Читать книгу Fourth Down! онлайн

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Toby wondered what words of wisdom would fall from that generously-proportioned mouth, and he craned his head over Sid Creel’s shoulder that he might hear them all. What he did hear and see were hardly worth the exertion. Coach Burtis, a new football snuggled in his left elbow and his right hand thrust into a pocket of an old pair of gray trousers, looked pleasantly over the little throng for a moment. Then: “Well,” he said genially. “It looks like we had material for a good team here. Let’s get busy!”

That was all. Toby felt a trifle neglected and disappointed. But he had to acknowledge that perhaps getting busy was as important as listening to a speech. After that, for more than an hour and a half, he had very little opportunity for feeling neglected. There were moments when he wished he might. Coach and captain were both believers in hard work, and both buckled down resolutely to the task ahead of them. More than half the material was inexperienced, much of what remained was useless, and only some twelve or fourteen candidates combined experience with ability. To-day’s work was the veriest drudgery, and, although occasional halts were called, yet the September sun did unkind things to many. Toby, rather to his surprise, discovered that he was not nearly so hard and fit as he had thought. After ten minutes of passing and falling, he perspired from every pore, and ere the afternoon’s practice was finished, he felt very much like a wet rag. Also, he had somehow managed to develop a painful crick in his left shoulder, close to his neck. And the muscles in the backs of his legs felt as if some one had pounded them with a board. On the whole, he was far less enthusiastic than he had been at three o’clock, and even the shower failed of much reaction. Dragging a tired body from the gymnasium across the yard to Whitson, he wondered by just what mental process he had the day before arrived at the decision to play football!