“If the staff is looking all over for a four-leaf clover to replace the one they’ve lost, they might do worse than give this Webb kid a try. To me,” she whirled back to the machine to avoid Hollet’s reproving eyes, “it looked as if he had something, out there today.”
“If he’d had enough, it would have shown up at Ann Arbor, precious.” He grinned wisely.
“I didn’t see him at Michigan,” she retorted. “I saw him bounce Piet De Fanno on his ear, though. Klupper Smith couldn’t do that if he was riding the front end of a locomotive. I’ve a good mind to speak to Stoney about him!”
“You may have a good mind, sweetie plum. But not a good idea.” He sighed. “Coaches don’t like little girls to stick their noses in the big boys’ game. But if it’ll amuse you, I’ll mention him to Stoney, myself.”
“Don’t act as if you were doing me a favor. You might just possibly be doing a smart thing for the team. Of course,” she tossed over her shoulder, typing rapidly, “I couldn’t be expected to know about such things. But I’ll bet you Stoney puts him back on the squad.”
“Bet me a date and I’ll take you,” he said lazily.
“All right.” Swiftly she typed:
Vardeman, T.
Webb, D.
Wielaski, F.
“Hun, taa, three, zip! Hun, taa, three, zip!” Boyd Mason, backfield coach, barked over the portable amplifier.
Strung out in a circle, the squad alternately chopped wood with locked fists, then bent in a knee-straining squat. Dan Webb hummed, in cadence with the drill caller:
Cal-is-then-ics, here I come
Right back where I started from—
“All right,” yapped Mason. “Backs at north goal. Ends here. Line, south goal. Put some life in it.”
Yokum was organizing two-on-one offensive charging when Dan joined the linemen. The coach tugged at the visor of his baseball cap, scowling:
“I can take a joke as well as the next man. But not day after day. What you doing out here Webb?”
Dan raised his eyebrows: “Whatever you say, coach.”
Yokum twirled his whistle: “Didn’t you read the Revised Squad List?”
“Sure. My name’s on it.”
The line coach consulted his carbon copy. There it was, in smudged type. Vardeman, Webb, Wielaski.
“Mistake somewhere.” Maybe Stoney’d reinstated this clown, in spite of the line coach’s report. “Better see the head man.”
Stoney Hart watched My’ Blumenthal limber up the backs on quick buttonhook flips.
“Keep it low, keep it low, My’. So the secondary can’t bat it down. Aim for the belly button. What is it?” He rasped brusquely to Dan.
“Mister Yokum told me to report to you, coach.”
The pale, gray eyes in the long, narrow saddle-leather face studied him. “Webb, aren’t you?”
Dan nodded.
The Head Coach recalled something Lin Hollet had said to him. Also, there were certain notations on Yokum’s candidatereports that lingered in Stoney’s mind. “Lineman?”
“Played backfield some.”
“Where?”
“Full.”
The gray eyes sized up his hundred and eighty-five pounds. “Where’d you play fullback?”
“High school.” Dan was bland. “Michigan.”
“How many games they use you at Ann Arbor last year?”
Dan shook his head. “I meant my high school was in Michigan. Petosky.”
Stoney let it go at that. “What can you do?”
“Buck, some. Block, some. Back up.” Dan’s flippant manner was gone.
This horsefaced man was one of the great gridiron strategists. He’d built a dozen devastating football machines here on the coast and down in Texas. The cutting edge of his sharp tongue had shaped a score of top rank stars who’d gone on to set new marks in the National Football League and the All American Association.
No sense kidding a man like this. “I’m not so hot on chucking or booting.”
“No?” Stoney turned his head away, looked at him out of the corner of the cold, pale eyes, as if he couldn’t believe the admission: “Can you catch a pass?”
“If I can reach it.” No point underplaying himself too far, either.
“Get on the line, there.”
The halfbacks were starting from the goal, as an imaginary line of scrimmage, sprinting ten, cutting over fast, whirling to grab the quick buttonhooks. Dan stepped in place behind Everson.
It looked easy. It wouldn’t be, though. If Blumenthal timed his hair-trigger pass wrong, if the rifled ball was wide— Oh! what the hell! he growled at himself, It’s only a game!
Everson made his cut and his catch, lobbed the leather back to Blumenthal.
“Set… One… two… Go!” Stoney snapped
Dan got away fast, swerved, whirled, hands out Voom! The ball socked his navel. All he had to do was hold it.
He threw the oval back to the chunky Blumenthal with a grin of admiration for the passer who could place that leather like a moundsman tossing strikes.
Stoney said nothing to him. To Blumenthal he gave new orders.
“Long shots, My’. Thirty yards. Ten in from west side. Keep ’em high. Throw ’em soft.”
Klupper Smith came up behind Dan while Al Dominque raced down for the first long heave.
“How’d you promote yourself to the backfield, skutch?”
“Not a promotion,” Dan corrected him. “Just a probation. Yokum no likum. Mebbe Big Chief no wantum, either.”
“Nothin’ to it. You’ll do it,” Klupper encouraged him.
He did only fair on the long heaves, though, catching one, bobbling one. Stoney disregarded him, until the first and second string linemen came up to the north goal for scrimmage.
“B’s ball on the ten. Lewis quarter, Dominque left, Pfieffer right, you at full.” He stabbed a finger at Dan. “Let’s see some stuff, Coco.” He set the ball fifteen yards in.
The A’s strung out in the 7-3-1’ last ditch defense.
In the circle of huddled shoulders, Coco Lewis regarded Dan skeptically. “When’d you get to be a back, Webb?”
“You heard the man,” Dan said easily. “Don’t you believe him?”
The quarterback grunted, unconvinced. “Left shift. Off tackle. Strong side. Pfieffer lugs it. Drop that end, Dommy. Halfback’s yours, Webb. Let’s go!”
They lined up, unbalanced single wing, Dominque flanking.
It gave Dan a queer sensation to be stooping there, hands on knees, instead of crouching low in the line. A good feeling. This was where he belonged. Where he could show something, if they gave him a chance. Maybe Coco wouldn’t…
The snap-back. The quick start. Everson coming up fast from his back-up spot. The hard-rolling block… and the whistle. Ship Morey, the senior who held down the right wing for the A’s, had broken through Dominque, spilled Pfieffer for a three yard loss.
“Come on! Conze on, now!” Stoney demanded, urgently. “Second. Thirteen. Get a gain, Coco.”
The quarter called for a buttonhook pass, to the right, after a fake buck. “Make your crossover fast, Dommy. I’m going to slam it at you.”
It went sour. A guard ripped through, drove Coco back. The fake didn’t work. Coco had to lob the pass, instead of rifling it. It was batted down.
Stoney was sarcastic. “That the best you can do?”
Before Coco could call his play in the huddle, Dan said: