Part 15 (2/2)
The Gold and Green backfield s.h.i.+fted to the kick formation. Ten yards back of the center, on the thirty-two-yard line of Ballard, stood T. Haviland Hicks, Jr.; the vast crowd was hushed, all eyes stared at that slender figure, standing there, with Captain Butch Brewster at his right, and Beef McNaughton on his left hand-the spectators believed the frail-looking youth had been sent in to try a drop-kick. The Ballard rooters thought it, and--the Ballard eleven wereof their enemy's plan--Hicks'
mosquito-like build, his nervous swinging of that right leg, deluded them, and helped Coach Corridan's plot.
It was the only play, if Bannister wanted the Champions.h.i.+p enough to try a desperate chance; better a fighting hope for that glory, with a try for a touchdown, than a field-goal, and a tie-score! The lines of scrimmage tensed. The linesmen dug their cleats in the sod, those of Ballard tigerish to break through and block; old Bannister's determined to . Back of Ballard's line, the backfield swayed on tip-toe, every muscle nerved, ready to crash through; the ends prepared to knock Roddy and Monty aside, the backs would charge madly ahead, in a berserk rush, to crash into that slim figure.
”Boot it, Hicks!” shrieked Deke Radford, and as he shouted, the pigskin shot from the Bannister center's hands; the Gold and Green line held n.o.bly, but not so the ends. Monty Merriweather, making a bluff at blocking the left end, let him crash past, while he sprinted ahead--Captain Butch Brewster, to whom the pa.s.s had been made, ran forward, until he saw he was blocked, and then, seeing Monty dear, he hurled a beautiful forward pa.s.s.
Into the arms of the waiting Monty it fell, and that Gold and Green star, absolutely free of tacklers, sprinted twelve yards to the goal-line, falling on the pigskin behind it! Coach Corridan's ”100 to 1” chance, suggested by Mr. Thomas Haviland Hicks, Sr., had succeeded, and--the Biggest Game and the Champions.h.i.+p had come to old Bannister at last!
Followed a scene pauperizing description! For many long years old Bannister had waited for this glory; years of bitter disappointment, seasons when the Champions.h.i.+p had been missed by a scant margin, a drop-kick striking the cross-bar, Butch Brewster blindly cras.h.i.+ng into an upright. But now, all their pent-up joy flowed forth in a mighty torrent! Singing, yelling, dancing, howling, the Bannister Band leading them, the Gold and Green students, alumni, Faculty, and supporters, snake-danced around Bannister Field. A vast, writhing, sinuous line, it wound around the gridiron, everyone who possessed a hat flinging it over the cross-bars. The victorious eleven, were borne by the maddened youths--Captain Butch, Pudge, Beef, Monty, Roddy, Ichabod, Tug, Hefty, Buster, Bunch, and--T. Haviland Hicks, Jr. Ballard, firmly believing Hicks would try a field-goal, had been taken completely off guard. Surprised by the daring attempt, it had succeeded with ease, and the final score was Bannister--10; Ballard--6!
”At last! At last!” boomed Butch Brewster, to whom this was the happiest day of his life. ”The Champions.h.i.+p at last. My great ambition is realized.
Old Bannister has won the Champions.h.i.+p, and I was the Team Captain!”
After a time, when ”the shouting and the tumult died,” or at least quieted somewhat, T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., felt a hand on his arm, and looking down from the shoulders on which he perched, he saw his Dad. Mr. Hicks' strong face was aglow with pride and a vast joy, and he shook his son's hand again and again.
”I understand, Thomas!” he said, and his words were reward enough for the youth. ”It was asacrifice, but you made it gladly--I know! You gave up personal glory for the greater goal, and--old Bannister won the Champions.h.i.+p! You helped win, for the winning play turned on . It was splendid, my son, and I am proud of you! No matter if your sacrifice is never known to the fellows, I understand.”
A moment of silence on Hicks' part; then the sunny youth grinned at his beloved Dad, as he responded blithesomely: ”I'm Pollyanna, that old Bannister and I won out, Dad!”
CHAPTER XV
HICKS HAS A ”HUNCH”
”Ladies and gentlemen, Seniors, Juniors, Soph.o.m.ores, human beings, and--Freshmen! Mr. Thomas Haviland Hicks, Jr., the Olympic High-Jump Champion, holder of the World's record, and winner at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition National Champions.h.i.+ps, in his event, is about to high jump! The bar is at five feet, ten inches. Mr. Hicks is the Herculean athlete in the crazy-looking bathrobe.”
T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., his splinter-structure enshrouded in that flamboyant bathrobe of vast proportions and insane colors, that inevitably attended his athletic efforts, shaming Joseph's coat-of-many-colors, gazed despairingly at his good friend, Butch Brewster, and Track-Coach Brannigan, with a Ches.h.i.+re cat grin on his cherubic countenance.
”It's no use, Butch, it's no use!” quoth he, with ludicrous indignation, as big Tug Cardiff, the behemoth shot-putter, through a huge megaphone imitated a Ballyhoo Bill, and roared his absurd announcement to the hilarious crowd of collegians in the stand. ”Old Bannister willtake my athletic endeavors seriously. Here I have won two second places, and a third, in the high-jump this season, and have a splendid show to annexplace and my track B in the Intercollegiates, but--hear them!”
It was a balmy, suns.h.i.+ny afternoon in late May. The sunny-souled, happy-go-lucky T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., had trained indefatigably for the high jump, with the result that he had won several points for his team--however, he had not realized his great ambition of first place, and his track letter.
As Hicks now exclaimed to his team-mate and Coach Brannigan, no matter, to the howling Bannister youths, if hewon three places in the high jump, in regularly scheduled meets; his comrades had been jeering at his athletic fiascos for nearly four years, and even had Hicks suddenly blossomed out as a star athlete, they would not have abandoned their joyous habit. Still, those football 'Varsity players to whom good Butch had read Hicks, Sr.'s, letters, and explained the sunny youth's persistence, despite his ridiculous failures, though they kept on hailing his appearance on Bannister Field with exaggerated joy, understood the care-free collegian, and loved him for his ambition to please his Dad. Since Hicks had absolutely refused to accept his B, for any sport, unless he won it according to Athletic a.s.sociation eligibility rules, the eleven had kept secret the contents of the letters Butch Brewster had read to them, for Hicks requested it.
The Bannister College track squad, under Track Coach Brannigan and Captain Spike Robertson, had been training most strenuously for that annual cinder-path cla.s.sic, the State Intercollegiate Track and Field Champions.h.i.+ps. The sprinters had been tearing down the two-twenty straightaway like suburban commuters catching the 7.20 A.M. for the city.
Hammer-throwers and shot-putters--the weight men--heaved the sixteen-pound shot, or hurled the hammer, with reckless abandon, like the Strong Man of the circus. Pole-vaulters seemed ambitious to break the alt.i.tude records, and In so doing, threatened to break their necks; hurdlers skimmed over the standard as lightly as swallows, though no one ever beheld swallows hurdling. The distance runners plodded determinedly around the quarter-mile track, broad-jumpers tried to jump the length of the landing-pit. And T.
Haviland Hicks, Jr., vainly essayed to clear five-ten In the high-jump!
It was the last-named event that ”broke up the show,” as the Phillyloo Bird quaintly stated, somewhat wrongly, since the appearance of that blithesome youth in the offing, his flamboyant bathrobe concealing his shadow-like frame, hadthe show, causing the track squad, as well as a hundred spectator-students, to rush for seats in the stand. The arrival of T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., to train for form and height in the high-jump, though a daily occurrence, was always the signal for a Saturnalia of sport at his expense, because--
”You can't live down your athletic past, Hicks!” smiled good-hearted Butch Brewster. ”Your making a touchdown for the other eleven, by running the wrong way with the pigskin, your hilarious fiascos in every sport, your home-run with the bases full, on a strike-out-are specters to haunt you.
Even now that you have a chance to win your B, just listen to the fellows.”
The track squad's ”heavy weight--white hope” section, composed of hammer-heavers and shot-putters--Tug Cardiff, Beef McNaughton, Pudge Langdon, Buster Brown, Biff Pemberton, Hefty Hollingsworth, and Bunch Bingham, equipped with megaphones, and with thevoices nature gave them, lined up on both sides of the jumping-standards, and chanted loudly:
”All hail to T. Haviland Hicks!
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