Boots started in the game against the Argonauts, who had won a game and tied one. Lynn Giles was their quarterback, a lefty who could throw as far as any kid Boots had ever seen. They looked sharp in their bright orange uniforms and were bigger, man for man, than the Apollos.
The Apollos won the toss and Bud Davis chose to receive. Jackie Preston caught fullback Smokey Mills’s long kick and carried it back to the Apollos’ forty-two-yard line. Duck burrowed the left side of the line for a three-yard gain, then took a handoff from Bud and went around right end for two more yards.
Boots kept his man from plunging through both times, but he wished he were in Duck’s place on those runs. He was the ball carrier. He and Bud and Leo and Jackie. Next in order of importance were the receivers, ends Pete and Eddie.
The rest of us are like the bottom men of a totem pole, thought Boots. All we do is to try to keep the enemy from busting through when we’re on offense, and try to break through and bring down the ball carrier on defense. We’re the workhorses.
In the huddle Bud called for seventeen flare, a pass play to Eddie behind the line of scrimmage. Boots felt more like going for a bicycle ride than playing football.
“Down! Seven! Four! Twenty-one! Hut! Hut! Hut!”
One moment the Argonaut tackle was looking directly into Boots’s eyes, the next he was sweeping past Boots so fast that Boots didn’t know what had happened. He turned and saw that the tackle had knocked down Bud’s pass.
Bud glared at him. “What were you doing, Boots? Taking a nap?”
Boots walked reluctantly into the huddle.
“We’ve got to kick,” said Bud. “Kick it a mile, Leo.”
Leo Conway punted the ball close to the Argonauts’ twenty-yard line. One of their safety men caught it and carried it back to their thirty-nine. Smokey Mills hit the line on Boots’s side, but Boots knocked his man aside and stopped the fullback cold before he could reach the line of scrimmage. A loss of two yards.
“Nice going, Boots,” said Bud. He chewed you out when you goofed, but praised you when you did well.
Second and twelve. A halfback took a handoff from Lynn and crashed through the other side of the line for four yards.
On the next play Boots lunged forward a fraction of a second before the ball was snapped. The quarterback handed off to the right halfback, who sprinted toward his left side of the line. Boots flung his man aside and bolted after the ball carrier. He tackled him for a loss of three yards, but when he got up he saw Duck pointing at a red flag lying on the ground.
“Yeah,” admitted Boots. “I know. I was offside.”
The Argonauts accepted the penalty. The ref paced off five yards against the Apollos and spotted the ball on the Argonauts’ forty-six.
Third and three.
They’ll probably throw a short pass, thought Boots, to get a first down. He listened to the signals, then moved at the snap. He bumped his man aside then stood there, waiting to calculate Lynn Giles’s move. But Lynn was fading back … back. He was looking at a receiver down the field.
Boots dug his cleats into the ground and sprinted forward, realizing now that he was too late to stop the quarterback.
Lynn threw. The pass was a long spiraling bomb that hit his receiver perfectly near the left sideline. The man raced the remaining twenty some yards for a touchdown. Smokey Mills kicked for the extra point and it was good. 7 to 0.
The Argonauts kicked off and once again Jackie Preston caught the ball and ran it back, driving almost to midfield before he was tackled. The Apollos moved the ball into Argonaut territory and got it to the twelve when again the Apollos were penalized five yards for being offside. This time Neil Dekay, the left guard, was the offender.
“Watch it, Neil,” pleaded Bud. “Let’s not goof things up now.”
Second and fifteen. Bud called for a pass play. Boots, concentrating on the tackle opposite him, never saw the Argonaut linebacker come tearing through the line past him. He hit Bud. The ball squirted from Bud’s hands. The Argonaut scooped it up and raced down the field to the Apollos’ forty-three before Bud, himself, pulled him down.
“Boots! Richie!” cried Bud. “That guy busted through as if nobody was on the line at all!”
“Sorry, Bud,” said Richie. “My man blocked me but good.”
Boots said nothing. His eyes met Bud’s and he knew that Bud was expecting him to mutter an excuse, too. But Boots looked away and headed toward his position at the line of scrimmage. Just then the horn blew, announcing the end of the first quarter, and the teams exchanged goals.
The game resumed, and Boots realized that something was missing. He couldn’t get excited about the game. He just crouched there on the scrimmage line because it was a job he had to do. He looked his man eye to eye and listened for the snap call. At the call he tried to brush his man aside and go after the quarterback, but he found himself pushed back to the ground.
He felt the same way during the next play and the next. He just couldn’t get going, and he didn’t care. The Argonauts moved down to the four-yard line without giving up the ball, and every now and then Boots heard Bud yelling to the guys — “Tighten up the line!” and “Block your man!”
Tony Alo rushed onto the field and patted Boots on the shoulder. “Take off, Boots,” he said.
Boots trotted off the field.
“Come on, Boots! Move!” rasped Coach Bo Higgins’s harsh voice.
He ran hard until he crossed the sideline, then stopped, took off his helmet, and sat beside a sub on the bench.
A shadow crossed in front of him and he recognized the coach’s pants and shoes. “You all right, Boots?” asked the coach.
Boots didn’t raise his eyes higher than the coach’s knees. “I’m okay,” he said softly.
“Look at me, Boots.”
Boots looked up. Coach Higgins’s eyes were mild but curious. “Are you telling me the truth, Boots?”
“Yes, I am. I’m okay.”
“Then something’s on your mind. What is it?”
“That didn’t look like you out there during those last few plays. You looked like a kid who had never played ball before.”
Boots flushed. “I don’t have any excuse, Coach, except that —” He broke off.
“Except what?”
“I don’t know. Sometimes I just can’t get excited about playing. This must be one of the times.”
“You know what that sounds like, Boots?” said the coach. “Like a fat excuse. You know you don’t mean that and I know you don’t mean it. Something else is bothering you and I’m going to let you sit on that bench till you get it out of your system.”
It was almost at that very moment that Lynn Giles went over on a quarterback sneak. Then Smokey Mills kicked the extra point, putting the Argonauts even farther in front, 14 to 0.