One … two! One … two! Spread those legs, Boots! Raise those elbows, Vic! One … two! One … two!”
Coach Bo Higgins was leading the team in calisthenics, jumping with his legs spread apart, then together, and his arms moving straight up and down in graceful form.
“Down on your backs! Hands behind your heads and your feet together! Now … without bending your knees, lift your legs a foot off the ground and hold them there!”
Boots grunted and groaned as he felt the ache come to his legs. He kept his lips pressed tightly and strained to hold up his limbs until the coach gave the word to drop them.
“Okay! Down! Rest a minute!”
The minute seemed the shortest in history.
“Everybody on his feet for the Dead Body drill! All right! Down on your bellies! Side by side with about two feet between you and the next man! Eddie Baker, you’re first in line! Get up, jump over each body, and fall flat after you reach the last one! Leo Conway, you’re next in line! Follow Eddie! Get the idea?”
“Got it,” several guys answered in unison.
After each boy went through the routine at least twice, Coach Higgins let them play catch with footballs for a while. Then he called the boys together and handed each of them a football uniform. The jerseys were red and the pants blue, with the team’s name, APOLLOS, on the front of the jerseys. On the backs were the numbers. Boots’s was 77.
Coach Higgins knew all the time that he was going to play me on the line, Boots reflected discouragingly. But what position? I suppose I’ll have to wait till next practice to find out.
The Apollos had calisthenics the next day and the next. On the third day the coach showed some mercy: He cut the calisthenics time in half. Practice wasn’t over, though. Bo Higgins read off a list of names from a clipboard and after each name a position. Boots’s name was right on top of the list. And his position: right tackle.
The next players named were:
Richie Powell right guard
Pete Ellis right end
Ralph Patone center
Vic Walker left tackle
Neil Dekay left guard
Eddie Baker left end
Leo Conway fullback
Jackie Preston right halfback
Duck Farrell left halfback
Bud Davis quarterback
“That’s the offensive team,” said the coach. “Most of the guys will play defensive, too. We’re not loaded with enough players to have fresh units go in each time the football changes hands. Leo, you’ll play fullback on offense and middle linebacker on defense, for example. Don’t worry. We have enough subs so that no one will get so tired he can’t walk. Neither Coach Dekay nor I will be that cruel with you.”
A chuckle rippled from some of the boys.
“But we want a good team,” the coach went on emphatically. “We want players who want to play. If any of you think you’re here just to get out of doing chores at home you might as well quit right now. I don’t want to waste time with that kind of player. There are a lot of kids who are anxious to play but won’t go out for football because they fear they won’t have a chance. So drill this into your heads: Be serious about playing football, or hand in your uniform right now.”
Boots felt that the coach was talking directly to him, for he wasn’t really sure now whether he could be serious about playing football or not. He wanted to play quarterback. That was the position he was set on. That was the position in which he felt he could put his best effort.
Limiting a quarterback’s weight to one hundred and twenty-five pounds was a crazy rule, Boots reflected. That was okay for the other backs because they usually ran with the ball. A quarterback seldom ran with it. A quarterback was boss. He called the plays. He handed the ball off to the backs or threw forward passes.
What did a tackle or guard do? Nothing but ram his shoulders against the guy in front of him, or throw a block on somebody. You didn’t need brains to play tackle or guard. Just broad shoulders.
Well — weight, too.
And guts. Yeah, you really had to have guts. You could get a lot of pounding from the other guy. A helmet and shoulder pads weren’t all you needed to be able to take that pounding.
“Well, I’m through with my speech,” said Bo Higgins. “Are there any among you who want to throw in the towel now?”
His eyes wandered slowly over the boys. They met Boots’s eyes and Boots didn’t flinch. He wasn’t going to admit to Bo that he didn’t have his heart one hundred percent in playing just because he couldn’t play quarterback. He couldn’t. Not in front of all the guys.
He didn’t know what he’d do. Maybe he’d tell the coach tomorrow. Or the day after.
The coach wasn’t giving a guy a chance asking him to decide this very minute.