Interference and Other Football Stories.

by Harold M. Sherman.

INTERFERENCE

"Can I see you a minute, Coach?"

"Yes, Mack. Come in."

Mack Carver, subst.i.tute back on Grinnell University's varsity squad, stepped across the threshold of Coach Edward's office. He carried his one hundred and eighty-seven pounds easily and with an athletic swagger. But he scowled as he entered, indicating that his call was about an unpleasant matter.

"Well, boy--what's on your mind?" smiled the Coach, straightening up from a ma.s.s of papers which contained diagrams of the plays Grinnell was to use in her season's big game against Pomeroy, now less than a week away.

"Plenty!" was Mack's bluntly grim answer. He stood now, facing his coach, across the desk.

Coach Edward's smile faded as he met Mack's challenging glance.

"I want to know why I've been kept so much of the time on the bench?"

the subst.i.tute back fired, point blank.

"Because," answered Coach Edward, evenly, "there were eleven better men on the field. That's ordinarily the only reason any man's kept on the bench."

"I don't believe it," retorted Mack, feelingly. "You've had it in for me because my brother is coach at Pomeroy. That's the reason! And you'd like to be coach at Pomeroy yourself!"

Coach Edward drew in his breath, sharply. "Perhaps I would!" he said.

"But that's a strict matter of business--nothing personal!"

"No?" flashed Mack. "You and brother Carl have been rivals for the last two years. You've been out to beat each other on the gridiron and now that you've turned out some cracking good teams with the smallest college in the State, you think you've got my brother on the run!"

"I'm tickled, naturally," admitted the coach. "Wouldn't _you_ be?

Don't you suppose your brother enjoys his triumphs over _me_? ... It's all in a spirit of good sportsmanship!"

"That part of it may be all right," conceded Mack, "but you feel strong enough against my brother, just the same, to not want to give _me_ a break!"

"That's bunk!" branded Coach Edward. "But there's one thing I've always wanted to know ... why is it you quit Pomeroy after two years and came to Grinnell?"

"That's an easy one to answer. I discovered I could never hope to make the team that my brother was coaching. He was bending over backward to keep from showing me any favors. When I found that out, I figured I'd better save him from any further embarra.s.sment and give myself a fair chance by changing schools. That's why I came to Grinnell!"

"But why Grinnell--Pomeroy's bitterest rival? Of all the schools you might have picked...!"

Mack grinned, sardonically. "My brother didn't think I'd ever make a good football player. I'd hoped to be able to show him."

"That's just your greatest fault," spoke the coach, frankly. "You want the limelight every move you make. You're wondering all the time if everyone's looking at you ... and it's hurting your game. No good player can be thinking of starring and playing at the same time."

Mack stared hard for a moment.

"You've got me wrong," he said, slowly. "I naturally want to do the best I know how. And maybe I've looked to you like I wanted to attract attention. If I have, it's only because I hoped _you'd_ take a shine to what I was doing. The spectators didn't matter."

"You didn't need to worry about me," the coach replied. "It's my business to keep tab on each man on the squad. I'm sorry if you feel I've legislated against you but you force me to say that, up to the present, I'm inclined to agree with your brother."

"You will excuse me a minute?" requested the Coach, on observing that Mack had no comment to make for the moment, "I've an air mail letter I must post at once."

"Okay," Mack a.s.sented,, and sank disconsolately in a chair beside the desk as Coach Edward strode from the room, envelope in hand.

"This is a swell fix I'm in," Mack bemoaned, with the Coach having gone. "Talk about being hoodooed! How should _I_ know that Coach Edward would ever be out after my brother's coaching job? I'll bet you every time Coach sees me he thinks of my brother and that kills my chances. But I was good enough so he had to make me a sub anyhow."

Mack's gaze suddenly fell upon Coach Edward's pile of papers. Diagrams of football plays caught his eye. He leaned forward that he might see them better, then gave a glance toward the door and arose from his chair. "h.e.l.lo! Pretty nice!... Maybe my brother wouldn't give a lot to have a copy of all these plays!... He's probably had his scouts covering Grinnell games ... but here's some plays we haven't used all season. Boy--that lateral pa.s.s opening out into a forward is a pip!...

Coach Edward's been saving the fireworks to shoot on Pomeroy all right!... Guess he'd give his left ear to beat my brother's team this year. Huh! I'd give my right ear to get in the game!"

Impelled by curiosity, Mack lifted some of the papers and studied other diagrammed plays. He became more engrossed than he had intended when he was seized with the uncomfortable feeling that someone else was in the room.

"Well?" spoke Coach Edward, standing quietly just inside the door.

"Oh! I ... er ... a ...!" stammered Mack, badly fussed. "Pardon me!... I saw these plays here and I...!"

"... and you thought you'd get them _memorized_," said the Coach, bitingly.

"No, sir!" flashed Mack, stung at the insinuation. "I was just interested. I...!"

There was nothing further that he could say. It dawned on him in that moment that his relationship to the coach of Pomeroy's eleven was apt to cause many actions of his to be misconstrued. He would have to be more careful. Coach Edward was even now regarding him suspiciously.

"I hope, Mack, that I can trust you," he was saying.

"You sure can," Grinnell's disgruntled subst.i.tute answered, inwardly resenting the suggestion that he might use such information as he had gleaned against his school.

"I am surprised," Coach Edward finished, "that you would have permitted yourself to examine anything on my desk."

"I'm sorry, sir," Mack apologized, realizing that the Coach had reason for complaining. "But I wouldn't think of pa.s.sing anything on to anyone else."

"It wouldn't be exactly wise," said Coach Edward as the two stood face to face.

Mack, who had toiled so long in the hopes of becoming a varsity regular and whose disappointment had finally a.s.sumed proportions of a grudge against his Coach, now made one final appeal.

"Coach, everything I do seems to be wrong. I can't get over the feeling that you don't like me. I swear I didn't mean anything by looking at those plays ... but you've an idea that I did. As for my being on the team and not getting a real chance to play--there must be some reason ... some big reason, if it's not prejudice. Whatever that reason is--I want to know it."

"That's what you _say_," rejoined Coach Edward. "But you're the sort, Mack, who won't be told. You're proving that fact right now even though you claim you want to know what's wrong. I've done the best I could for you on what you've shown me... I'm not in the habit of arguing or discussing a player's merits or demerits with him off the field so I'll have to ask you to consider this interview at an end."

"Okay!" rasped Mack, his pride deeply wounded and his feelings running away with him. Turning on his heel, he strode to the door, but whirled impulsively to throw back an angry taunt: "And here's hoping you get trimmed by Pomeroy!"

"Thank you," replied Coach Edward, icily. "I might have expected just such a remark from you."

And a very unhappy youth, leaving the Coach's presence with a wave of remorse sweeping over him, knew that now he most certainly had sealed his doom. He could hardly expect to be given an opportunity of playing in the Pomeroy game after this.

Grinnell's football schedule was so arranged that the Pomeroy game was always the last of the year. This permitted the small college eleven to throw its complete strength against an ordinarily more powerful team in the annual hope of creating an upset. For Pomeroy, the Grinnell contest had customarily been booked as a "breather" between big games.

There had been little disposition in previous years, as a consequence, to take Grinnell's opposition too seriously. Thus, most of the excitement and enthusiasm had been provided by wide-eyed Grinnell supporters who had hypnotized themselves almost to the point of believing that the impossible was about to happen--a Grinnell victory!

That these loyal rooters had been disappointed as regularly as the annual conflicts arrived, did not seem to dampen the ardor of the next season's support. "Hope springs eternal" was the trite but simple explanation offered by certain zealous followers who steadfastly refused to concede Pomeroy's vaunted superiority. Coach Edward's advent at Grinnell had served to heighten the interest when the small college had held Pomeroy to a 20 to 7 count the first year of his mentorship. Things commenced looking decidedly up as Grinnell, under the new coaching regime, came back the following fall with even more stubborn opposition, losing to Pomeroy in the last quarter, 13 to 7.

No longer could Pomeroy consider the smaller college a set-up and this alone was sufficient for Grinnell supporters to claim a "moral victory." But even bigger things were expected this season--Grinnell's first undefeated eleven going into its major contest against a Pomeroy team which was fighting hard to sustain its prestige of former years.