John D. MacDonald
Last Chance Cleats
I knelt on the sidelines. I had given the boys a little talk. The man in motion came in, slow and easy. He cut fast when the ball was snapped. The timing was just right. The take came off well, and the hand-off was clean. It made nine yards right through the middle, with the safety coming in fast to help smear the play.
I was proud of the boys. Weston Walker, the new head coach, was standing just behind me. I half-turned and grinned up at him. “How about that, Wes?” He had insisted that with each other we should be “Wes” and “Mike.”
I had met him eight years before, and hadn’t seen him since. The occasion of our first meeting was the annual fracas between my Philadelphia alma mater and his outfit, the national champs that year. Wes was a senior and I was a sophomore. I was line backer-up behind the shaky side of our line. He was the hardest charging back I have ever seen, before or since. I stopped him almost all afternoon. Each time I got up slower. It was like stopping a runaway milk horse.
After the game they came up to me in the shower and politely informed me that it was customary to take off the uniform before taking the shower.
Weston Walker hadn’t changed much in the intervening years. He was still horse-size with a cold, still face and colder eyes.
It was his first look at the teams — offensive and defensive. As backfield coach it would be nice if I could say that I had built that team. All I could say was that I had helped. Rooney Mulligan, the grand old man that Wes replaced, had fitted the Harbour College team together, bit by bit.
Naturally, we were sorry about Rooney leaving. But the pro offer was so large that in three years Rooney could retire in the style he deserved. He had stuck around for spring practice, and Wes had showed up for the fall session.
Harbour isn’t a big place. But we get our share of the bowl bids, and the alumni groups keep the hopefuls drifting in— high school captains, and All-State kids.
I was trying hard to be nice to Wes. When Rooney left, he recommended to the Athletic Board that I be made head coach. But Rooney made one small mistake. He didn’t suggest it soon enough. Negotiations with Weston Walker had already gotten under way. I got a bump in pay, kind words and I agreed to stick around and help.
Wes told them that he didn’t contemplate bringing in anyone except a couple of spotters and he could think of no one he would rather have as backfield coach than Mike Burk. Probably he didn’t want to change the dice. We had eighteen wins in a row.
I grinned up at him and asked him how he liked it. He was frowning. He said, “Offensively, Mike, it was swell. I can’t say as much for it defensively.”
I remembered one of Rooney’s theories and decided that it wouldn’t be smart to quote one of Rooney’s theories to Wes Walker. Rooney always said, “Mike, lad, you’ve got to remember that offensive football is intellectual. It can function anywhere. It is cold, hard, smart timing that counts. Practice and precision. Defense is another animal, lad. It’s emotional. The defensive team has to have the spark to get in there and dump them on their tails. The smack-em-down spirit. Defense won’t ever function right in practice unless there’s a grudge operating. And you don’t want any grudges on the squad. They’re poison.”
I knew that old Rooney Mulligan had the proper analysis. The whole business is like two different games. In a game you have the crowd noises, the will to win. In practice all you can hear is the bite of cleats on the turf, the thud of running feet, the smack and grunt as a man is stopped. It’s hard and dirty business, and there’s no will to win.
While I was thinking of Rooney, Wes interrupted my line of thought to give me a short lecture on football.
He said, “Mike, offensive football has the edge these days. Any T team with timing can score. The balance of power is in defense.”
Scotty Shannon was calling the defensive shifts. On the next play, Scotty moved Tug Ober, the full, over a few feet, along with “Slipper” Angeline, the right half who was backing up the line. Dusty Lane, right guard, backed up the right half. Red Rollins, left half, was a few feet behind Dusty and toward the outside.
This time the 6-2-2-1 clicked nicely and Dusty and Slipper converged to help Bill Krozak, defensive center, drop the ball carrier for no gain.
I looked up. Wes was smiling. “That’s what I like to see, Mike,” he said. “A sharp defense.”
But a moment later, on the next play, Red Rollins was sucked out of position and the ball carrier smacked through for eleven yards. Rollins had pulled a bone-head play.
Wes was frowning again. “Mike, who’s that kid? Number thirty-five?”
“Red Rollins. Nice boy.”
“I don’t care if he wins personality contests. How well does he work in there?”
I concealed the groan. “Red does okay,” I said calmly.
“That gives me enough to go on,” Wes said. “Break ’em up. You take the offensive backfield boys over across the field and polish them for a while on that faking.” He turned to Tiny Lauder-house, the line coach. “Tiny, take all the linemen down to the far end and get those fannies down a little further. They’re going in too high. I’ll work the defensive backfield for a while. In an hour we’ll give them three times around the field and call it a day.”
That was exactly what I was afraid was going to happen. And though Wes was acting as though he had an open mind, I knew no reason why he should feel duty bound to listen to any of my theories — second-hand theories from Rooney — when Wes had already piled up a nice record at a good eastern school.
We had three weeks before the first game. It was our usual curtain raiser with Malloy Tech. The following Saturday we would be traveling to do battle with the Michigan Raiders, and on the third Saturday the Gray Wave from Ohio was coming in to pummel us a little. We could walk all over Malloy, and we had a good chance of smacking down a weakened Raider team, but the Gray Wave meant trouble. We had given them their only loss of the season before, and they were stronger, if anything.
The original division of labor that Wes Walker had set up remained in force for ten days. Our squad was big enough to put three offensive teams and two defensive teams on the field.
The kids were eager and they took pride in the win record that had been hung up. I could see that they were keeping the beady eye on Walker, wondering how he’d react when the going got rugged. Walker had none of the warmth that Rooney Mulligan had had. But he was straight and fair. He didn’t play favorites and he knew his football. It was equally obvious that he was as hot to keep that record untarnished as was the squad.
Also, Walker had an eagle eye on the gold-brickers, and a few of them left us rather suddenly. Another kid left, too. He was a fair, third-string end, but he ran to Walker with some sort of snitch on another guy on the squad.
I was feeling pretty good myself. I was afraid that Walker was going to be one of those characters who can’t delegate responsibility. But he gave me my head and showed no signs of tightening up on the reins.
He said, “Mike, the offensive backfield is yours. I’ve watched you. If I step in, I’ll just foul it up. We’ll cook up the plays together, with you having final word, because you know what the kids can do and what they’ll fluff. Is that okay?”
I couldn’t have asked for a better deal.
And at the end of ten days, Wes leaned over my shoulder and snatched away my second-string left half, a smart, rugged junior named Rick Denatti.
He explained by saying that Denatti had the speed, the build and the disposition to become a fine defensive back. He had a bad hole to fill on the first squad.
“Bad hole?” I asked.