Farrell John Wade

Bye, Bye, Backfield!

John Wade Farrell

Bye, Bye, Backfield!

Spring around the Mideastern campus, especially during Easter vacation, is something the Army would invade with weasels, so on this fine Easter of 1949, as with every other year I’ve been on the Mideastern squad, we had borrowed, for two weeks, the facilities of little Grandon College in Florida, a state even the Army couldn’t spoil.

I was stretched out on my bunk in the borrowed dormitory when the other three members of the backfield came in.

“You people remembered to bring your press clippings?” I asked.

Big Charlie Western, the fullback, turned to Sancho Sanchenelli, our fleet left half and said, “Shall we bust a leg off this porky little mastermind?”

“Leave us not quarrel among ourselves,” Bus Mulligan, the burly redheaded right half said. “This, gentlemen, is a council of war.”

And so it was. You know how Mideastern did last year. We smashed the Ivy League, broke the hearts of our two Big Ten guests and piled up a lopsided score in the bowl game.

Charlie kicked the door shut and said to me, “Hal, is the new one going to give us any trouble?”

He meant our brand-new coach, a mountainous person named Bunny Hale, recently fullback for the Burros. About twenty-nine years old, one of those boys who go to so small a school that they never make a clipping until a smart pro team grabs them and turns them loose on the publicized kids from the bigger outfits. With the Burros he had made a three-year average of 5.1 yards every time they handed him the ball. Maintaining such an average against outfits like the Packers is akin to consistently throwing rocks through a concrete wall.

The old coach, Pete Linklater had, on the force of his record with us, gone on to greener pastures.

“You mean,” I said, “is he going to break up our little party?”

Because, in a sense, that is exactly what we have had ever since the ’46 season. We played together on a service team, accepted the blandishments of Mideastern, and set our offensive backfield up as a closed shop.

Pete tried to buck it other buys showed promise, but as dear friends and true, Charlie, Sancho, Bus and I arranged to flub the timing so that Pete’s hopefuls, no matter what position they played, looked very, very bad.

And it had paid off, very nicely.

“Why should he try to break it up?” Bus asked. “We’re a winning combo. This is our last season coming up. We’re the inner circle, and the defensive back-field, Lyan, Dupliss, Stelzac and Goldman, plays along. This way we’re not fighting each other.”

“And if somebody pulls an injury this season?” Sancho asked.

“Why then we do just like last season. We decided who we want off the bench to plug the hole, and we make anybody else look bad.”

Having agreed to preserve the united front, we shifted the talk to other things. We drifted down to the dining room and there, for the first time, we saw Bunny Hale in person. He was the same general size and shape as a brick phone booth, with a dull, sleepy expression. And he really shoveled away the groceries.

At the end of the meal Stim Jodrey, the sleek manager, beat on his glass with a spoon and the roar of conversation died. He said, “Fellas, without one of those big long introductions, let me just say that I want to present the head coach of the 1949 undefeated season, Mr. Melvin Hale, known nationwide as Bunny Hale, the man who carried the ball for the Burros.”

The applause was heavy enough, but not exactly uncontrolled.

Bunny Hale stood up, stared sleepily at us. “My eyes hurt,” he said. “I’ve been watching movies of you people. For a college team, you do good. Timing okay, fundamentals fair. This here is Harry Quinbee who will he line coach. I’ll coach the backfield. The line has holes this season, but I think we plug them. You have a lot of power in the backfield. You run too many off the T and not enough single and double wing. You could have added another three touchdowns to the season total last year by forgetting that T within the five-yard line and punching Western over from a single-wing, unbalanced line either way.”

I blushed. That was aimed directly at me.

Bunny continued. “The game can be fun and we’ll play it that way. It’s dirty, hard work, but we’ll try for a few laughs. We’ve got two weeks here. We’ll work every day, nine to twelve, two to six. Tomorrow be at the field house at eight thirty on the field at ten of nine. One thing is going to be clear. Mideastern is paying me to boss this outfit. That I intend to do. My judgment will stand in every case. Based on what you boys show me in these two weeks, I’ll plan our fall season and map out plays and do recruiting during the summer.” He yawned. “See you tomorrow.”

Harry Quinbee had the linemen down at one end of the field. Bunny Hale was in uniform. He looked even bigger than yesterday. He had the eighteen backfield boys at the other end of the field.

He said, “With you guys it’s timing and memory. A lineman is always having to outsmart the guy squatting face to face with him. The defensive backfield has the same sort of problem. But the offensive backfield has got to be a machine with interchangeable parts. There is going to be no prize offensive backfield any more. All offensive are going to work equally well together.”

I glanced at Bus Mulligan, saw the angry flush on his cheeks.

“All you boys,” Bunny said, “know the thirty-one series off the T. If you defensive boys are rusty, I want it practiced.”

He split us into four backfield teams and had us walk through the 31 series. I was paired with Sancho and a couple of sophomores. The series puts a load on the quarterback because each play starts with a half-spin, a fake handoff to the right half coming across, three steps back, then turn and flip to either the fullback coming down the alley in a delayed buck, or flip to the left half building up to a fade and pass or an off-tackle slant.

Walking through it we couldn’t do much. But then when he upped the speed to regular timing, I was executing the fake to Sancho just right, taking my three steps and flipping to just where either of the sophomores wasn’t. I teased them into some beautiful bobbles.

Bunny came over and said, “What goes on here, McKeaver?”

I said politely, “I guess I’m used to flipping to Charlie Western or Bus Mulligan. They always show up at just the right place. These boys are a little green, coach.”

The sophomores gave me the dead-pan look and kicked at the turf with their cleats.

Bunny said, after giving me a long look, “Then it’s up to you, McKeaver, to tell them where they have to be for the flip. They make you look bad.”

Sancho snorted. Bunny turned to him and said, “Something on your mind?”

“Not a thing, coach. Not a thing.”

He shuffled us around again, and this time I ended up in a foursome that included Bob Dupliss, left half, and Candy Stelzac, right half, from the first-string defensive backfield. The full was a junior named Donovan.

I did them like I’d been doing the sophomores and Candy said, “What the hell, Hal? What are you doing to me?”

Bunny was a hundred feet away. I said, “Doing? I thought Bus Mulligan offensive right half. What do you care if you bobble a few?”

He glared at me and he and Bob Dupliss grumbled just out of earshot. On the next try Dupliss ran too close for the fake. He hit my hands with his hip and the ball dribbled away from me.

“Keep hold of that ball!” Hale yelled.

Then he broke it up and put us- through a very rugged period of fundamentals, ending with a jog four times around the field and in to the showers.

That night in my room Charlie said, “Not once all day does he fit us together. Hell, I’d like to show him what we can do.”

“He saw you in the movies, Charlie,” Sancho said. “Relax. He knows the four of us click. He’s just teasing us along a little.”

“He’s smarter than he looks,” I said.

Dupliss and Stelzac came in with large chips on their shoulders. Dupliss summed it up by saying, “We know you four characters are very happy together, and we don’t want your jobs. So help us look good in there when he sticks us on offense, will you?”

The same deal went on for days. Never did the four of us get in the same back-field. We were getting thoroughly browned off.

At the end of the week Bunny Hale decided we were ready for a few full-scale scrimmages.

He said, “Just to see how sharp you boys are, I’ll play defensive fullback. Offensive backfield, McKeaver, Western, Sanchenelli and Mulligan.”

We really snapped into it. We gave each other delighted grins. Charlie said, “Let’s run him right into the ground, hey?”

Bunny had had some private words with Joe Goldman, defensive quarter. On their first shift, Bunny moved up as a line backer. We were starting at our own twenty and running it as a regular game.

I called a single wing and the snap went to Charlie, with all the power smashing off to the right. Charlie managed to bull three yards. Then, on second down, I called one of the 31 series. Bus was to take the flip, fade back and pass to Sancho who had cut into the flat after the fake.

But as I took my three steps something hit me. I managed an awkward flip to Bus and saw him get it just as a house fell on him. Bus got up a little slowly.

We huddled and Bus said, “The line let that big lug through.”

“Let, hell!” the guard said. “He ran over me like a tank.”

“Come on,” I said. “Third and thirteen. Thirty-one-four. Western down the alley.”

Charlie came down the alley and I fed it right into his stomach. Charlie can drive. He hit Bunny who appeared somehow in the middle of the line. Charlie took three running steps without moving from the same spot and then flopped over onto his back for a two-yard loss.

In the huddle he said, “Oh, fine! Who was supposed to take him out?”

The guard said, “I hit him hard. I thought I was getting him just right, but I got an elbow in my mouth and a knee in my gut. Next time you hit him.”

“Punt formation,” I said.

Bus went back and got it away nicely. Joe Goldman had moved back to safety. He brought it up to their forty before right end nailed him.

Bunny said, “We’ll roll it the way it is. You boys stay in on defense, unless you think it might be too rugged.”

What could the answer be?

We knew the defensive shifts. I smelled a single wing, moved the backs to their strong side. The line almost held. Almost. Bunny Hale came through the foot-wide gap, footwork as delicate as a toe-dancer. Beyond the gap he turned into a jet-propelled tank, concrete knees thumping high. Bus Mulligan hit him and bounced off. I hit him and then I was sitting there watching him go. Sancho and Charlie hit him at the same time. He plunged free Of Sancho, but Charlie clung. He dragged Charlie six yards before he finally went down. Eighteen yards total, right through the middle.

Charlie said, “I got him!”

“You did real good,” Bus said bitterly.

Bunny, from his backfield, called, “Okay, dreamboys. This time I’m coming right over the middle.”

I didn’t quite believe it. But I bunched us a little just in case. He hit the bunch of us like throwing a sash weight through a Venetian blind.

Eleven yards right through what were supposed to be four of the hardest, smartest college backfield characters in the country.

Our pride was smarting. Charlie said angrily to Sancho, “I saw you flinch off of that one, Sanch.”

“You were too busy running for cover to see what I did,” Sancho said dryly.

“Shut up, you guys, and stop him,” I said.

“Same play,” Bunny yelled.

This time I believed him. I bunched us, two and two, right behind the same slot. The line did good. They rose up to smack him and put him off balance as he came through. He came through spinning, and when he spun he was all elbows and knees. I thought I had him solid but it turned out I only had one stone-hard thigh in my arms. My feet spun off the ground and my hands slid off his pants and I landed face down ten feet away a thump that made my breathing sound like a rusty bellows.

He straightened out in time to stab Charlie in the collarbone with a stiffarm that nearly drove Charlie underground. He feinted the end who had cut back, circled so the end did an automatic block on poor Bus, and then he picked up full speed in two steps and ran over Sancho as though Sancho were the invisible man. He didn’t even break stride for Sancho.

Charlie was beating the ground with his fist and his face was all screwed up like an advertisement about what not to feed your baby.

Sancho picked himself up in sections, went over to Bus and said, “You big tangle-footed, ham-handed...” He launched the punch from way back yonder.

Charlie grabbed Sancho and I grabbed Bus’s arm. When Bus tried to punch back it lifted me right off the ground, but the arm didn’t go anyplace.

I said to Charlie, “High-school kids could have ducked under that stiffarm he gave you.”

Charlie said, “You had him once. Scared to hang on, Hal?”

Then Bus grabbed me and Sancho grabbed Charlie or, in the madness of the moment, I would have given away seventy pounds and tried to punch the head off the big fullback.

Bunny Hale, once in the clear, bad circled back. He stood, breathing easily, the ball under his arm, an amused look on his face. His voice, when he used it, was like a bucket of icewater. “Come, come, children!”

I flushed and looked down at my shoes. My three pals were all doing the same.

Bunny said, “We’ll break it off right here. Four times around the field and hit the showers. McKeaver, Mulligan, Sanchenelli and Western, show up at my place at five-thirty sharp.”

He was waiting for us as we filed into his living room. In his sports jacket he looked almost as big as on the field.

“Sit down, guys,” he said.

We sat, feeling enormously uncomfortable. He paced back and forth for a time, looking both sleepy and amused. I noticed a bruise on his cheek that he’d picked up in the scrimmage.

Finally he said, “Every coach runs into this. I got the pitch from Linklater. But usually the boys involved aren’t as able as you four. For college players, you’re okay. You couldn’t compete on a first-class pro team. You’re green, and you aren’t thinking of the game as a business. I purposely made you look a little silly out there and you started blaming each other. It isn’t any different from the way you were making the others boys look silly when I tried to force them into your closed shop.

“This year of play finishes you four up at Mideastern. But I’m on a three-year contract. If I let you guys push me around, I’ll have nothing to go on for the nineteen fifty season. We’ll have a big squad in the fall. So around each one of you four I’m going to build an offensive backfield. Each one of you guys will be an unofficial coach for his own backfield. The slickest combo resulting becomes first string, but I’ll use all four interchangeably.”

He gave us a chance to think it over. I gave Charlie a sidelong glance. He had a grimly determined look. Bus looked bemused. Sancho was scowling.

Bunny said, “Naturally each one of you guys can develop the timing of your backfield to bring out your own best talents — within the pattern of the standard plays.”

That did it. Sancho said, “These guys have been blanketing me. Just give me a chance to build my own foursome, and—”

“Blanketing, hell!” Charlie said. “We’ve been covering for you. I could drill a little group that’d gain more yards than you’ve ever seen.”

“Besides,” Bunny said softly, “if this coaching wasn’t a good deal, I’d still be plunging my brains out for the Burros. You guys might get a start this way that could lead to a fine career for you.”

Bus Mulligan nodded sagely and said, “I like it, coach. I think it’s fine.”

Bunny said, “Bus, you and Charlie and Sancho run along. I want to talk to Hal.”

They left. Bunny grinned at me.

“Very smart,” I said. “You broke it up fast. Psychology.”

“Psychology, yes,” he admitted. “But you could get them back in line and give me a bad time, Hal.”

“Could I?”

“You’re a smart character, McKeaver,” he said. “And here’s what I want you to do. I want this rivalry maintained, but I don’t want a surly rivalry. And that’s up to you, to help me keep it on a friendly basis. Because, Hal, we’ll run into some rugged spots during the season. And then I want to be able to send the four of you in as my fat-cat offensive backfield, my surprise package. I know how much you can get out of those boys.”

Suddenly I liked the big guy better than anyone I’d ever met. And ten minutes later I was walking back toward my room, full of confidence and happiness.

I stopped, frowning a bit, and suddenly wondered if I was a sucker for his brand of psychology, too.

Then I knew I wasn’t and I walked on again. Hell, I knew he realized I was too smart to fall for a lot of silly psychology.

We had a winning season coming up. That was the only important thing.

Content

Farrell John Wade Bye, Bye, Backfield!

John Wade Farrell Bye, Bye, Backfield!