Why her old man had taken the occasion of that single, brief, uninvited appearance Bill had made at Lou Ann’s home to make such broad insinuations against Snub, — that Bill couldn’t dope out. The old boy must be smart, to run all those ritzy shops and latch onto all that jack, — yet the way he’d come at Bill about Snub hadn’t been smart at all.
If there was any undercurrent of dissatisfaction with the Stallion’s Head Coach, it was kept far beneath the surface by the Vandal’s defeat and the neat beating the Rampaging Remuda handed out to Montana’s mighty eleven.
On his Intimate Interviews With Sports Stars, Murf made a veiled prediction that one of the contestants in the Pasadena Punch-Bowl on New Year’s Day would be the wonder team that was horsing around with the Coast Conference competition.
A couple of sportscribes came right out flat and said the Stallions were as good as in. After Bill and Zomby pulled the California game out of the fire with a fourth period rescue act that scored two TDs in nine minutes via five completions out of ten, — the campus really started to seeth.
Stanford was the big road-block the Stallions would have to hurdle. And Stanford, on the record, was terrific times two.
An irreverent soul daubed Scalp Those Injuns on the bronze statue of the University’s famous founder. Co-eds clustered on sorority steps, chanting One More River To Cross, — with ribald lyrics referring to Palo Alto.
Thursday night, before the great Clash, as the papers were calling it, they held a giant rally in the Student’s Union. The band lifted the roof, everybody sang, everybody cheered Snub and Jersey and the other coaches. Before Snub made his fight talk, the team trooped across the stage of the auditorium, one by one.
When the cheer-leader called out, over the P.A. system, — “Bill Cady, right end,” — when Bill walked the twenty feet from one side of the platform to the other and the crowd jam-packing the smoky hall roared and whistled and stamped and clapped... something in Bill’s insides did nipups.
His heart crawled up in his throat and stuck there. He couldn’t have spoken a syllable if he’d been offered a thousand bucks a word. He couldn’t see very well in all that smoke, somehow. He stumbled over Telfer’s feet.
This queer, quivery sensation he couldn’t understand at all. Butterflies in the belly before the whistle, — they were something you got used to at the start of a game when you were tauter than a fiddle-string. But this getting all choked up just because a bunch of the boys were shouting themselves hoarse to tell him they thought he was a great guy... it was downright disconcerting. Made him wonder whether there might be something that could give you a bigger belt than having your wallet swollen with big bills.
It disrupted his whole scheme of things...
X
He was still bothered about it on Friday afternoon when Snub stopped him on his way out of the gym.
“Doing anything special tonight, Bill?”
“Uh, uh.” He wondered if Snub knew why he wasn’t doing anything most evenings.
“Like to pick up a little extra change?”
“Yea-man.”
The cold eyes smiled. “Gent’s suckered me into writing a book. On how to play football. Needs photos to illustrate it. Player throwing a roll block, check block. Stuff like that. Need a couple boys to let a cameraman experiment with shots. If you’d drop around to the house after supper... we could chew it over.”
Bill said he’d be on the deck. It would be kind of a relief to have something to do besides wondering how Lou Ann was spending the evening. Probably with Zombie, — though there’d been no mention of her in the restricted conversations he’d had with his passing-partner since that afternoon at the fraternity house.
When Bill got around to the Head Coach’s house, he was astonished to find it wasn’t much bigger than his folk’s tenant-bungalow down in the cherry orchards of Banning.
No Spanish ranch-house magnificence or cut-stone grandeur here. Just a small, white stucco one-story. Not even a real patio.
A living-room not much larger than the one Bill had been brought up in, — though better furnished. Still, — no swank. Was this the way a top-notch coach had to live?
Bill, could have mentioned one member of the Athletic Counsel who came in that category, but he didn’t bring up Walch’s name.
Snub sensed the question, answered it indirectly. Mentioned that a football coach’s salary isn’t all velvet by a long shot. Man had to spend a lot on entertaining, on travel, — going to see tycoons with checkbooks that might open to provide scholarship funds. Old grads who always thought they knew ‘what was wrong with the team.’ Especially, Snub added, during the week before the climax game.
Snub said: “Let you in on something that’s no great secret. If we beat Stanford tomorrow, it means a whole big lot to me. Means we get the Rose Bowl bid... and I get a contract to coach here for another five years... at a two thousand increase. Not a fortune. About the same dough a guy could make running a fair-sized gas station. But... I could pay off part of the mortgage that’s making the roof sag. On the other hand,” he looked up at the ceiling, “if we lose, I’ll be moving on to some other college. Have to sell this place.
“That’s the tough part of making a business of football, Bill. Coach never knows from one season to the next how long he’s going to be getting his salary. Have a good year, you’re solid. Bad one the next season, — you’re out on your tail. It’s no way to make a living... but its still a swell way to live, providing you like football better than anything else except your wife.”
Bill said: “We got a good chance to take Stanford.”
“Sure. And the head coach at Palo Alto is probably saying the same thing, right about now.” Snub smiled. “You clamp onto those Thirty-twos... I’ll tackle the alumni quarterbacks.”
The man who’d induced Snub to write the manual came in. He held out his hand to Bill.
“Still want to know what’s in it for you, Cady?”
Bill shook hands with Tim Murfree. “See my agent.” He pointed to Snub. “Makes all deals.”
Murf caressed a couple of stray hairs on his billiard-ball skull. “Maybe I could make a deal to get you down to the studio tomorrow night, after the game. Special roundup program.”
Snub asked: “What’s the setup?”
The sportscaster made an extravagant gesture.
“In-tro-duc-ing the pair that beat the Stanford straight, Bill Cady, the West Coast’s own Catch-and-Carry Kid... and the greatest of all Pass Masters, Dit Zombrorowski.”
Snub Garrett smeared a hand over his face, wearily. “Better have an alternate wording... just in case.”
XI
The locker room was hospital-quiet.
Snub walked back and forth in front of the rubbing tables a few times, while they waited and the tension grew until you could feel it on your face, like cobwebs.
Finally he stopped short. “Right here is the spot I’m supposed to hypnotize you or give you an injection of adrenalin or a whiff of oxygen to- stimulate you to go out and do great deeds. I can’t pull that stuff. I never have. I don’t know how.
“But this I can do for you. I can tell you something you don’t know. This: you’re a great team. The greatest, I think, I’ve ever worked with. But you haven’t hit your peak yet. You’ve never played as well as you could. Some of you, individually, in certain games, yes. All of you, in one game, no. Not yet.
“If you hit that peak all together, now, this afternoon, — you’ll win a ball game. The Coast Title. The Bowl Bid. I know you can do it. What I want to know is, will you?”