St. Nicholas/Volume 32/Number 1/A Goal
A Goal from the Field
By Leslie W. Quirk
“3—9—6.”
The seven men in the line crouched low; the quarter-back leaned forward, opened his hands suddenly, and snapped the ball to the full-back.
There was a sudden rush straight forward, and a half-dozen players circled in back of the man with the ball. The line of the opposing eleven parted, and the big full-back went through for a good gain.
Out on the side-lines, some of the spectators cheered faintly. Football critics had said that the team-work was poor, and for days the coaches had been drilling the eleven players to move like a machine. It still lacked three days of the big game, and the coaches were satisfied, The team went into play as one man.
“4—2—3.”
This time it was an end run. The quarterback snapped the ball quickly, and was guarding the runner twenty feet away before the scrub eleven discovered which way the play was going.
“First down,” said the head coach. He spoke quietly, but there was satisfaction in his tone. Then his manner changed.
“Line up, there! Don’t take an hour to get into position! Line up, I say, Elton!”
“Yes, sir,” said the little quarter-back. His leg was caught under the body of the burly fullback, but the boy was afraid to tell the coach. He stood a little in awe of the famous man.
They lined up again. The left half-back, who was captain, looked down the field.
“3—6—4,” he said.
The signal for a drop kick was nine. The addition of the first two numbers gave the key to the play.
From force of habit, “Baby” Elton dropped back to kick, The half-backs stood ready to block any opposing players who broke through the line. The ends crept out at either side.
Elton looked down the field, over chalk-line after chalk-line, five yards apart from one another, and the impossibility of kicking a goal at that distance made him speak before he thought.
“It’s too far!” he exclaimed hopelessly.
It was a long distance; even the captain could not deny that fact. The coach had been developing the kicking side of the game, but even the sturdy leg of Baby Elton did not seem equal to the task now before him. The coach, however, was not prepared for complaint.
“Go on,” he said gruffly.
The center snapped the ball, in a long curve, straight into Elton’s outstretched hands. The boy caught it just right, and dropped it, point downward, to the ground, [exactly at the right moment he caught it with his toe, and it went sailing, circling from end to end, toward the goalposts. It fell short, however, by a good ten yards.
“All right,” said the coach, evenly; “that ’s all for to-day. Run in.”
The brawny players broke into a trot, and ran through the gate of the athletic field toward the gymnasium. Baby Elton brought up the rear. He was wondering, a little sullenly, what the coach expected of him. He could n’t kick a goal the whole length of the field; it was a waste of time, and the coach had no right to expect impossibilities.
He took his bath and rub-down as quickly as possible, and slipped into his street clothes. He felt hot and uncomfortable. He wanted to get out in the open air.
The head coach was talking to a brawny, pink-cheeked fellow near the door, and beckoned to Elton. The big man looked at him curiously.
“’Chuck’ Walters, ’92, the best football-player the old college ever had,” announced the coach.
Elton shook hands gladly, and the graduate walked from the gymnasium with him, When they came to Elton’s room, Walters said carelessly, “I ’ll come up for a minute or two, if you don’t mind?”
The boy took him upstairs, and found him an easy-chair in which to lounge. The man sank back into the cushions with a sigh of relief.
“It’s good to get into a college chap’s room again,” he acknowledged. “Yours reminds me of the one Binner had, back when I was playing the game. Ever hear of Binner?”
Every man in the college had heard of him. Elton asked for more information. Walters talked freely.
“He was the pluckiest punter and drop-kicker that was ever on a team,” he declared, “Never hesitated; never offered to quit. Why, once in a critical game they gave the signal for a try for goal when the ball was out beyond the middle of the field.” He paused, and looked out the window absently.
“Yes?” said Elton, eagerly. “What did Binner do?” The boy’s cheeks were red and the words came fast. He remembered the incident of the afternoon.
“What did he do?” echoed Walters. “What did he do?” The man’s eyes were glowing with the recollection. “Why, he stood there, with the whole crowd in the grand stands and bleachers hushed and waiting, as calm and confident as if he had been asked to punt twenty yards. After a bit, he lifted his arms, caught the ball, and drop-kicked a goal as neat as you please. Sixty-two yards,[1] it was, too; they measured it then and there. Ah! Binner was the man. I suppose they have as good players to-day, but it seems to us old chaps as if things were a bit better then,”
“Yes, sir,” said Elton, humbly,
“But of course they were not,” said Walters, with a keen look at the boy. “I ’ve been talking with a few of you fellows, and I ’ve been converted. There is n’t a quitter among you; there is n’t one who would n’t fight for the old college till he dropped. Not one!” And, with a word of adieu, he was gone.
A half-hour before the game, the head coach gathered the men for a final talk.
“Boys,” he said,—he always called them “boys,” with a little note of affection and pride,—“boys, you are about to meet the strongest team, with the exception of your own, in the whole country. I ‘ve been training you for this game since the season opened. Up in the grand stands and bleachers the people will cheer you, and think that you are doing your best, just as they know they would if they were down on the field. They do not appreciate the fact that this game is only seventy minutes of your three months of work. They do not realize that day after day you have worked till you were ready to drop, till the breath was out of your body, till only your pride and your love of the old college kept you on your feet. You know it, though—you understand; and I want you to prove that all this work, all this training, all this sacrifice, has been worth while. I want you to win!
“I want you to win for my sake and for your own. It’s my business to make football-players of you. It’s all the work I know, and to have you win the championship game is all the ambition I have. It means a deal to me, boys, a very great deal. I’ve been working and thinking and planning for a whole year just for these seventy minutes that are before you. And you, who have worked with me, who have been waiting for a chance to play this game, and to feel the ball tucked under your arm and bear thousands cheering you on—you know what it means to you. I want you to win, boys, and I shall expect every man to play as he has never played before. I want every man to stick till the final whistle, with
Baby Elton receiving instructions from the head coach.
It was the first experience of this kind for Elton, He felt a strange sensation down where his heart was thumping madly. He looked at the other players curiously. Each one of the big, brawny fellows, padded and guarded to twice his natural size, was looking at the coach with big eyes that were good to see. There was no sentiment, no promises, no tears; hut there was determination on every face.
When the team trotted out on the field cut into squares and slices by white chalk-lines, the crowd broke into a thunder of applause.
Elton did not feel in the least nervous, and when the team lined up, and the captain said, low but distinctly, “7—2—7,” he fell back, caught the ball neatly, and dropped it over the white bar, squarely between the goal-posts,
After a bit the teams stopped the signal practice, flipped a coin high in the air. Elton grinned in delight as his captain won the toss. The other side was to kick off,
They lined up leisurely, Elton found his position before some of the others, with his heart throbbing queerly. He always felt frightened on the kick-off.
“Are you ready?” as official.
“Yes,” said a voice from the other side, and a minute later the same answer came from Elton’s captain.
Elton saw a heavy man in a soiled pair of moleskins run forward, and heard the thud as the kicker’s foot hit the ball, He expected to sce it soar far over his head, Instead, it came straight for him.
He crouched with open arms. Almost before the ball reached him, a half-dozen opponents were ready to pounce upon him.
The ball struck his arms and breast fairly, and he clasped it—a moment too late.
It bounded away from him, straight into the arms of an opponent, who was off down the field before Elton could move. Then the boy ran with all the power of his sturdy legs—ran blindly, hopelessly, after the man with the ball. He saw Rogers miss him, and Benny, who played back, clutch wildly at the moleskins.
A great shout from the crowd told him the fellow had scored. The din was terrific. Horns blew and megaphones roared, and college yells rent the air, But Elton heard only one sound, a long “Oh-h-h!” that had come from a thousand throats as he missed the kick-off.
“Elton heard the thud as the kicker’s foot hit the ball.”
The teams lined up again. This time Elton was to kick off. He packed the earth with his hand, and balanced the ball on end. Then he stepped back.
“What ’s the matter with Elton?” shouted a voice; and the answer came back like a peal of thunder, “He ’s all right!”
The boy’s lip quivered a little, and he wiped the sleeve of his jersey across his eyes. He would prove that he was “all right”; he would show them what he could do.
And he did. People in the grand stands shouted his name again and again. The captain of the other team watched him closely, and sent the most of his plays around the opposite end from the one on which he was playing on defense. Best of all, as he crawled out from a mass of players after a scrimmage, his own captain came close and said under his breath, as if he were half ashamed: “Good boy, Baby!”
But at the end of the first half the score was 6 to 0 in favor of the other team.
Between halves somebody clapped him on the shoulder. It was Walters. “The other day, Baby, I said there were no quitters on the team. You 're proving it, old man!”
Every man went into the second half with renewed determination. Slowly, a yard or two at a time, they forced the ball down the field. But on the thirty-yard line the other team held fast.
“Third down; five yards to gain,” announced the official.
“4—5—9.”
The formation was quick and bewildering to the other team. Elton held out his hands, palms upward, and the ball struck them true and hard. He glanced at the goal-posts, thirty yards away, and, measuring the distance in a flash, caught the ball with his toe just as it struck the ground. It sailed, straight as an arrow, over the white bar.
The din of the crowd was deafening. Lats sailed up into the air; men and women sang and shouted; the varsity yell rang out clear and loud, and the “tiger” on the end came like the belch of a cannon.
But the game was not yet won, nor the score even tied, The more knowing ones looked at the figures, 6 to 5, and glanced at their watches in apprehension.
Well they might; for the two teams battled grimly as if defeat meant death, Neither gained ground for more than one down. There were no fumbles; every play was well planned and well executed, but the defense of both teams was impregnable.
There were only three minutes to play. The signal came for a punt, and Elton sent the ball sailing—cutting through the air with the corkscrew twist peculiar to good punters—far down the field. The kick was off just in time, for a minute later three brawny men bore him to the ground.
Buried beneath them, Elton caught a sudden roar from the crowd, his crowd, He knew it could have but one meaning. At last there had been a fumble, and his team had the ball close to the goal-line; perhaps had even scored.
The minnte the heaviest player was off his ankle, Elton sprang to bis feet. Down the field, perhaps twenty yards from the goal, the referee was holding the hall.
Elton ran forward. There was a rapidly growing pain in his right ankle that cut like a knife at every step. Suddenly it caught him, and he stumbled and fell. Somebody came running from the side-lines with a pail of water, but he waved the man back, Then, with a mouth tight with excruciating pain, he hobbled forward.
They lined up quickly. There was only a minute to play, Elton told himself that he must stand a moment more, just long enough to pass the ball to some runner, just—
“3—6—4.”
The signal came clear and sharp. Every syllable seemed to shoot through his ankle, tearing cords and tendons. His face was white and drawn.
The crowd was hushed. Men and women were scarcely breathing. As he dropped back to kick, Elton seemed to see a form before him, and to hear a voice saying, with a meaning too clear to mistake, “There is n’t a quitter among you; there is n't one who would n't fight till he dropped for the old college. Not one! Not one!”
He held out his hands, and the ball struck them. The pain was so intense in his ankle that he could not put bis weight on that limb. He was standing on one leg, the left. With teeth cutting his lip cruelly, he swung the other with all his might, He heard it strike the ball with a dull thud; then he sank to the ground.
‘There was a moment of silence so unbroken that the seats on all four sides might have been deserted, instead of filled with thousands of spectators. Then came a roar that fairly shook the ground, and reverberated from the hill to the west. The ball had missed the post by an inch, and had cleared the bar nicely. The game was won by a score of 10 to 6.
They picked up Elton tenderly, and the trainer bathed his ankle in water. Presently the physician came forward and examined it.
“It is sprained,” he said, “badly sprained. You won't play any more football this year, young man.”
Then the coach came up and said, “Good work, boy!” and turned quickly away; and Walters grasped his hand and shouted, "I knew it! I knew it!”
The next morning Elton read in the papers how he had smiled while they bandaged his badly swollen ankle.
- ↑ A goal was kicked from the field at this distance during a game between Wisconsin and Northwestern universities several years ago.