Hi ya, Greg,” said Larry, looking directly at him so that Greg could read his lips. “How do you feel?”
Greg shrugged his wide shoulders. He played right guard with the Digits, doing well in spite of his handicap; he was almost totally deaf.
“Shaky,” he said.
“Why? You did all right in practice.”
“I know,” Greg replied in a low, awkward drawl. “But I’m still shaky!”
He laughed, and Larry laughed with him.
Greg had been deaf since birth, yet no one had ever doubted that he would make the team. He attended a special school where he had learned to talk. Not being completely deaf, he was able to hear quarterback’s signals if they were shouted loudly enough, and he was a fine player.
They arrived at the field, started to throw warm-up passes, then lined up for brief warm-up runs. Larry found that running and throwing relieved the tension that had built up inside him. He was ready to go.
The captains of both teams, Doug Shaffer for the Digits and Morris Hanes for the Whips, met at the center of the field with the referees. One of the refs flipped a coin.
“Heads!” said Doug, just loud enough to be heard from the bench.
He must have lost, because the ref put his hand on the other captain’s shoulder, and made a receiving motion. Then he touched Doug’s shoulder and made a kicking motion toward the north goal.
“Okay defense,” said Coach Tom Ellis, a former college player. “Get out there and reverse the situation. Okay?”
A thunder of applause greeted both teams as they ran out on the field. A ref tossed a football to Pat DeWitt, who placed the ball in position on the forty-yard line. Then both teams lined up for the kickoff.
Pat’s toe met the ball slightly off center, sending it spinning like a top toward the left side of the field. It hit the ground in front of a Whips lineman, and bounced crazily until one of the running backs pounced on it.
The ref spotted it on the Whips’ thirty-eight.
“Great start,” grumbled Jack O’Leary, a defensive back.
“Maybe we’re all a little nervous,” said Larry.
“Why? What’s there to be nervous about?”
Jack was tall and thin as a fence post. Larry remembered that Coach Ellis had quite a time finding shoulder pads that would fit him. Yet to hear him talk you’d think he didn’t have an ounce of fear in him.
“Guess you’re different,” Larry said.
The Whips went into a huddle, broke out of it, and lined up at the scrimmage line. Larry settled in his middle linebacker position, his heart pounding. One of the toughest positions on defense is the middle linebacker, Yancey Foote had written in one of his letters. You must be able to go in either direction, left or right.
Mick Bartlett, the Whips’ quarterback, barked signals. The ball was snapped. Mick backpedaled a few steps, then handed off to J. J. Jackson. Jackson plowed through the line where a hole had opened up wide enough to drive a truck through.
Larry’s eyes met J. J.’s squarely as the fast-running back came toward him. Then, just as Larry reached out to grab him, J. J. made a lightning dodge to the left. Larry’s fingers barely brushed against J. J.’s crimson shirt as J. J. burst by him, plunging to the forty-five, where Jack O’Leary pulled him down.
“Come on, you guys! Plug up that hole!” Jack yelled, straightening up his helmet and backing up to his position. Larry admired him. That was an excellent tackle.
Second and three.
J. J. carried again. This time he dashed through a hole on the right side of the line, picking up four yards and a first down before Rick Baron and Steve Harvey brought him down.
Pete Monroe, the Whips’ burly fullback, tried to duplicate J. J.’s run up through the middle. The hole was there, but so was Larry. His feet planted squarely under him, Larry followed Pete’s every move, determined not to be outfoxed this time.
Pete tried to stiff-arm him, dodging to his left in an attempt to evade Larry’s reaching hands. He wasn’t as quick as J. J., though, and Larry tackled him, pulling him down on the Digits’ forty-eight. A three-yard gain.
Second and seven.
J. J. carried the ball again, sprinting around left end for a long gain and another first down. The Whips were moving, taking huge bites of precious yardage, and they seemed unstoppable.
In three more plays they hit pay dirt, J. J. going over for the touchdown. Then Pete swung around right end for the extra point. Whips 7, Digits 0.
Coach Ellis sent in his offensive team, keeping in Larry, Manny Anderson, and Billy James, all of whom played defense and offense. Larry played center on offense; Coach Ellis had told him he had the size for both a center and a middle linebacker. Larry didn’t know whether to be proud of that or not. Were he, Manny, and Billy expected to play every minute of the game? With twelve minutes in a quarter that added up to forty-eight minutes. A guy could absorb a lot of beating in that time if he were lucky enough to live through it.
Omar Ross, the Whips’ hefty middle linebacker, kicked off. The boot was a beauty, flying end over end deep into Digits territory. Doug Shaffer, the Digits’ wing-footed fullback, caught it and ran it up to his thirty-three, where two Whips downed him.
“Eighteen,” quarterback George Daley said in the huddle.
“Eighteen?” Doug echoed. “Man, you want to pass right off the bat?”
“They won’t expect it,” said George.
“But nobody ever starts off with a pass. Okay, you called it. Let’s go.”
“No. Wait a minute. Let’s change it to twenty-eight.”
Larry glanced from George to Doug. Who’s quarterbacking this team, anyway? he wanted to ask.
“Right,” said Doug. “Let’s get ‘em, guys.”
They broke out of the huddle and hustled to the line of scrimmage. Larry felt an elbow nudge him on the arm. It was Greg. A questioning look was in his eyes. He hadn’t heard what that exchange was about, but he could tell that it was not something pleasant.
Larry got over the ball, put his hands around it.
“Hut one! Hut two! Hut three!”
Larry snapped the ball, then threw a block on Omar as the linebacker tried to plunge through the line. Omar fell over him, regained his balance, and started after George. George backpedaled a few steps, turned, and handed off to Billy James, the right halfback. Billy grabbed the ball and sprinted toward the right side of the line. The Whips’ defense went after him, caught him, and threw him for a three-yard loss.
“Maybe we should’ve tried the pass after all,” Billy said in the huddle.
“You didn’t get the blocking or you would’ve made it,” said Doug defensively. “I don’t care. Try a pass now if you want to.”
George did. It was a long one, wobbling just slightly as it arched through the air, intended for wide receiver Curt Robinson. In every respect it was a beautiful pass, but George apparently had not accounted for J. J. Jackson. The spindle-legged backfield man seemed to come out of nowhere, plucking the ball out of Curt’s hands and running with it down the field as if he were taking off with a pot of gold.
There was no stopping him as he sprinted down the sideline for a touchdown. It was a surprise blow. A sock in the gut.
“That guy’s everywhere!” George said unbelievingly.
“You have to have your eyes peeled,” said Doug, his own eyes glazed with fury at the sudden turnaround. “You just can’t look at the receiver. Anyhow, Manny was wide open. You should’ve thrown to him.”
Larry’s stomach twinged. “Don’t blame George, Doug,” he said. “He threw a good pass. J. J.’s so fast that I never saw him myself till he caught the ball.”
“Why were you watching?” Doug shot back. “You were supposed to be blocking.”
“I blocked my man,” Larry answered, his anger mounting. “But I still had time to see if that pass was completed.’
“Larry — no.’
He felt a hand grab his arm. It was Greg’s.
“Don’t argue, Larry,” Greg said. “It won’t get us anywhere.”
“Right,” Larry thought. That Greg. He could not have heard a word of the exchange, yet he must have felt that Larry and Doug were having an argument.
Pete Monroe kicked for the point after. It was good. Whips 14, Digits 0.
Three minutes into the second quarter the Digits made their first big gain, a thirty-six-yard run by Manny Anderson.
The ball was spotted on the Whips’ twenty-six. First and ten.
“Forty-eight,” said George in the huddle.
Forty-eight. Doug’s carry around right end. George called signals, took the snap, handed it off to Doug. The fullback sped toward the right, eluded two would-be tacklers, and was knocked out of bounds by the Whips’ defensive backs. A three-yard gain.
“Forty-three,” said George.
Doug carried it again, this time plunging through a hole in the line wide enough to let a trailer van through. Greg, left guard Jim Collins, Larry — they did their jobs skillfully and well. Larry went as far as throwing a block on another man besides his own, providing Doug the opportunity to gain an extra eight yards on top of the eleven he already had.
Then a flag dropped. A whistle shrilled. Larry stared at the ref as the man in the black-and-white striped shirt showed the clipping sign.
“On who?” asked Larry bewilderedly.
“On you,” replied the referee grimly.