Stewart Sterling
Six Point Bombshell
I
Dan Webb lay flat on his back with an armful of legs hugged to his helmet, a faceful of cleats grinding at his nose and mouth, half a ton of weight bouncing on his belly… and asked himself if the game was worth the candle.
The whistle peeled the pressure off his ribs. But there was no balm for bruised muscles in assistant line coach Yokum’s whip-lash words. Not that the coach was bawling him out. Yokum was merely ignoring him.
“Soletti!” The caustic tone was directed at the C team’s towering left tackle. “How many times I got to tell you! Check that guard before you pull out of the line on reverses!
“Check him!”
Soletti nodded grimly, stalked to his position, glowered at Dan.
The guard murmured sympathetically: “Don’t let it get you down, deep dish.
Anybody’d think he never heard of a check bouncing, before.”
Soletti grinned tautly. “Back in your bowl, wise cracker. You’re due to be crumbled.”
“Over,” Yokum barked irritably. “But good.”
The Cs shifted to unbalanced single wing. Dan crabbed over sideways to meet it. The man in motion cut across, crouching low, and getting up steam.
Coco Lewis, last year’s freshman Wonder-Boy signal caller, stooped, wheeled, passed off…
Southern’s famous wide reverse. ‘Stoney’ Hart’s patented specialty. The gilt-edged ground-gainer, that — when clicking — made it look as if subs were pouring off the bench to block for the ball-carrier.
It didn’t look that way now. Something gummed the works. The interference got balled up. The wing-back crashed. The leather bobbled loose.
“No..o..o..o!” Yokum squinted as if in pain. His whistle peeled them off the pileup.
Again, the last blue jersey to move belonged to Dan Webb. His helmet was jammed down over one eye. Grass stuck to blood on his mouth. And the ball, to his waist pads.
He spat out grass. “Been fun, fellas.” He hoisted himself erect by hooking his fingers in Coco Lewis’s belt. “Have to get together over at my place, next time.” He flipped the ball casually to Yokum.
Somebody sniggered. The coach’s weather-burned face went deeper red as he waved the D-team center to take possession of the ball.
“Save those corny gags, Webb. We’ll audition your comic stuff some other time.”
Dan murmured: “Don’t bother. I’m strictly sustaining talent.” He said it low enough so nobody except Soletti could hear him. Still… he meant it.
That’s all he was. Talent for free. Competing with a huge squad, most of them here at Southern on cushy ‘athletic’ scholarships… with enthusiastic alumni boosters rooting for them. A few weren’t getting any Athletic Office handouts. But those were the boys who’d checked in with big buildups from prep schools; they’d been tried out on last year’s yearling squad.
There wasn’t any ballyhoo background for Dan. No flashy freshman-record behind him. He was starting from scratch. And that would be all right with him — if they’d only rate him on the basis of his ability on cleats. They wouldn’t, of course. He couldn’t honestly claim there’d been enough time for the coaches to find out what he could do… and they had nothing else to go on. Outside of his tendency to horse around on the field. And that was no help.
He didn’t resent Yokum’s attitude. It was only natural for Southern’s high-powered coaching staff to concentrate on material they knew something about. They didn’t know anything about him. And that was all right with Dan, too. Less they knew about him, the better…
Yokum growled to Brad Sully, the D-team quarter. “Roll your own. Mix ’em up. Sock it in.”
In the huddle, Sully decided: “Inside buck. To left. Right tackle’s your meat, funny boy.”
He looked at Dan.
“When better mousetraps are built, Webb will—” Dan broke off, suddenly.
A girl strode smartly along the sidelines. Girls weren’t common at early-season practices. This one wouldn’t have been common anywhere, anytime, he thought.
Not too tall, not too plump. Nice and neat. Slim, trim legs. A figure that made her fireman-red sweater envied among all sweaters. Hair that flowed like clearsmooth, lustrous honey down over the nape of her neck. Eyes that — he couldn’t be sure about the color of her eyes at that distance.
“Hep!” The ball shot back.
Dan was a split-second slow in pulling out, pivoting. He tried to make it up, plunging over to trap the moose-shouldered right tackle. He bumped his own blocking back, was dumped on his tail. The tackle bulled through, wrecked the works.
“Whatsamatter, Webb?” Yokum’s voice dripped acid. “Maybe we better let you rest up a bit. Must be pretty wearing to think up those nifties, all the time.”
Dan shook his head, apologetically. “Couldn’t see where I was goin’, coach. The blonde got in my eyes.”
He flipped his fingers up to his helmet in salute to the girl.
II
At the midfield bench, Marla Gilman halted before a languid youth in wine-colored sport shirt and lime-tinted gabardines.
“Franno phoned to ask if he should bring his box out for the squad pix, boss.”
Lin Hollet took off his dark glasses. It was the polite thing when you were talking to a pretty, even if she was only your secretary. Besides, he never could see enough of Marla, even without them.
“Tell him tomorrow, Marla. Stoney’s cutting the squad after today’s practice.” He waved at the far end of the gridiron where the A and B teams were going through end-zone pass defense — across at the group going through blocking fundamentals on the opposite side of the field. “Franno couldn’t get these all in, with a telephoto. There’ll be twenty less, tomorrow.”
“I’ll call him back.” Marla kept her eyes on the D-squad. “Who’s the lad Yokie’s raking over the coals?”
“Some gahunk named Webb.” Hollet wasn’t interested. “Transfer from Michigan. Backwoods boy… backwards about picking up the fine points of the game.” He chuckled.
Marla watched the D’s run the off-tackle buck again. This time Dan faked a block on Soletti, pulled back fast, behind the line, bunted him for a loop.
“Your gahunk seems to have picked up the mousetrap trick, all right,” she said dreamily. “He looks as if he had lots of — the old stuffaroo.”
Hollet glanced at her quizzically:
“Think so? Take a good, long peek at him then. You won’t be seeing him around after today.”
“Are they dropping him from the squad?”
“Yup. No previous experience. Didn’t even go out for frosh football at Ann Arbor. Hit-or-miss specialist, too. Hits this time, misses next. And,” Hollet watched her slyly, “the coaches say he’s always clowning around. Doesn’t seem to take football seriously.”
“No?” She jumped on the bench, beside Hollet; craned her neck to get a view of the action. The D’s were trying the wide reverse, now. Klupper Smith carrying. Brad Sully, one halfback and both guards, blocking. Mostly one guard. Webb.
He mowed down his right tackle again with a stiff shoulder block, plowed through to the secondary. Backing up, for the C’s Piet De Fano, last year’s All Coast center, met him solidly. Dan didn’t roll into him with a body block. He crashed into De Fano head on, standing up.
“Wowie!” Marla yelped, involuntarily, grabbing Hollet’s shoulder.
The sound of the block was like a couple of freight cars being shunted together. De Fano went down, stayed down. Dan bounced off, kept his feet, went on.