“Yes,” he said. “I can’t understand how Mulligan left that red-headed clown, Rollins, in a first-team slot. The harder he tries, the more he turns into a tanglefoot. I’m bustin’ him down to a third-string sub and I may toss him off the squad entirely.”
“He’s a nice boy,” I said.
“Burk, we can’t give free rides to nice boys. We’ve got a record to protect.”
It was the first time he had called me by my last name. I knew he was annoyed. Maybe I had picked the wrong word for Rollins.
Walker made a wise choice in Rick Denatti. Rick was a chunky boy, but as quick as a cat, with a mind that clicked every minute. He had that indefinable sense of smelling out a play and getting to the trouble spot just as it exploded.
With the defensive backfield of Ober, Shannon, Denatti and Angeline, running a play through their back yard became as easy as carrying a bass fiddle through a subway turnstile.
Every day Rollins was at the swampy end of the practice field, working out with the other misfits who wore the old-style uniforms.
Scotty Shannon was Red Rollins’ roommate. Scotty, just like every other man on the defensive team, was a workman. A hard, solid, fast workman with a fine warm feeling toward physical contact. Scotty’s eyebrows and eyelashes were so pale as to be almost invisible.
I waylaid Scotty after the final practice before the Malloy game, just as he came out of the showers to walk over to the training table. I fell into step beside him.
He gave me a quick glance and said, “Hi, Mike.”
“How’s the kid taking it?” I asked.
He knew who I meant. “It’s kind of a jolt from being the fair-haired boy with Rooney to getting the dirty end of the stick from Walker. He’s pretty moody.”
“Tell him to keep his tail up, Scotty.”
Scotty stopped and stared at me. “What can you do for him? Pardon me for putting it that way.”
“You don’t have to step gently with me, Scotty. I’ll think of something — maybe.”
Scotty was looking behind me and his face changed. Red shambled up to us. Red is the only player I ever met who could manage to knock himself out on a locker bench. He was out cold for fifteen minutes one time, with a lump on his head as big as a lemon.
Physically he was strictly for laughs. A big, shambling guy with oversize hands and feet, a shock of red unruly hair, a lean neck with a huge Adam’s apple, and a pair of bright blue eyes.
They call that particular type, accident prone. I would like a dollar for every broken bone he had in his lifetime.
He came up to us and his usually bright eyes had a dull and woebegone look. “It could have happened to anybody,” he said helplessly.
“What was it, Red?” Scotty asked.
“Oh, that last scrimmage. Mr. Walker was watching us. Gilly calls those shifts and he mumbles, I think. Anyway, I shift right and Joey shifts left and we knock each other down and the play comes right through where we should have been.”
“No harm done,” Scotty said.
“Mr. Walker told me that I was through. Just a minute ago,” Red said bleakly.
“He can’t do that!” Scotty flared.
Red shambled away into the night, his head down. We heard him say, “Brother, he went and did it.”
“Now what?” Scotty demanded of me.
“I got to think,” I said.
But I tried talking instead of thinking. I tried talking that same night. I said to Wes, “I understand Rollins is through.”
Wes lifted a careful eyebrow. “Oh, did he come whining to you?”
“No, he didn’t.”
“I got rid of him first because he was awkward, an impossible clown, with no more football sense than a fish peddler. Second, getting rid of him is a hell of a good warning to the others with any tendency to clown up the game.”
“But Wes, I really think that maybe you should have waited and—”
“Subject closed, Burk. Closed tight. Apparently Rollins was some sort of mascot for the squad when Mulligan was in charge. We don’t need mascots and luck pieces, Mike. We will win with a better brand of ball, played by guys in top condition.”
I shrugged. “You’re the boss.”
He turned on the charm, clapping me on the shoulder. “Don’t sulk, Mike. I’m not the boss. We’re partners in this deal, doing the best we know how.”
Even though part of the act was phoney, there was enough sincerity behind it so that you couldn’t help liking the guy.
And on the next day we walked all over Malloy, 42-6. They got the single touchdown on a fluke. The score could have been run up to an astronomical figure, but Wes was anxious to get everybody in there, to see how they’d react in the press of an actual game.
We had two minor injuries that could be well baked out and taped for the next game with no risk of further damage to the boys.
It was a thrill to see Harbour, in pale green and gold, take to the field. There was a professional snap and precision about the boys. Tiny Lauderhouse had worked with the big linemen until they charged low, hard, and deep.
I had worked on every ball carrier’s style until I had him doing what he did best on each play that used him. The aerial attack clicked, even when we tried stuff that Wes and I had been leary of as being too complicated for the college level.
Statistically, Michigan was weak. The Raiders had lost seven of their top men, and the blanks were filled with green sophomores. Yet, they came out with fire and spirit, and made up, in pepper, what they lacked in statistics.
In the first ten minutes of play they punched over two touchdowns and made two conversions to leave us trailing by fourteen points. The crowd thought they were seeing a 19-game win streak chopped off. They were pulling for the Raiders.
Wes sat, lean, hard and composed, on the bench and directed replacements with a cool and masterly hand.
Harbour played uninspired ball, and very competent ball. Our boys didn’t make any mistakes. The plays clicked. Nobody extended themselves to make that extra half-yard, but competence began to pile up the yardage. The steady hammering culminated in a seventy yard march for a touchdown in the closing moments of the first half.
Between halves, Wes was cold and matter of fact. He said, “They blew all their stuff early in the game, men. You’re playing the kind of ball I want you to play. Watch for the breaks, and don’t hand them any favors. I expect three more touchdowns in the second half. The first one might be tough to get. The other two should be easy.”
It was a good guess. The first one was tough. We slammed down to their seven and, in four more plays got it no further than the three.
They kicked out and on the first play Messna, our big fullback, took it down to their five. We gained two yards to the three on first down, lost one back to the four on second, gained down to the one on third, and on fourth down they stopped the surge on the six-inch line.
They kicked out. But the sawdust had run out of Raggedy Andy. We punched it over, converted, kicked off, stopped them dead, took the ball and marched it over again.
For a time I thought Wes was going to be wrong about the third touchdown, but with two minutes to go, the Raiders tried a long pass. Our offensive right end gathered it in, reversed the field to give interference a chance to form, and galloped the whole distance. The conversion was bad, but the final score was Harbour, 27, Raiders, 14.
Twenty-one wins in a row!
But on the following Saturday the Gray Wave from Ohio was coming to town. Rough boys, coached by an expert. And loaded with a big urge for revenge for the upset of last year. I watched during the week while Wes tried to inject a little spirit into our lethargic squad.
On Thursday night I went to Scotty’s room. He was wearing a green eyeshade, cracking the books. Red was on his bed, his big fingers locked behind his head, staring without expression at the ceiling.