Part 4 (1/2)
”'Great work, Butch, but why in thunder did you wear that bandage on your knee? They knew just what to go for.'”
Butch grinned. ”I tied it round the well knee,” he said.
The boys laughed.
”Well,” remarked d.i.c.k, ”some of the prize-fighting tactics may have been rooted out of the game, but I'll bet the coaching is just as rough as it used to be.”
”I'm not at all sure about that,” said Mr. Quinby dubiously. ”I'll admit that 'Bull' Hendricks is a finished workman when it comes to the use of pet names, after he's been stirred up by some bonehead play. But, after all, he doesn't use the paddle.”
”Paddle!” came the exclamation in chorus.
”That's what I said. Paddle. In my day it was used by almost all the coaches, as an aid to quick thinking. Some advocate it even yet. The coach would take up his position right behind some line man when the ball was about to be put into play in practice.
”'Now, my son,' he would say, 'the minute the ball is snapped back I'm going to give you a fearful whack with this paddle. It's up to you to jump so fast that the paddle won't find anything to hit.'
”Did it work? I should say it did. Sometimes the paddle would catch him and sometimes it wouldn't, but after a few days of that the slowest of them would be off like a flash the instant the ball was snapped back.
After that it wouldn't be necessary. They'd got the habit of a quick start. And you fellows know that that is the secret of good football, as it is of almost everything else--to get the jump on the other fellows.
”Nowadays, the methods are more often mental than physical. One coach I know works it something like this:
”'I want you to imagine that I have a loaded shotgun in my hand and that I am going to pull the trigger when the ball is snapped, and that you must get out of range before I fill you full of shot.'
”No doubt both methods help in the development of speed, but as between the two, my money goes on the paddle.
”But now,” he said, as he made a motion to rise, ”I'll have to go. I've had a bully good time with you fellows, but I'm keeping you from your studies and then, too, there are one or two of the old Profs I want to see before I turn in. I'll see you again before I go and I'll be there with bells on where the big games are pulled off. Good luck,” and although they urged him to stay longer, he and Ralph took their leave.
”Great old sport, isn't he?” said Tom, when they were left alone.
”All to the good,” replied Bert heartily.
”Let's hope that last 'good luck' of his was prophetic,” remarked d.i.c.k.
”It's up to us to make it so,” said Bert thoughtfully. ”Of course there is such a thing as luck, but I've usually noticed that luck and pluck go together.”
”O, I don't know,” said skeptical Tom. ”Sometimes a 'jinx' follows a man or a team, and everything goes against them. You've heard of the man
Whose horse went dead and his mule went lame, And he lost his cow in a poker game, And a cyclone came on a summer day And blew the house where he lived away.
Then an earthquake came when that was done, And swallowed the ground that the house stood on.
Then a tax collector, he came round And charged him up with the hole in the ground.”
”Some hard luck story, sure enough,” grinned Bert. ”Heaven forbid that any such hoodoo get after us. But, somehow, the result of the game to-day and Mr. Quinby's talk have braced me up, and I feel a mighty sight more hopeful than I did yesterday.”
”Same here,” acquiesced d.i.c.k. ”I've a hunch that we're due to give the 'Greys' and 'Maroons' a great big licking. At any rate, if we lose, they'll know they've been in a fight, and we'll try to take our medicine gracefully.”
”Spoken like a sport, old man,” cried Bert, clapping him on the shoulder. ”G.o.d loves a cheerful giver, but the whole world loves a cheerful loser.”
CHAPTER IV