In January I wrote to Murphy. I pointed out to him that I didn’t have a quarterback to take McGill’s place; there was nothin’ on the scrubs or Freshmen that looked even fair. I told him I thought I could make a dandy out of Draper, and I didn’t think it would be any more than right for Murphy to give me a whack at him after I’d laid off for two whole seasons. I said my chances of turnin’ out a team that wouldn’t disgrace Leighton for life depended on my gettin’ hold of a boy with Draper’s speed.
I made it pretty strong and Murphy fell. He said he would release Joe from his promise and if I could persuade him to come out for football, all right. So then I sat down and wrote to the kid. I gave him a nice little spiel about comin’ to the old school’s rescue, and told him that if I had a man of his speed in there we’d hang a surprise on Pelham and Marshall, and the rest of ’em, and he’d have a lot more honors to add to those he’d won on the track.
He wrote back a gentlemanly little note. He said he wasn’t after any glory for himself; but Leighton had been good to him and he felt as though he owed it to her to come out for football if I really needed him. And if Mr. Murphy was willin’ to release him from his promise I could count on him to show up in the fall. He asked to be excused from reportin’ early ’cause he had made engagements for the first two weeks in September. About the time he was writin’ this note to me he was gettin’ engaged to the girl I told you about, and the date he had for the followin’ September was with her people down in St. Louis. I found that out afterward.
Bixby’d been elected captain and I knew I’d have him to figure on. There was a big, strong kid named Ashton that I’d used as substitute for Conrad, and I was countin’ on makin’ a regular fullback out of him. I’d have to dig up another halfback and a kicker; I didn’t know then that Draper could kick. I’d lost my four best linemen, so there was another problem starin’ me in the face; but I gritted my teeth and said to myself that the bigger the handicap was I had to work against, the more fun it would be to put somethin’ over. And I thought and thought and figured and figured, till it got so bad that I’d wake myself up in the middle of the night, callin’ signals.
Bixby and the rest of the boys I’d invited showed up the first week in September. I started ’em all kickin’ and found that there wasn’t a man in the crowd that could punt one from here to that wall. As for drop and place kickin’, none of ’em could raise the ball off the ground. After three days I gave up and decided to wait till college opened and the rest of the squad showed up.
Then Draper came out and I got the surprise of my life. Just foolin’, his first day on the field, he dropped a couple of goals from forty yards out, and he cut loose some punts that would have made Pat O’Dea jealous. They went way up in the clouds and they averaged a good fifty yards. You can bet all you’ve got that I was tickled.
“Where did you learn to kick?” I said to Joe.
“I was a pretty fair kicker in high school,” he said.
“Well,” I said, “I’m sorry we didn’t have you the last two years.”
“You got along all right without me,” said he, smilin’.
“Yes,” said I; “but you’ll fit in very nicely this year and, if you’re willin’, you’ll get three years’ work crowded into one.”
“That suits me,” he said. “When I go into a thing I like to go into it hard.”
Well, things went along pretty good and we opened up our season with Brandon. We beat ’em 13 to 0. We could have made it 40 to 0 without strainin’ ourselves; but I took pretty near the whole first string out when I saw how easy they were. I let Joe do a little puntin’ in the game, but I was keepin’ the other part of his kickin’ a secret. I told our newspaper boys about it and asked ’em not to say anything. They agreed, and then I knew I was safe and could give Joe plenty of practice shootin’ at goals without any danger of it gettin’ into print.
Honest, I never saw his equal as a point kicker; and I don’t except Eckersall or Brickley, or any of ’em. Give him proper protection, and he could score from forty yards out just as often as he tried.
That simplified matters a whole lot. Instead of workin’ up an offense that would get touchdowns, which was no cinch when I didn’t have a good plunger, all I had to do was figure somethin’ that would take me inside their forty-yard line. I knew there wasn’t much danger of Joe’s gettin’ hurt; he was a rugged kid for his size and, besides, I intended to play him safe. So I just went ahead and built round that right foot of his. I worked up some open stuff for him and Bixby that would gain if it wasn’t used often. Most of it was fakes from kick formation, ’cause,
