Tackle Without a Team (7 page)

Behind him sat a kid wearing a pith helmet and dark sunglasses. In front of him sat three other Greyhawks players: Monk Robertson,
Elmo George, and Lenny Baccus. All three raised their fists in a salute to him and he smiled. He missed them. Even Monk, irascible
as he was at times.

“I don’t believe it,” Lance Woodlawn said, as
the teams formed at the scrimmage line for the point-after play.

Scott grinned. “Well, believe it,” he murmured.

Barney kicked the ball between the uprights. Tigers 13, Cougars 7.

The Tigers had the ball on the Cougars’ twenty-two when the first half ended.

“Hey! You were on your toes on that play, Scott!” Coach Zacks said, as the teams trotted off the field, and he ran alongside
Scott. “Good work!”

“Thanks,” Scott said, carrying his helmet to let a cool breeze freshen his sweat-soaked head.

“Yeah! Nice play, Scott!” Carl Trokowski said, running up along the other side of Scott and breathing hard. Sweat beads were
rolling down his cheeks. “Boy! Am I bushed!”

Scott grinned. Carl could lose twenty pounds and still be a big kid.

After a ten-minute intermission—which seemed like only ten seconds to Scott—the teams returned to the field for the start
of the
second half. Coach Zacks had delivered a short speech to the squad, directing most of his statements to a few of the players:
“Jim, you went out after that pass telegraphing your move like a kid from Western Union. Don’t keep waving your arms, okay?
Arnie, on a handoff, put both arms over the ball. It’s not a loaf of bread you’re carrying. Scott, tackling that runner and
then scooping up the ball and going for the touchdown was a great play. But you’re not getting your head and shoulders down
on the blocks. Hit your man solid, then make your next move, okay?”

The third quarter was only two minutes old when Zane released a long pass to Mitch Bartell from the Cougars’ eighteen yard
line. Bill Fantry, playing safety, leaped and practically took the ball out of Mitch’s waiting hands on the thirty-eight.
Hiding the ball under his left arm, he bolted down the left side of the field. Five yards … ten … fifteen …

Scott was the closest to him as Fantry started to reach the twenty. Scott dove at him, got a hand on him …

Fantry stiff-armed him, breaking loose Scott’s
hold, and raced on down the field for a touchdown. Scott was sick.

“Hey! Don’t look so sad!” Carl said to him, patting him on the head. “At least you got a hand on him! Nobody else was close!”

“I had him and lost him,” Scott said, not wanting to meet any of the other players’ eyes. Surely every one of them would show
disgust.

Rod Holland, the Tigers’ fullback, tried the point-after kick and missed it by inches. Tigers 19, Cougars 7.

The Tigers’ fullback kicked off. The end-over-end kick was high and short and went directly to running back Don Albright.
He caught the ball against his chest and raced up the field to the Cougars’ forty-three, where he was tackled.

“Forty-eight,” Zane said in the huddle.

Barney took the handoff from him, bolted up through the line behind Scott, and was thrown for a two-yard loss. Sammy Colt
had faked Scott out and plunged through a hole to nab him before he could make a move. Nobody had to remind Scott of that.
He knew it and blamed himself for it.

Nevertheless, in the huddle, Zane glared at him through his face mask. “Come on, Scott,” he rasped. “Get on the stick. All
right?”

“Maybe he can’t,” Lance said. “Maybe his brain has been damaged by you-know-what.”

Scott bristled. Now Lance was acting just as bad as those two Tigers, referring to the rumor that Scott smoked pot.

Even so, Scott wondered if Lance wasn’t right in a way. Maybe he couldn’t play like the Cougars did: rough and dirty. Buck
with your head… use your elbows… your fists… trip ’em up. Anything to get your man or gain as many yards as you can if you
have the ball. That kind of football, Scott knew, had been drilled into their heads by their strong-willed coach, Joe Zacks.

I believe in winning, too, Scott thought. But I’m not here to break anybody’s bones. I’m here to play clean, hard football.
And to have fun. Mainly, to have fun. That’s all. Say what you want to, Zane, Lance, and the rest of you guys, but that’s
the only way I’m going to play. And if Coach Zacks doesn’t like it and wants to boot me off the team, let him. I’ve been a
player
without a team before. I can be a player without a team again.

“Weirdo Fourteen,” Zane said. “On two!”

Scott stared at him. “Weirdo Fourteen?”

“What’s the matter? Haven’t you heard of that play before? Let’s go!”

“No! What is it?” Scott said, as the team broke out of the huddle.

“You’ll see,” Zane said. “Just do your job. Stop Colt and Moss.”

Scott glared at him as the ends, guards, and tackles formed at the line of scrimmage. They were pulling a play that he had
never heard of. Why were they doing this? To offend him? To show him how tough they were? How high and mighty?

He glanced at Lance Woodlawn crouched beside him, right hand braced against the turf. Lance’s attention was directed straight
ahead. Serious determination showed on his face.

“What’s the play?” Scott asked him.

“Weirdo Fourteen. You heard him,” Lance said, not looking at him.

Zane barked signals. The ball was snapped on the second “Hut!” and Scott bolted forward.
Like a cue ball, he bounced his left shoulder against Sammy Colt’s left, then his right shoulder off Tony Moss’s right. At
the same time, he looked beyond the line of scrimmage at the Tigers’ backfield defense and saw the two safeties running toward
the right corner. A second later a green uniform came into his line of vision, and he recognized the short, husky figure of
Barney Stone sprinting down the field.

He realized then that Weirdo Fourteen was nothing but a pass play from the quarterback to the fullback. Why didn’t Zane just
say so?

Scott saw the ball land in Barney’s hands just as somebody struck him from behind, sending him sprawling to the ground. A
flag went down.

Scott leaped to his feet, whirled around, and saw Sammy Colt standing before him, looking hard at him.

“What was that for?” Scott demanded.

“My mistake,” Sammy replied.

“That mistake cost you fifteen yards,” the referee snapped.

Sammy stared at him. “For what?”

“Clipping, that’s what,” the referee answered glibly.

The pass had netted the Cougars twenty-one yards. They had the choice of accepting that or the fifteen-yard penalty. He must
be kidding, Scott thought, but the ref was quite serious when he asked Zane to decide.

“We’ll take the gain,” Zane answered just as seriously. He glanced at Scott and grinned. “Now you know what Weirdo Fourteen
is, right?”

“Yeah,” said Scott. He didn’t appreciate Zane’s teasing. But he didn’t want to make matters worse, either, by talking back
to him.

First and ten. Cougars’ ball on the Tigers’ thirty-eight yard line.

“Line buck,” Zane said in the huddle. “Forty-eight, on three. Let’s go!”

They broke out of the huddle, lined up on the scrimmage line, and Zane shouted signals. On the third “Hut!” Carl snapped the
ball. Scott and the other linemen proceeded to do their jobs as Barney broke from his position behind right tackle and took
the handoff from Zane.

The play failed. No one had counted on the Tigers’ strategy, a seven-man Red Dog. Two ends, the two tackles, and three backfield
men charged through the line in a burst of strength
and speed that not only surprised the Cougars, but also resulted in Barney’s getting tackled the instant he had the ball.
It was a three-yard loss.

In the huddle, Zane glared at one lineman and then another. “What happened to you guys?” he snarled, loud enough for the Tigers
to hear him. “They went through you like an armored truck!”

“They Red-Dogged us,” Carl complained.

“I know what they did!” Zane snorted. “But you guys let ’em!” He paused as he looked from one lineman to another again. “Okay.
We’ve got three downs to make thirteen yards. Let’s try another pass. You ends, keep your eyes peeled. It’ll be to one of
you. And, look, you tackles and guards: do your jobs, okay? If you haven’t got the guts, say so. Zacks doesn’t want gutless
guys.” He stared at Scott as he said it. “Okay! On two!” he finished, and the huddle broke.

Scott’s temper flared up for a moment. He was sure now he was on no ordinary football team. These guys were out to win. No
matter how.

Scott made sure he did a good job of blocking Sammy Colt, then gave him a hard, final shove before turning to block Al Johnson,
the other tackle.

Suddenly Scott saw J. J. Whipple, the Tigers’ center — who played middle linebacker on defense — plunging toward the center
of the line. Knowing that J. J. would get past the scrimmage line unless he was stopped, Scott pushed Al aside and started
after him, exerting all of his energy to get to the would-be tackler before it was too late.

At the last moment, Scott dove in front of J. J., stopping the linebacker cold with a solid block.

Then, not more than five feet beyond him, Scott saw Zane rear back and heave a pass toward the left side of the field. He
rolled over on his side and looked behind him. A feeling of exaltation filled him as he saw the ball spiraling toward Jim
Firpo’s outstretched hands. Then Jim had it, and he ran on into the end zone for a touchdown.

Tigers 19, Cougars 13.

“Nice block, Scott!” a voice yelled from the bleachers.

Scott recognized it as Kear’s, turned, and lifted his hand briefly in a wave to his friend. Kear was alone now. Even the kid
in the pith helmet and sunglasses was gone.

“Guess it pays to jump on you jokers once in a while,” Zane quipped. “Good blocking, you guys.”

None of the tackles or guards, including Scott, acted as though they’d heard him.

“You, too, Kramer,” Zane added. “You got that guy just in time, or I might not have gotten off that pass.”

So he doesn’t mind showering a little praise on a guy once in a while, Scott thought.

“I was lucky,” Scott said finally.

“Lucky, heck. You did what you had to do,” Zane replied.

Talks like a coach, Scott thought.

Barney successfully kicked the ball between the uprights for the point-after. Tigers 19, Cougars 14. The Cougars still needed
a touchdown to forge ahead of the Tigers.

They didn’t get it. The game ended with the Tigers winning, 19–14.

“We should’ve taken those guys,” Scott heard Coach Zacks say as the coach ran off the field between Zane and Lance. “If we
hadn’t pulled some boners, we would have.”

He sounded more angry than disappointed, Scott thought, running a few feet behind them. The uniforms of both players were
spotted with dirt and grime. Yet they still weren’t half as dirty as his own or the other players’, Scott saw. Which meant
one thing: they had played a tough game.

No, it was more than a game; it was a battle.

I’ve never played so hard in my life, Scott thought. And I don’t remember ever being so tired in my life. That wasn’t fun.
That was work.
Coach Zacks’s chief concern was to win, and he was mad if he didn’t.

Sportsmanship didn’t seem to be in his vocabulary, Scott told himself. How long could I play on a team like this?

Right now, he didn’t know. He just knew that today’s game was no fun. Even if the Cougars had won it, it still would not have
been fun.

That was the difference in playing with the Greyhawks, he reflected. Aside from that smartmouth Monk Robertson, the guys were
great fun to play with. And Coach Dresso was a fine man. Sure he played to win, but it wasn’t top priority with him. He believed
in playing football for fun, too. He never risked the health and physical pains of his players just for a touchdown. He was
fair, probably the fairest coach in the league.

And strict when it came to rules. Otherwise, wouldn’t he have believed me, Scott thought, and kept me on the team? Or did
he boot me off not because he didn’t believe me, but because the odds were against me?

Whatever the case, Scott liked and respected Coach Dresso. He wished he could exonerate
himself somehow and get back with the Greyhawks. But how could he? Right now he couldn’t see a chance of
ever
getting back with them.

He saw Kear running toward him from the bleachers and waited for him.

“Hi!” Kear said, slowing down as he got closer. “Some game.”

“Yeah,” Scott agreed. “Sure was.”

They headed toward the gate.

“I just remembered I’ve got to get groceries,” Kear said.

“Yeah,” said Scott. “Hope you didn’t forget your wallet like you did that one time we both had to go.”

“I made sure before I —” Kear started to say, reaching into his back pocket. Then he shouted, “Hey! It’s gone! My wallet’s
gone!”

“Maybe it dropped out of your pocket while you were sitting in the bleachers,” Scott guessed.

“I don’t know,” Kear said. His eyes were wide with worry. “I’ll go back and look.”

“I’ll get my stuff,” Scott said.

While Kear raced back to the bleachers, Scott went into the clubhouse and picked up his duffel bag. Then he ran back outside
and down the field toward the bleachers, where he saw Kear searching the seats.

“No luck yet?” Scott shouted.

“No!” Kear answered, leaning forward and peering down between the seats at the ground below.

Then he ran to the edge of the bleachers,
jumped down, and checked underneath where he’d been sitting. Scott followed him and began helping him in the search.

The wallet was nowhere to be seen.

“I had five bucks in it for the groceries I had to buy,” Kear said, his voice sounding anxious.

“Think you lost it before you came into the park?” Scott asked him.

“No. I’m sure I —” Kear paused. He suddenly focused on Scott’s duffel bag. “Scott —” he began and faltered.

Scott looked at his bag. When he saw that it was partially unzipped, his eyes widened. He definitely remembered zipping it
up after putting his towel and soap in it.