Tough to Tackle (6 page)

B
oots tried not to think about what might have happened to Tom by reading over Tom’s letters and doing the best he could in
football practice.

What Duck had said to him that day stuck in his head, too.
On the football field you’re just Boots Raymond. You’ve got a job on the line, and whether you’re good at it or not depends
on you
.

Well, he’d see to it that he’d be good at it. As good as he could be.

He hadn’t started in the game against the Flyers on October 9. Tony Alo had. After
Tony had let a runner slip by him twice and made a couple of foolish moves — one was grabbing a face mask and the other was
blocking a guy from behind, a clipping violation (and each cost a fifteen-yard penalty) — Coach Higgins had sent in Boots.
That was during the middle of the second quarter. Boots played the rest of the game and the Apollos came off the field with
a victory in their pockets.

He kept writing letters to Tom every other day. Mom and Dad and Gail kept up their regular pace, too. Sometimes Gail wrote
a letter in the morning and another one before supper so that it would go out in the evening mail.

“Bet no one’s getting as much mail as Tom is,” said Boots one day.

“Let’s hope so,” said Dad. But he said it as if probably Tom weren’t receiving any mail at all. As if he weren’t there to
receive it.

Mom was pretty affected by not having heard from Tom in a long time. She looked worried and was silent most of the time.

It was cold on October 16, the day the Apollos played the Starbirds. The Apollos won the toss of the coin and chose to receive.
Charlie Haring, the Starbirds’ hefty fullback, kicked off and Bud Davis caught the ball and carried it back to his twenty-nine.

“Thirty-two,” said Bud in the huddle. Thirty-two called for Leo to carry the ball through the two hole.

They broke out of the huddle. “Down!” yelled Bud. “Twenty-one! Twenty-eight! Nineteen! Hut! Hut! Hut!”

The snap. Bud took it, turned and handed off to Leo. The fullback charged through the line between center and right guard
and was pulled down on the thirty-three. Boots, tangled up with the man he had blocked,
untangled himself, bounded to his feet and trotted to the huddle, feeling light and peppy.

“Twenty-eight option,” said Bud.

The play called for Duck Farrell to either run with the ball or pass to Pete Ellis.

Boots slapped Duck on the leg. “Surprise ’em, pal,” he said.

Duck did. He took the handoff from Bud, started to run toward the eight hole at the far end of the line, then chucked a forward
pass that looked like a soft balloon floating through the air. Pete jumped, caught it, pulled it into his arms and bolted
down the field. He whisked past the safety man by a thread and galloped on for a touchdown. Leo’s kick for the extra point
missed.

Three and a half minutes later, after the Starbirds failed to keep the ball, Bud hurled a long spiraling pass to Eddie Baker.
The little left end caught it on his thirty and ran to
the Starbirds’ two-yard line. Bud carried it over on a quarterback sneak for the Apollos’ second touchdown. Again Leo’s kick
for the extra point failed. Apollos 12, Starbirds 0.

In the second quarter the Starbirds scored a touchdown on a twenty-yard pass from quarterback Jerry Malley to Charlie Haring.
Charlie’s kick for the extra point was good. Apollos 12, Starbirds 7.

The Starbirds kicked off. Bud caught the end-over-end boot and carried it to his twenty-six. In the first play he muffed the
snap. A mad scramble for the ball followed, ending with the Starbirds in possession.

Bud looked sick. “My fault,” he said.

“Let’s get it back!” yelled Boots.

The Starbirds went into a huddle, broke out of it, and the linemen hurried to the line of scrimmage. Boots looked Nick Sarino,
his man, eye to eye.

“Forty-two! Thirty-eight! Seventeen! Hike!” barked Jerry Malley.

Boots shoved Nick aside and bolted through the line. He hit Jerry as the quarterback started to fade back. Jerry went down
and the ball slipped from his hands. It bounced, Boots caught it, pulled it against his chest, and started to run.

A halfback sprang at him. Boots stiff-armed him, dug his cleats hard into the turf, and ran on. He crossed the fifty … the
forty-five … the forty … the thirty-five …

Finally — TOUCHDOWN!

Cheers exploded from the stands. Hands slapped Boots on the back. “Great play, Boots!” yelled Bud.

“Talk about surprises!” cried Duck, pumping his hand. “That one beats ’em all!”

The Apollos went on to win, 36 to 21.

That night Boots wrote a long letter to Tom.

Dear Tom,

We played the Starbirds this afternoon and gave them a real working over. We beat them 36 to 21 and can you believe it? I
made a touchdown! I busted through the line and hit Jerry Malley, the quarterback. He dropped the ball and I picked it up
and ran. It was something like a sixty-three-yard run. I never dreamed I’d ever make a touchdown, Tom. But I did.

You know, I owe almost everything to you for making me stick it out as a tackle. I really like it now. It’s fun blasting through
the line to get after the quarterback or whoever carries the ball. Guess who had the most tackles today? Well, I suppose you
can guess after I asked you that silly question.

Anyway, your letters made me see a lot of things about playing tackle that I wouldn’t have seen otherwise. Duck Farrell told
me a few
things, too, that put some sense into my head. He’s a good guy, and so are Bud Davis, Leo Conway, and Richie Powell. Heck,
they’re all pretty good guys once you get to know them.

We’re playing the Argonauts next Saturday. It’s our last game. So far we’ve lost two and won three. I’ll let you know what
happens.

Take care. And please write.

Love,

Boots

A week later Boots was leaving for the big game against the Argonauts when the phone rang. Gail ran to answer it. When she
came back her face was flushed and her eyes white-rimmed as they darted from Dad to Mom.

“Who was it?” asked Dad.

“The post office,” she said. “There’s a special delivery letter for Mr. and Mrs. Thomas
Raymond. The man wants to know whether you want to pick it up or have them deliver it on Monday.”

Mom and Dad looked at each other. “Tell them I’ll pick it up,” Dad decided.

Boots tried to read the anxious look on Dad’s face. Was that letter from Tom? Or was it about him?

He glanced at the clock on the kitchen wall. One o’clock. He had to go or he’d be late. “See you later,” he said, and left.

The Argonauts were leading the league. They had won three games, lost one and tied one. The Apollos had to win today or finish
in second place.

The Argonauts won the toss and chose to receive. Leo Conway’s kick was a good one. Lynn Giles, the Argonauts’ fast quarterback
and safety man, caught the ball and carried it to their forty-two.

The Argonauts huddled, then broke out of
it, and Boots found himself facing his opponent, Curly Hines. Lynn barked signals, the ball was snapped, and Curly threw himself
to Boots’s right side. Boots lost his balance, realizing instantly that Curly meant to open a hole there for the ball carrier.
Boots saw Smokey Mills, the fullback, grab the handoff from Lynn and head for the hole.

Boots dug his cleats into the hard ground and surged toward Smokey. His padded shoulders shoved Curly aside and he reached
out as Smokey came forward. He hit Smokey and drove him back beyond the line of scrimmage. The whistle shrilled. Smokey tossed
the ball to the ref, who spotted it at the point where Smokey had gone the farthest. A gain of a yard.

Boots grinned at Curly. “You’re getting better, Curly. You almost knocked me for a loop.”

“Oh, sure,” grumbled Curly.

The next play was a rush through the other side of the line. Boots brushed by Curly and cut in front of the quarterback, his
heels clawing up dirt as he swung his body to the left. He went after Smokey like a small tank and reached the fullback about
the same time that Leo Conway, playing linebacker, did. The two brought Smokey down, but the rugged Argonaut had gained three
yards on the play.

Third and six. This time Lynn pulled a double reverse and it worked for a first down. Lynn kept the plays on the ground —
no passes — and moved his team forward like a machine.

“C’mon, men!” shouted Bud exasperatingly. “Are we going to let them do this all day?”

The Argonauts reached the Apollos’ thirty-two when they were finally stopped.
Two running plays, one a try through Boots’s side and the other an end-around, netted them a loss of two yards.

“Watch for a pass,” Bud warned.

Bud’s guess was right. Lynn faked a handoff to Smokey, then faded back and shot a bullet pass to his right halfback. The pass
was good. The receiver carried it to the Apollos’ eighteen where Bud Davis nailed him.

Smokey tried a run through right tackle — his right — and picked up four yards. On the second down the Argonaut center snapped
a poor pass to Lynn. Lynn fumbled the ball. Boots saw it rolling loose and dived for it. At the same time he saw Curly diving
for it, too. Boots fell on the ball first, covering it with his chest. Curly fell on top of him, followed by two other Argonauts,
and Boots felt as though he were
being buried. From a distance he heard the shrieking blast of the whistle. One by one the guys got off him.

He rose to his feet, feeling good all over.

“Nice going, Boots.” Bud smiled and swatted him on his rear. “Now let’s move it the other way.”

T
he ball was spotted on the Apollos’ nineteen. “Thirty-eight,” said Bud in the huddle. “I’ll fake a handoff to Jackie running
left. Let’s go.”

The players broke from the huddle and formed at the line of scrimmage. “Down!” shouted Bud. “Twenty-four! Eighteen! Hut! Hut!
Hut!”

The snap. Boots blocked Curly Hines and threw himself partly in front of a linebacker who came charging through the line.
He stopped Curly cold, but the linebacker
recovered his balance, backed away, and then tried to circle around him.

Boots got to his knees and threw himself in front of the man, a perfect block. A smile flickered on the tackle’s face as he
saw Duck throwing a block on the Argonaut end and Leo carrying the ball through the wide hole. The fullback raced twelve yards
before the safety man pulled him down.

“Nice going, men!” cried Bud. “Boots! Duck! Beautiful blocking, you guys!”

First and ten. “Let’s try it again,” he said in the huddle. “They won’t expect it.”

Whether the Argonauts expected it or not the play worked like a charm, though for nine yards this time.

The Apollos picked up a first down and moved the ball to midfield when the horn blew, announcing the end of the first quarter.
The teams exchanged goals. Bud’s first
call was thirty-eight again. This time the play worked perfectly. Duck blocked the Argonaut, giving Leo time to squirt through
the wide hole, then the fleet-footed halfback raced ahead and blocked the safety man just enough to keep him from getting
his hands on Leo, and Leo went all the way. He then kicked the extra point and the Apollos led, 7 to 0.

The Argonauts carried the kickoff back to their thirty-one and Lynn Giles’s first play was a pass to his left end. The end
went all the way to the Apollos’ nine where Bud tackled him. Two plays later Lynn threw a pass into the end zone. Smokey caught
it to put the Argonauts on the scoreboard. Smokey then kicked the extra point to tie it up. 7 to 7.

During halftime Boots thought about the special delivery letter. Was it from Tom? If
not, did it concern him? Boots looked for Mom, Dad, and Gail in the stands, but the crowd was so thick he couldn’t see them.

Two minutes after the third quarter started, Lynn Giles heaved another long spiraling pass to his left end. This time the
end went all the way. Smokey kicked for the extra point. It wasn’t good. Argonauts 13, Apollos 7.

Leo returned the kickoff to his twenty-eight. Just as he was hit the ball squirted out of his hands and an Argonaut recovered
it.

“What’s wrong with us?” exclaimed Bud. “We start off great, then all at once we fall apart.”

“We’ve just got to play harder,” said Boots. “These Argonauts are up to beat us. Do you see what their best play is?”

“Long passes,” said Duck.

“Right. We stop those and we’ll have them licked.”

Bud nodded. “Jackie, stick closer to that left end. We have to double-team him. He’s good.”

The Argonauts’ first play was an end-around run that got them nowhere. Smokey tried a line buck and got nowhere. Then Lynn
faked a handoff to Smokey and faded back to pass. Boots brushed Curly aside, dodged past a linebacker, and went after the
quarterback. Lynn seemed to have trouble finding a receiver. He saw Boots charging after him. He tried to get away, but Boots
grabbed his jersey, pulled, and then wrapped his arms around the quarterback and nailed him for a heavy loss.

Fourth and twenty-two. The Argonauts went into a punt formation. Lynn waited for the snap from center while Smokey stood back
in kicking position. The snap. Lynn got the ball.
Then he stood up and shot a quick pass to his left end!