John D. MacDonald
Six Points to Remember
In our second game of the season, Steen at left half broke two bones in his foot, and a season that had promised to be one of the best in the history of Northern Tech immediately turned into a rat race. Steen had been our scatback; the boy who could run as though his pants were on fire, stop dead, go high and rifle a jump pass into a lunch pail at twenty-five yards.
We hunks of lethargy in the line had felt good with Steen behind us on offense, along with Big Junior Temple at full, hard-running Les Schuman at right half, flashy little Chris MacLay at quarter. When you are in the line there is a satisfaction in taking your slow count from the signal, busting the hole and knowing that the T is timed so good that, as you bust the hole, the back coming through will just miss your pants with his cleats.
Also there had been a lot of kidding in the offensive backfield. Maybe because there had been one Jewish guy, one Irish, one German and one Englishman, they called themselves the Four Norsemen. In the first game and for the first half of the second game we all knew that the combo was right. The whole team broke on the plays with that bounce that pays off.
All that kidding stopped when Steen was carried off. A good backfield is like an overpopulated marriage. Or like a fancy differential where every gear has to mesh just right.
Bill Logan filled in the last half of the game. He tried hard to fill Steen’s shoes, but it was pretty evident that he was just another back. Chris dropped down the ladder to the simpler plays off the T, but that meant that he couldn’t spread the opposition so good. Once we blocked Logan down the field and shook him loose, but he tried to double back from the safety and was nailed from behind on the twenty when he had been down as far as the eight. Even so, it was a thirty-yard gain from midfield;
Two plays later Logan bobbled a pass into the hands of the opposition and missed his tackle on the man coming through. He took it ninety yards for a touchdown and on the conversion Guy Martin, the tackle next to me, burst through and caught the kick on his chest. So we held our one-point lead and won the game. With Steen in there it would have been thirteen points — maybe.
Offensive backfield practice was rough all the next week. About the time that Tiny Hubbs, the line coach, told us to take twice around the field and call it a day, those backfield boys were just starting new series of run-throughs that would take them until late under the floodlights.
We could see that Sam Henninger, the head coach, was alternating Bill Logan with a kid named Juan Procuna. This Procuna was a chunky kid with an impassive face and long curling eyelashes around liquid brown eyes.
On Thursday in the locker room, Stan Blount, the center, and I talked it over. He said, “Wade, I’ll pick Logan. Hell, his feet get in the way, but Henninger’ll have him running those plays in his sleep.”
“How about the arm on that Procuna?” I asked. “Did you see him pegging them fifty yards the other day? Not floaters, either.”
“So he’s got an arm. Logan doesn’t do bad.”
“One out of every two passes is bad. And how about Procuna’s running? That chunky little guy can really spin through. When we were trying to stop the scrubs a few weeks back, I though I had him good. I had my face right against the side of his knee and he rolled right out of it. Nearly tore my arm off.”
“My bet is Logan. Junior, Chris and Les Schuman want him too.”
“Procuna has more stuff,” I said.
“In practice, sure. But did you ever see one of those Mexicans in competition? Hell, I don’t know of a good one. He looks better than Logan in a lot of departments, but I’ve got to see him in a game first.”
And we saw him in a game. Henninger started him in the Mid-Eastern U. game the following Saturday. In the line, we didn’t get much of a look. Those big linemen of Mid-Eastern kept us very, very busy. But during the times I was benched for a rest I watched Juan Procuna out there.
He carried out his assignments with deadpan precision. And all the rip was gone out of our offensive backfield. That infected the whole team and it seemed to turn into one of those endless afternoons. Three or seven plays and then kick. Stop the opposition and let them kick. Try again. The passes were batted down and neither side could shake men loose. Eight yards was a long run. One of those games where the lines come together with a solid sound, chunk and grunt.
Since I had picked Procuna over Logan I watched close to see if Junior, Chris and Les Schuman were fouling him up. They weren’t. The handoffs were just right and the shovel passes and the flips were hung right up in front of him so that he didn’t have to reach off balance.
And I couldn’t see what Stan had hinted at either. Juan Procuna took his lumps without trying to sideslip or run out of bounds. If he could make another three inches by staying on the field, he stayed. But the team had somehow lost that wonderful unforgettable bounce. It’s like what the Satch said about jazz. If you got to ask what it is, you’ll never know.
The big break came in the early minutes of the last quarter. Mid-Eastern was on its own thirty-three, fourth and a half yard to go. Any ten-year-old child would have said they had to kick. They lined up in punt formation and their quarterback sneaked right between Stan Blount and Brownie Elvers, our right guard, for a yard. That seemed to wake them up. On the next play their left end showed more speed than he had all afternoon. He got two steps beyond our defensive right half, gobbled up the pass and romped down to our forty before he was nailed.
They banged off three and five right through the middle. I was in on defense. After the next play my face was red. Like a high-school hero, I’d been mousetrapped so nicely that they ran their delayed buck for twelve yards right through where I had been. On a fast opening play, there was a lot of beautiful faking in their back-field and out of the confusion a pass soared neatly into the hands of their right end on the goal line. The conversion made it 7–0.
They kicked off and our offensive back-field was missing Procuna. Henninger had sent Logan in. The lineup after Les’ runback had more zip, but the zip slowly faded as they stopped us. The clock slowly marked off the long minutes of the kicking duel. They froze the ball whenever they could. With two minutes to play, they had to kick again. Logan took it and came up the middle, cut toward the sidelines, spun and arched a basketball pass back to Junior Temple. The trouble was that Junior wasn’t there. Two hungry Mid-Easterners stood under it like children looking at the top of the Christmas tree. The pass was way too high. Logan had pushed it up there from an off-balance position.
I was rolling to my feet, and hoping to cut across to intercept whichever one of them grabbed it Then Junior Temple, the Big Freight, came up out of nowhere. He ran right up an invisible staircase and grabbed the ball. As he came down he knocked one of the opposition spinning and ran away from the other one. I angled across and made my third block of the play. I was beginning to feel as though I was going to be out there blocking on that play for what was left of the game. When I sat up Junior was thudding across the goal line.
The kick was nearly blocked before Les got it away. They tried two pass plays, and the game ended. We had grabbed a precarious tie out of thin air. We were a weary group trudging to the locker room that day.
Henninger sauntered through, accompanied by his staff, giving us all a look of mild distaste.
On Monday afternoon Logan wrenched his knee practicing quick cuts.
The Saturday game was a breather, the only one of the season. The offensive backfield played an emotionless game. They were four guys who could have been wound up with big keys in the small of their backs. The timing was all right, but not inspired. Against Lewiston it didn’t have to be. Lewiston had spirit, but their line was too light, their replacements too shallow. We won 28-6, with everyone on the squad getting their feet wet.