Tough to Tackle (3 page)

“Clipping!” cried the ref.

Boots was stunned.

“You hit the man from behind, kid,” explained the ref. “That’s illegal and a fifteen-yard penalty.”

The ball carrier had gained six yards on the run, so the Flyers chose to accept the penalty, which gave them nine more yards
and another first down.

Two more plays and the Flyers scored a touchdown. A short pass into the end zone gave them a 7 to 0 lead.

I knew I should’ve stayed home
, thought Boots unhappily.

J
ackie Preston ran the Flyers’ kickoff back to the Apollos’ thirty-one. The Apollos moved forward in running plays and the
quarter ended with the Apollos in possession of the ball.

Third down, three to go, and the ball was on the Apollos’ forty-six-yard line.

“Eighteen,” said Bud Davis in the huddle. “Don’t forget to button-hook in, Pete.”

“Right,” said Pete.

Eighteen was a pass play from Bud to Pete with the line back-pedaling to screen Bud.

The men broke out of the huddle and went into their positions.

“Down!” barked Bud. “Fourteen! Twenty-two! Eight! Hut! Hut! Hut!”

Bud took the snap from center and faded back, the linemen back-pedaling to screen him, then chucked a short pass over the
Flyer center’s head. Pete Ellis caught it on the run and barged to the Flyers’ forty-one for a first down.

“Eighteen flare,” said Bud in the huddle.

Eighteen flare was a pass to the right end behind the line of scrimmage. The team scrambled into position.

“Down! Forty-six! Sixteen! Eight! Hut! Hut! Hut!”

Bud took the snap, faded back … back. Boots had control of his man for a few moments, then suddenly stumbled and the Flyer
tackle swept past him. Boots was just in time to block the middle linebacker. By
then Bud had thrown the ball in a beautiful spiral pass to the right side of the field to Pete Ellis. Pete snared the pass
and galloped for a touchdown, his man never farther than a yard behind him.

The guys whooped and hollered, and the Apollo fans cheered and whistled.

“Nice pass, Bud!” a fan shouted.

“Great run, Pete!” yelled another.

See who gets the credit? thought Boots. The quarterback and the end. Nobody thinks about the linemen. Bet no one except Mom
and Dad and Gail knows that I’m out here.

Leo kicked for the extra point. The kick was good and the score was tied.

Tony Alo went in with five minutes to go before the half. “Nice work, Boots!” someone yelled from the stands as Boots came
running to the sideline.

Someone wants to be nice, thought Boots.
Some people are even clapping. Maybe they’re clapping for Tony.

Boots removed his mouthpiece, scooped up a dipperful of water, rinsed his mouth, then brushed a towel across his hot, sweaty
face. With one minute left to go Leo kicked a field goal from the eleven-yard line to put the Apollos ahead, 10 to 7.

The boys sucked on slices of oranges during the fifteen-minute rest period, and Boots wished he had a sandwich too. He was
famished.

Coach Higgins had him start the second half. This time the Flyers kicked off. Duck Farrell caught the ball on his side of
the field, pulled away from two would-be tacklers by some tricky broken-field running, got good blocking from Richie Powell
and Ralph Patone, and was downed on the forty-eight.

In two plays they carried the ball to the Flyers’ eighteen.

“Let’s get it over,” said Bud. “Eighteen.”

The play was a pass to right end Pete Ellis.

It failed badly. The pass was intercepted in the end zone and the Flyer safety man raced down the left side of the field and
all the way for a touchdown. A pass into the end zone made it 14 to 10.

Boots saw Bud shaking his head and kicking the grass at his feet. He’s certainly sick over that, thought Boots. I would be,
too, I suppose.

The teams lined up for the kickoff. It was an onside kick that barely traveled the necessary ten yards. The entire Flyers
team rushed for the ball, but Duck landed on it and smothered it with his body.

The Apollos tried a line buck and an end-around run, netting them six yards. A flag was dropped on the next play and the referee
rolled his hands, indicating the offside penalty, then pointed at the Apollos.

“C’mon, Boots! Watch it!” cried Bud.

Boots’s face turned crimson. He had taken a step forward and gotten back in time, but his opponent had jumped forward and
made contact with him before the ball was snapped, making Boots responsible for the five-yard penalty.

The next play fooled the Flyers completely. Bud faked a handoff to Leo, who charged through right tackle as if he really had
the ball. Boots’s job was to brush his opponent to the right, then throw a block on the middle linebacker. He did.

Meanwhile, Bud faded back and then heaved a long bomb down the right side of the field to Pete Ellis. Pete was alone. He caught
the ball and raced to the end zone. The kick for the extra point was off to the right. No good. Flyers 14, Apollos 16.

The Flyers threatened twice to score in the final quarter when they had the ball
within ten yards of the Apollos’ goal line. But both times the Apollos held. As Boots wrote to Tom that night:

We won the game in the third quarter on a long pass to Pete Ellis. Bud’s a pretty good quarterback. He’s a smart aleck at
times, just like a lot of the other guys. I try not to pay any attention to them, though. There’s no use getting sore over
things like that.

I did lousy, as usual. The ref called a clipping charge on me and an offside penalty. Heck, I hardly moved on the offside.
The kid opposite me jumped and made contact. I think he did it on purpose so we would be penalized.

I’d better go to bed now. Neither Mom nor Dad knows that I’m writing this letter. I’m writing it in my room and it’s getting
late. So long.

Love,

Boots

P
ractice went as usual the following week. Each day Boots promised himself that he wouldn’t go to practice. He was sick and
tired of being hit, pushed, and knocked around. He was through.

But by late afternoon of each day a certain feeling would return. Something would urge him to go.

He threw blocks and banged his head and shoulders against either Tony Alo or the other tackle who played in Tony’s place.
And he’d get blocked and feel head and shoulders banging into him, too. Now and then
he’d let his opponent sweep past him after the ball carrier, not caring because it was only practice, not a real game. Or
he’d let the opponent knock him on his fanny and he’d just lie there, waiting for the whistle.

He got chewed out but good from Coach Higgins.

“What’s the matter, Boots? Are you tired already? We’ve just started. I’ve told you and the other guys that when the season
started, if you don’t want to play football, hand in your uniform. There are other kids who want to play.”

It was surprising how those few words affected him. He didn’t like to be yelled at. None of the kids did. He thought about
it while lying in bed. And he realized that he couldn’t blame the coaches. If he was a coach he’d get mad too if his players
put only half of their effort into practice. They might perform the same way in a game.

He realized, too, that being yelled at didn’t hurt him one bit. It always did him good. He played better. That was why he
was in there playing. If he didn’t put all his effort into the game the coach would have someone else in his place.

A letter arrived from Tom on Friday. It was addressed to Boots.

Dear Boots,

Your letter came this morning and you can’t know how happy I was to receive it. You’d be surprised how many guys here hope
for mail and don’t get it. Mail can make a day for a guy. Sometimes a whole week if he gets it from somebody special.

You asked for my opinion if it’s okay for you to tell Coach Higgins you don’t want to play anymore. Okay, here it is. DON’T.
You’d be sorry later.

I’m really glad to hear you’re playing on the
line. Playing guard and tackle are two tough, responsible positions. It’s the line that makes a team what it really is.

What good is a quarterback if his offensive line is so weak that the opponents can go through it like water through a sieve?

Good luck to the Apollos. And let me hear from you again.

Love,

Tom

The Apollo-Starbird game was played on the school field. The day was cool and cloudy.

The Starbirds kicked off. Bud Davis caught the end-over-end boot near the right sideline and carried it back to the Apollos’
twenty-eight.

Boots crouched at the scrimmage line, facing his opponent, Nick Sarino, eye to eye. Nick was built like a barrel. When Boots
heard the snap call he bumped into Nick and it was like jamming his shoulders against a cement wall. Nick grunted and pushed
like a young bull and Boots felt himself giving ground. The whistle ended the scuffle.

“We gained about four,” said Bud in the huddle. “Let’s try twenty-eight. Pete, make sure you block your man.”

“Don’t I always?” replied Pete.

Boots heard the snap call and put a block on Nick that kept the big boy under control until Duck Farrell had time to take
the handoff from Bud and race to the right side of the line. The play netted eight yards and a first down.

A run to the opposite side of the line picked up three yards. Then Bud unleashed a long bomb to left end Eddie Baker which
Eddie caught and carried to the Starbirds’
fourteen before the safety man pulled him down.

A line buck resulted in a four-yard loss. A short pass to right flanker Jackie Preston got the ball back to where it was,
and another pass to Pete in the end zone did the trick. 6 to 0. Leo Conway’s kick was good. 7 to 0.

The Starbirds’ left safety man caught Leo’s kickoff on the twenty-four and started up the field in a twisting, dodging run
that first eluded Ralph Patone, then Vic Walker, then Boots. Boots had a hand on him but the kid slipped away as if he were
greased. Blockers stopped Eddie, Leo, and Duck.

Suddenly only Bud Davis was between the ball carrier and the goal, and the ball carrier was fast. Too fast for Bud. He went
all the way.

The pass for extra point was good and the score was tied, 7 to 7.

“How do you like that?” grunted Richie. “A seventy-six-yard runback for a touchdown. I’m sick.”

“I had my mitt on him,” Boots fumed, “and he slipped away.”

In the second quarter Bud fumbled Ralph’s snap and Boots’s man, Nick Sarino, fell on the ball. He hit it so hard Boots thought
that the big boy would drive it into the ground.

In three plays the Starbirds moved the ball to the Apollos’ three-yard line. They tried to buck the line twice but failed.
With the ball on the one-yard line, Jerry Malley, the Starbirds’ quarterback, shot a quick pass to his left end. Pete Ellis
knocked it down.

Fourth down.

“Hold ’em, you guys!” yelled Bud. “Hold ’em!”

Yeah, hold ’em
, thought Boots.
Buck your
head. Bang your shoulders. Take the bruising. And who cares?

Then he remembered Tom’s letter and a change swept over him. He crouched with one hand on the ground, the elbow of his other
on his knee. He looked at Nick determinedly.

Jack Malley took the snap, handed off to his fullback, Charlie Haring. Charlie lowered his head and drove toward a narrow
gap on Boots Raymond’s side of the line. Boots bumped Nick hard in an effort to knock the big boy aside and stop Charlie.

Instead, he slipped to one knee and Nick stumbled past him. Disgusted, Boots didn’t move. An instant later he saw Charlie
rushing past him and through the hole he had left unprotected. Then he moved. But it was too late.

T
he Starbirds threw a pass and it clicked for the extra point, making the score 14 to 7.

Tony Alo came in and jerked a thumb at Boots. “Out,” he said. Boots stared at him, then ran toward the sideline.

“You gave up out there,” said Coach Bo Higgins as Boots came trotting in. “You dropped to your knee and just stayed there.
Don’t tell me you got hurt because you sprang right up when you saw the ball carrier rush by you.”

Boots flushed. He clamped his mouth shut and glued his eyes to the ground.

“Hurry off before we get penalized for having twelve men on the field!” snapped the coach.

Boots put on a burst of speed until he crossed the out-of-bounds line, then turned around with his back to the crowd. Somewhere
in the stands were his mother, father, and sister. They couldn’t have heard Bo Higgins talking to him, though. Bo hadn’t raised
his voice that loudly.

The Starbirds kicked off. Bud caught the ball and ran it back to the Apollos’ twenty-six.

Boots watched Tony Alo playing in his place, trying to drive Nick Sarino back. His mouth curved in a half smile as he saw
Nick push Tony back like a feather.

Second and nine.

Bud faked a handoff to Leo, then pitched a lateral to Duck. Duck sped around left end and picked up five yards.

Third and four.

Again Bud faked a handoff to Leo. The fullback plunged through tackle as if he had the ball. Then Bud faded back, lifting
his arm to pass. A Starbird sprang on him like a cat, tackling him before he could release the ball.

When the tackler rose Boots saw that it was Nick Sarino.

“A four-yard loss,” grunted Bo Higgins. “That Starbird tackle went through as if nobody was there.” He looked at Boots. “See
how important your position is? A weak line is almost as bad as not having a line at all.”

The statement sounded very much like the one in Tom’s letter: “What good is a quarterback if his offensive line is so weak
that the opponents go through it like water through a sieve?”

The Apollos went into punt formation. Leo Conway stood almost on his twenty-yard
line, hands stretched forward, waiting for the snap from center. Bud barked signals and center Ralph Patone snapped the ball.
Leo caught it and booted it before a Star-bird end could get to him. The kick was high and short. It bounded near the fifty-yard
line and was downed by a Starbird on the Apollos’ forty-nine.