced the general sentiment of this faction as well as anyone. “I don’t care a bit,” he said, “whether Dick knows a football from a baked potato. If Dick undertakes to coach the team he’ll do it and do it well. I never saw the thing yet that Dick couldn’t do when he made up his mind to it. And there isn’t a fellow in school who can make what he says go as Dick can. We may not beat Springdale this year, but if we don’t it won’t be Dick’s fault!” But whether the school in general approved or disapproved, the matter was already beyond them by the time they heard of it officially, which was the noon following George Cotner’s announcement on the steps. For Lanny had begged speedy action by the Athletic Committee and a hurried meeting had been held in Mr. Grayson’s office at eleven o’clock. Curtis Wayland, who at Lanny’s solicitation had risked the doctor’s displeasure and attended as one of the three undergraduate members, informed Lanny afterwards that there had not been a dissenting voice and that Mr. Grayson had been highly pleased. “The selection of one of your own kind, an undergraduate, a――a fellow with no taint of professionalism,” he declared, “is right in line with my theory that schoolboy sports and athletics should be conducted by schoolboys and not by hired mentors. I approve heartily, and I congratulate White and the others on the good sense they have displayed. And I wish Richard Lovering and the team all success.” The news was received with incredulous surprise and at first the authenticity of it was doubted by those not in the secret. Succeeding surprise, came amusement, approbation or disapproval according to the conviction of the person. At all events, the matter created an excited interest that drove practically the whole student body to the field that Tuesday afternoon. Those who went to scoff, however, found little opportunity. They saw Dick’s blue auto standing at the end of the grandstand near the big gate and discovered Dick himself, wearing his honors very modestly, swinging about on his crutches in a quiet and businesslike way, for all the world as if he had been coaching football teams all his short life. But there was plenty of matter for surprise, however. Instead of the usual spectacle of three squads practicing independently of each other, they found all the candidates, new and old, experienced and inexperienced, democratically jumbled together and performing the most elementary tasks!