Interference and Other Football Stories Part 20

But when the irate Miss Chesterton came into the presence of the great John Brown she suddenly quailed. She couldn't tell exactly why she quailed but she found it exceedingly difficult to look into the crystal-pointed blue of J. B.'s eyes and say the things she was going to say. Instead, she felt somehow like a foolish little girl who had been used to having her own way at all costs and who had now met up with a man who knew her better than her own father.

She was conscious almost at once of the smooth tufts of silvery hair about this man's temples and the great furrowed line across his forehead, the firmly set mouth, the broad shoulders--the trace of a smile as he leaned toward her and said, in a kindly inquiring manner, "Well?"

And that one word, peculiar as it may seem, had unnerved her or disarmed her, she didn't know which. There crept over Ruth Chesterton a sense of guilt. She found herself stammering and stumbling.

"Please, sir ... I'm the girl that Mr. Mooney went out with when he broke the rules."

"Oh--you are?"

"Yes, sir."

An embarra.s.sed pause.

"Well--what of it?"

"Why, I ... I thought perhaps you'd like to see me."

That wasn't the right thing to say. Ruth knew it the moment she had uttered it but she had never felt more uncomfortable in her life.

"Me--like to see you? Why should you have thought that?" There was a trace of ironic amus.e.m.e.nt in the coach's voice.

"Why--why because I was sort of responsible for Mr. Mooney's breaking the rules."

"Did he send you here?"

This question did much to bring Ruth back en her feet.

"No, sir! I came of my own free will. He doesn't know anything about it. He isn't that kind, Mr. Brown. He's taken all the blame--and it's really more my fault than his--lots more. I--I encouraged him to--to go out with me those nights ... I didn't think it would do any harm ...

and you'll have to admit yourself that ten o'clock is pretty early,"

Ruth added, as she gained courage.

"Sorry, young lady, but the question of time is not debatable. Mr.

Mooney broke the rules and that ends it..."

"But, Mr. Brown ... won't you ... I mean ... the team ... or rather, the game with Larwood. Won't he be needed?"

The coach nodded, frankly.

"I shouldn't be surprised."

"Then perhaps--well, maybe if folks understood just how he came to break the rules... I'd be glad to..."

John Brown raised his hand in a waving gesture.

"It's done now--and what's done cannot be helped. The time for you to have thought of the consequences was before you tempted your friend to ignore the restrictions."

Ruth, sensing that she was getting nowhere, decided to throw herself entirely upon John Brown's sympathy.

"Mr. Brown ... if I tell you that I'm awfully, awfully sorry and that I'll never, never interfere with anyone keeping rules again, would you...?"

The coach shook his head, giving a sharp, deep-throated laugh. Then the lines in his face hardened, the furrowed crease stiffened--ridge-like--and he leaned forward compellingly.

"You are not sorry because Tim Mooney's loss to the team may mean the loss of the game--or games. You are sorry only for Mr. Mooney and the limelight his playing might reflect upon you. Pardon my frankness but I know your type well. You are a disciple of this individual freedom cult which has swept the world. You have regarded rules as being made only for the thrill and pleasure of breaking. It has pleased your vanity that Mr. Mooney should have chosen your company rather than the observance of football regulations, A loyal Elliott girl, having a friend on the team, would have insisted on keeping training rules with him. But, not you! You've been a thoughtless traitor to your college.

And now perhaps your joy will be complete when I tell you that your act may come close to costing me the ambition of my life. Good day!"

Shocked by the sudden, burning reprimand and the blunt abruptness of her dismissal, Ruth sat for a few p.r.i.c.kly seconds staring at the coach.

Then she arose and, in place of being indignant, walked sobbingly from the room!

The following Sat.u.r.day, minus the services of Tim Mooney, Elliott went down to a bitter, heart-rending defeat at the hands of Larwood, losing by the hard-fought score of 7 to 0. Five times during this blood-tingling conflict, Elliott drove the ball down inside the enemy's ten yard line but somehow, every one of these times, just missed the punch which would have taken it over. Throughout the game, and especially at the moments when Elliott was in possession of her golden scoring opportunities, the stands had madly implored for Mooney.

"Mooney! Mooney! Give us Mooney!" they had chanted.

And after the game Elliott fans took occasion to warmly denounce Coach Brown for the discipline he had employed which had deprived Elliott University of what would have been one of her most notable victories in years. The press of the nation was full to overflowing of newsprint that day either attacking or defending the great John Brown. Most sport writers were of the opinion that the famous coach had only himself to blame for the defeat, poking much fun at his ten o'clock law. A few of the more orthodox ones, however, credited John Brown with having put law and order above victory, and lauded the personal sacrifice he had made in so doing. But Elliott, crazed at having been given a taste of athletic fruits after so long a time of starving, could not reconcile herself at not having been able to eat the whole apple. As time ticked on, Larwood's defeat of Elliott seemed more and more uncalled for ... and the abuse of John Brown grew and grew.

What Coach Brown's thoughts were on the situation no one knew. He had scarcely been seen since the game and he had stayed so close to his room--it had been reported--that he had even had his meals sent up to him, refusing all interviews as well as callers. This in itself was unusual--but that was John Brown. Eccentricity was expected of a man who had been in the habit of accomplis.h.i.+ng such astounding results with raw human material and a football. To those who flattered themselves that they reasoned, it was decided that John Brown, incurring popular disfavor, had taken the simplest and most effective course of curbing drastic comment by giving his antagonists no object to shoot at. After all, right or wrong, Coach Brown was in charge of the team and it had been through his efforts solely that Elliott had been able to even give Larwood a fight.

Every Monday, following a game, it was a custom among coaches to review the previous Sat.u.r.day's struggle, calling attention to the errors of omission and commission as well as stressing the strong points of play.

Coach Brown's a.n.a.lyses of games had been regarded by many as cla.s.sics--some even called them scholarly treatises--but, at any rate, the Monday hour in the Elliott clubhouse was recognized as the education period par excellence of the entire week in football circles and everyone who could possibly command a right to attend was there to hear the contests cussed and discussed play by play.

"Wonder what thunderbolt J. B. will have up his sleeve for us this time?" every Elliott football man was asking himself as he headed for the clubhouse the Monday after the Larwood battle.

It was certain that John Brown would say something distinctly significant. His stone silence over the week-end would indicate that.

Whatever his reactions to the boiling pot of criticism which had been stewed over him, the team could expect to get most of these reactions in the form of sharply defined lightning thrusts at weaknesses which--to Coach Brown--had been responsible for Elliott's failure to win. Team members instinctively knew that, so far as Tim Mooney was concerned, John Brown would regard him as though he had never lived.

The coach would chalk up the defeat--not against Mooney's absence from the line-up--but against the team individually or collectively failing to come through in some particular. They knew this because John Brown had emphasized, in some outstanding past instances, that "Games are never won by the men on the sidelines but by the eleven on the field."

At the clubhouse the hands of the old wooden-faced clock pointed to five minutes after four. This was fifteen minutes past the time that the Monday talk usually began. Players, lounging in the locker room, looked at one another in silent wonderment and then strolled toward the windows and gazed out down the walk which led through a lane of trees to the campus. As the clock droned the quarter hour, Red Murdock--a.s.sistant coach--got up, with an air of uneasiness, and sauntered to the door and stood, peering. An unnatural quiet fell upon those present. Coach Brown had never been late before. Punctuality had been one of his iron-clad rules. And now he had kept them sitting there, in growing impatience and suspense, some twenty-five minutes!

Suddenly the a.s.sistant coach straightened up and stepped from the door.

Automatically the players changed from lounging positions to att.i.tudes of expectant attention. And every face cried to heaven of the exclamation, "Ah,--he's coming!"

There followed the sound of feet on the sidewalk--a firm, measured tread which grew methodically nearer until it stopped abruptly at the threshold. A moment more and a figure filled the doorway. But such a figure! John Brown to be sure--yet a different John Brown, an older John Brown; a sadder John Brown. His face looked white--not so white as the chalk lines on the gridiron--but unusually white. And there was a drawn quality about it with a certain weariness under the eyes. All this no one could help but notice as he stood in the doorway, facing them. Yet, when the face relaxed into the smile that everyone had grown to love, its white, drawn weariness was forgotten. The coach was himself again.

"Well, boys, you've got one on me this time. Sorry to have kept you waiting."

John Brown advanced into the room, nodding a greeting to Red Murdock.

He lifted a foot and placed it upon the empty end of a bench on which some players were seated, leaning over to rest his elbow on his upraised knee and his chin upon the palm of his hand. He stood thus, the thumb of his other hand run in under his belt strap, his cap pulled well down so that the band of the rim seemed almost to press against the furrowed line of his forehead. Just a simple, unaffected pose perhaps--but somehow, this tardy Monday afternoon, it held a touch of the dramatic.

"Team--I have a little surprise for you to-day," said the great John Brown. "We're not going to discuss Sat.u.r.day's game with Larwood, The game itself has been discussed enough by everyone who saw it. But I would like to say to you and let it be heralded as coming from me, that I never hope to see a more perfect game of football than you men of Elliott played against Larwood!"

Could the roof have crashed in unexpectedly at that instant it could have caused no more profound astonishment than this most surprising of tributes from the lips of John Brown. Was he suddenly gone crazy--or was he about to perpetrate some biting joke?

A subst.i.tute, antic.i.p.ating a sarcastic follow-up, let out a mirthful cackle.

"All right, you're through for the day." The coach gave the order without raising his voice nor even looking at the culprit. He waited until the chagrined disturber had slunk out before resuming.

"I mean it, men. My idea of perfect play Is when a team performs strictly as it has been coached to perform ... following a system through to the very last regardless of the breaks of the game or the preconceived notions of the individual players. That is team-work in the fullest--that is genuine football. That you failed to win does not alter the fact that you gave a faultless exhibition insofar as your experience and training permitted. Sat.u.r.day you were by no means the greatest team I have ever coached, but you were by all odds the fightingest, willingest bunch of grid warriors that, in my estimation, ever wore moleskins!"

The coach paused and s.h.i.+fted his position to the other knee while the Elliott men sat like a group of badly fussed and dumbfounded school boys. Even Red Murdock could not conceal a look of frank bewilderment.