leading to the side entrance of the shop wing of the main school building. Andy turned off there to have a talk with Mr. Stark, the machine shop instructor, as he had promised his father he would. Ted turned off in the opposite direction and disappeared into the gymnasium.
Andy was about to put his hand on the latch of the shop entrance door when he heard someone say behind him, “Got a minute to spare, Carter?”
Andy turned to see Coach Dorman beckoning to him. Andy retraced his steps and said, “Yes, sir?” then waited, wondering what the coach wanted.
“Suppose we go into my office,” suggested Coach Dorman, pleasantly. “I’ve got something on my desk that I would like to have your opinion about.” He unlocked the small door to his private office in the corner of the big gymnasium building and motioned for Andy to enter first. “Take that chair beside my desk and make yourself comfortable while I dig out of the filing cabinet what I want to show you.”
Andy could not help noticing how the new coach moved with the springy step of an athlete in perfect physical condition, and how sure and direct he was in using his hands. When he pulled out the drawer of the filing cabinet he did it quickly without jerking it. Then when he had found the papers he wanted he closed the drawer with a single push but without slamming it. And when he sat down at his battered old desk he did not slouch but sat upright.
Suddenly Andy found himself looking into a pair of steady but pleasant brown eyes—brown like his own—and Coach Dorman was saying, “Mr. Skiles, your former coach, was kind enough to leave me his notes concerning the players from last year’s squad who would be coming back this year.” He turned back several pages before looking again at Andy. “What I am going to read you about this player is confidential—just between the two of us, understand. After I have finished, I am going to ask you some questions about this player because I think you know him better than any of his other teammates.”
Then the coach began reading from Mr. Skiles’s old notes: “ ‘This boy reported for freshman football three years ago. He was eager to learn the fundamentals and attended practice faithfully. But although he was larger than some of the other freshmen he never was quite good enough to warrant giving him a freshman football numeral.’ ”
Coach Dorman paused and said to Andy, “Here is what Mr. Skiles says about him as a sophomore,” and resumed reading: “ ‘In his second year I had hopes that this boy would find himself. He had grown taller and stronger, and his experience at first base on the freshman baseball team had improved his physical co-ordination. He did not drop a single ball thrown to him during the season and led the freshman team in batting. However, as a sophomore candidate for the football team he failed to meet my expectations.’ ”
Coach Dorman skipped the next paragraph, then resumed reading: “ ‘This boy reported for football as a junior this fall in better physical condition than any other candidate on the squad. He had practiced forward passing all summer; and when I held a forward-passing contest at the end of the first week of practice, he threw the ball ten yards farther than any of his teammates.’ ”
Andy found himself looking again into Coach Dorman’s steady brown eyes, which this time seemed puzzled about something.
“Here’s the part I don’t quite understand,” said the new coach. He laid aside Mr. Skiles’s notes and leaned back in his chair with his large bronzed hands clasped across his belt line. “ ‘This boy, in my opinion, has the makings of a good football player—not a headline-grabbing star, you understand, but one of those iron horses that every coach builds a team around when he is lucky enough to find one.’ ”
Coach Dorman broke off and tapped the sheaf of notes on the desk with the back of his hand. “But Mr. Skiles reports that this boy—who knew his football fundamentals perfectly—just couldn’t deliver under pressure in a game.”
“I think I know why,” said Andy slowly.
Coach Dorman leaned back in his chair and said, “I promise that anything you tell me about this boy will never be repeated. Now give it to me with the bark off straight, and don’t pull your punches.”
Andy took a long breath and said, “This boy was afraid—maybe yellow is a better word for it.”
Coach Dorman shook his head. “That doesn’t match up with my first impressions of this player. Give me some actual instances to back up your opinion.”
Andy looked down at his hands, then back up again, straight into Coach Dorman’s eyes. “It’s like this, Coach. When he was carrying the ball and a tackier came at him he would ease up a little. Not enough for anybody on the side lines, even Mr. Skiles, to notice, but just enough to keep from getting a hard jolt. And he used to do the same thing when he blocked for another ball carrier. He would bowl over smaller boys than himself, but when he was up against a boy near his own size——”
“Stop right there,” said Coach Dorman, raising his hand. “How do you know all this?”
“Because I’m the boy Mr. Skiles was talking about,” said Andy.
Coach Dorman made a curt movement with his right hand. “Carter, you’re badly mistaken about yourself. I’ve coached football at three different schools, but you’re the first boy I ever interviewed who did not show at least some signs of the jitters during my first interview with him.”
The coach cracked his desk with the palm of his hand emphatically. “You’re not one of those incurable flinchers, Carter! Get that through your head once and for all.”
The coach lifted his hand in a way to indicate that the interview was over. Andy stood up and tucked his new algebra book under his arm and said quietly, “That is how I used to feel. But this summer, when I was working on a construction job, I found out that I was as strong as, or even stronger than, some grown men.” He broke out in a slow grin. “They called me ‘Kid’ the first week; but after I climbed a rope hand over hand during one noon hour just to keep my forward-passing arm in good condition, they started calling me ‘Tarzan.’ ”
“Watch out, or that tendency to flinch at the moment of impact will come back,” was Coach Dorman’s dry comment. “I thought I was something extra-fancy as a triple-threat back during my high school days. But I overlooked the fact that I was playing behind a line of rock-’em-sock-’em teammates and that our competition was below par.
“So, when I showed up at college with my scrapbook loaded with clippings from my county-seat newspaper, I thought I was headed for big time. They played freshmen in our conference those days, and I fully expected to go right on being the star of the game.”
Coach Dorman paused to draw his hand across a smooth-shaven square jaw. “On my very first play in a college game I started out on an end sweep. I made just one yard before a big tackle and a bigger line backer nailed me between their shoulders and slammed me back three yards. When I got back in the huddle I bawled out my upper-class teammates for failing to block for me.
“I lasted just five more minutes in that game,” continued the coach. “My teammates opened up big holes—big, wide holes that let the defensive linemen get a clear shot at me. In those five minutes I became an accomplished flincher . . . It wasn’t until the last game of the season, in my junior year, that I got cured of flinching.”
Coach Dorman suddenly pointed to a framed photograph on the wall, a picture of a white-haired, dignified old Negro. “Uncle Joel, the janitor of our gymnasium, is the man who cured me of flinching after the coaches had given me up in disgust. It was the last game of a tough season,
