The vast crowd, a moment before creating an almost
inconceivable din, stilled with startling suddenness;
a shrill blast from the referee’s whistle cut
the air. The gridiron cleared of substitutes,
coaches, trainers, and rubbers-out, and in their places,
the teams of Bannister and Ballard jogged out.
Captain Brewster won the toss, and elected to receive
the kick-off. The Gold and Green players, Butch,
Beef, Roddy, Monty, Biff, Pudge, Bunch, Tug, Hefty,
Buster, and Ichabod, spread out, fan-like, while across
the center of the field the Ballard eleven, a straight
line, prepared to advance as the full-back kicked
off. There was a breathless stillness, as the
big athlete poised the pigskin, tilted on end, then
strode back to his position.
“All ready, Ballard?” The Referee’s
call brought an affirmative from the Orange and Black
leader.
“Ready, Bannister?”
“Ready!” boomed big Butch Brewster, with
a final shout of encouragement to his players.
The biggest game was starting! Before ten thousand
wildly excited and partisan spectators, the Gold and
Green and the Orange and Black would battle for Championship
honors; with Thor out of the struggle, Ballard, three-time
Champion, was the favorite. The visitors had brought
the strongest team in their history, and were supremely
confident of victory. Bannister, however, could
not help remembering, twice fate had snatched the
greatest glory from their grasp, in Butch’s Sophomore
year, when Jack Merritt’s drop-kick struck the
cross-bar, and a year later, when Butch himself, charging
for the winning touchdown, crashed blindly into the
upright. Old Bannister had not won the Championship
for five years, and now—when the chances
had seemed roseate, with Thor, the Prodigious Prodigy—smashing
Hamilton out of the way, Fate had dealt the annual
blow in advance, by crippling him.
“Oh, we’ve got to win!”
shivered T. Haviland Hicks, Jr. “Oh, I hope
I don’t get sent in—I mean—I
hope Bannister wins without me! But if I do
have to kick—Oh, I hope I send it over that
cross-bar—”
A second later the Ballard line advanced, the fullback’s
toe ripped into the pigskin, sending it whirling,
high in air, far into Bannister’s territory;
the yellow oval fell into the outstretched arms of
Captain Butch Brewster, on the Gold and Green’s
five-yard line, and—“We’re off!”
shrieked Hicks, excitedly. “Come on, Butch—run
it back! Oh, we’re off.”
The biggest game had started!
THE GREATER GOAL
“Time out!”
T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., enshrouded in a gold and green
blanket, and standing on the side-line, like a majestic
Sioux Chief, gazed out on Bannister Field. There,
on the twenty-yard line, the two lines of scrimmage
had crashed together and Bannister’s backfield
had smashed into Ballard’s stonewall defense
with terrific impact, to be hurled back for a five-yard
loss. The mass of humanity slowly untangled, the
moleskin clad players rose from the turf, all but
one. He, wearing the gold and green, lay still,
white-faced, and silent.
