On our fifteen, on an end sweep, Raygo, almost in the clear, stumbled and fell hard. Little Scotty Shannon recovered the fumble. Out of their self-disgust, the Gray Wave drew fifteen yards for unnecessary roughness on the very next play.
Dandy, after two gains of two yards each, surprised them with a quick kick that lofted over the safety man’s head, rolled and bounded on down to the six yard line before it went dead.
We were back in business. But not for long. They made first down twice and then it was the last quarter of the game.
I could see that the boys had taken all they could take. Denatti missed an easy shot at the runner, handing them fifteen yards as a gift before Tug Ober brought the runner down. Our line and our back-field, on defense, were men of lead.
When they got down to our thirty, I couldn’t avoid taking the chance any longer. The very next play might be it. The Gray Wave smelled the score coming up and lined up with all the snap of a fresh team.
I turned on the bench and gave Red the signal. He came down out of the second row, cramming the felt hat in the pocket of the topcoat, unbuttoning the topcoat.
Wes didn’t see him. I grabbed Wes Walker’s shoulder and said, “Take a chance with me. Let me send a man into the backfield. They’re going to score.”
The quick opening play of the Gray Wave took them down to our twenty-two. Ober and Angeline were a long time getting up.
“Send in anybody you think will do us some good,” he said thickly. His knuckles were white and his nostrils had a pinched look.
“Rollins for Denatti!” I yelled.
Wes turned and glared at me. “Have you gone crazy, Mike? Rollins isn’t around to go in—”
Out of the corner of his eye he saw the crazy redhead galloping out onto the field hand raised.
“Come back here!” Wes yelled.
Red stopped, confused. When Wes tried to yell again, I clamped a hand over his mouth and yelled, “Get in there, Rollins!”
Wes slapped my arm down and doubled up a mean-looking fist.
“You said I could send in anybody.”
“I didn’t know you’d cross me like this, Mike. He comes out after one play. How the hell did he get a uniform?”
“I took one to him. He was up in the stands with a coat on over the uniform.”
Walker’s eyes were blazing and knots of muscle stood out on the corner of his jaw.
The play was delayed as Red Rollins reported. The stands, seeing that familiar shock of scarlet hair, roared the welcome.
Above the roar, I could hear Red’s familiar crazy yelp, his battle cry. Denatti came out, looking back over his shoulder. As usual, Rollins refused to wear a helmet.
He pranced up and down behind the line, slapping the taut seats of the linemen, crowing and dancing like some crude marionette animated by an amateur.
The Gray Wave opened up their play. It was a thrust at the right side of the line, between guard and tackle. The hole didn’t open right for them. Zapparti came through what hole there was and Tug Ober, traveling at terminal velocity, hit him so hard that he bounced him back onto his pants in his own backfield. The ball went down for a half-yard loss.
Wes had called Denatti over to him, but he was ignoring Denatti who squatted in front of him. He was looking over Denatti’s shoulder, an odd frown on his face. Red was making a burlesque of spitting on his hands and rolling up his sleeves.
Our defensive backfield lined up with a lot of snap, and the line suddenly looked tight and hard. The play was another of those brutal end sweeps by four bunched men, the ball carrier, and three smart boys running interference.
Red came loping in from out of nowhere in particular and threw an absurd rolling block into the bunched men. He spilled two of them. The other man running interference tried to block Slipper Angeline out of the play, but Slipper was moving so fast that the blocker bounced back into the runner, tilting him off balance, setting him up for a crushing tackle by Bill Krozak, the center, who had somehow managed to get into the play. The Gray Wave took a two yard loss.
Red galloped over and helped the ball carrier up, pantomining brushing the dirt off the ball carrier’s pants. Once again that crazy yelp split the air and the stands roared their approval.
Weston Walker waved Denatti away. He was leaning forward and the odd frown had changed to the beginning of what promised to be a wide grin.
The next play wiped out that grin. The Gray Wave end got around in back of Rollins. The pass caught Red flat-footed, but Scotty came over fast to drop the receiver on the five.
I groaned inwardly. “Let him stay in.”
Our boys lined up and Red charged up and down in our backfield. Something he said gave our boys wide grins.
Halliday tried a straight line plunge. The center of our line rose up and smacked him down for no gain.
They ran the next one off the T, with some pretty faking, which turned into a delayed line buck after the left half had gone out to the right. Red had been confused by the faking. But when the delayed buck came, Red turned into a lean projectile and buried his shoulder in Raygo’s middle.
They called time so that Raygo could pull himself together.
The ball still rested on the five. Third and goal to go.
On the next play, Grunnert faded back and dropped a line-of-scrimmage pass right over Zapparti’s shoulder into his hands as he hit a big hole in the right side of our line.
With Zapparti’s speed, he should have carried it all the way over. But little Scotty hit him from the side just as Red, coming from the other direction, somehow managed to grab a handful of Zapparti’s pants. Red went down with Zapparti without losing that hold on the back of his pants. For a split second Zapparti was running hard in one spot. The ball came to rest on the two.
They depended on Halliday. They ran it off the T, with Halliday coming through to take the hand-off on a hard run.
Rollins, Ober and Angeline hit him as he came through. The smack set my back teeth to aching and I could imagine that I felt the shock wave.
We took the ball on the one-foot line.
The Gray Wave got the ball again before the game ended, but the heart was out of them. They had come too far, too many times. When the spirit faded, the legs in the offensive backfield turned to so much putty.
When the game ended, we were on their twenty-two, and knocking hard on the door.
The dressing room was a shambles. When Wes and I walked in, Red was on a chair giving a speech. He was saying, “...and I want all you men to know that next Saturday we got that tough game with Vassar coming up and—”
He saw us come in. He stopped, swallowed hard and got down from the chair. The grins faded and the men got busy stripping off uniforms.
Weston Walker didn’t say a word. He walked through the room for a few moments, a faraway expression on his face.
Then he spoke.
“Okay, okay, so I can make a mistake! What an outfit! Brains and guts and muscles aren’t enough. Mike said something just before I came in here. Something about defensive football being emotional. What did you do out there, Rollins?”
Red gulped again, “Coach, I just— Well, I— You see—”
Scotty spoke for him. “Red came out and said that we were doing it the hard way, trying to get the ball carrier. He said that maybe we ought to knock everybody down who was wearing gray. It just made us— Well, it made me feel better and I wasn’t so tired.”
Walker, his face like a stone mask, stood over Rollins. In a low tone he said, “Rollins, I want you out of here in five minutes.”
“Yes sir,” Red said sadly.