Somewhere--Hicks won't divulge where--Thor has learned the rudiments
of the game. With that bulldog tenacity of his, he has learned them well.
Hence he was ready for the scrubs, and in the practice game it was a
veritable slaughter of the innocents. The 'Varsity could not stop Thor.
Remember 'Ole' Skjarsen, the big Swede of George Fitch's 'Siwash College'
tales? Thor, after the ten minutes required to teach him a play, would take
the ball and just wade through the regulars for big gains. The only way to
stop him was for the entire eleven to cling affectionately to his bulk,
and then he transported them several yards. He is a phenom, a veritable
Prodigious Prodigy, and maybe old Bannister isn't
wild with enthusiasm.
His development will be slow but sure, and by the time the big games for
the championship come, he will be a whole team in himself. Right now he
goes through daily scrimmage as solemnly as if performing a sacred rite. He
doesn't thrill with college spirit, but as for football--
Leaving Hicks to read the rest of Scoop Sawyer's long missive, terminating
with indignant condemnation of the sunny youth's love of mystery, the
terrific enthusiasm roused at old Bannister by the daily appearance on
Bannister Field of Thor, and his irresistible marches through the 'Varsity,
must be chronicled and explained.
Not for five seasons, not since the year before Hicks, Pudge, Butch, Beef
and the others of 1919 were Freshmen, had the Gold and Green corraled that
greatest glory, The State Intercollegiate Football Championship! In Captain
Butch's Sophomore year, he had flung his bulk into the fray, training,
sacrificing, fighting like a Trojan, only to see the pennant lost by a
scant three inches, as Jack Merritt's forty-yard drop-kick for the goal
that would have won the Championship struck the cross-bar and bounded back
into the field.
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