Thomas Haviland Hicks, Sr., of his hopes.
The ex-Yale football star, delighted at his son's ambition to serve old
Bannister and joyous at discovering that Hicks actually possessed the
peculiar knack of drop-kicking, coached the splinter-youth all summer at
their country place near Pittsburgh. Under the instruction of Hicks, Sr.,
the youth developed rapidly, and when he returned to the campus for his
final year, he was a sure, dependable drop-kicker, inside the thirty-yard
line. As Theophilus stated, beyond that he lacked the power, but in that
zone he could boot 'em over the cross-bar from any angle.
"He's been practicing all this season, in secret!" quavered the little
Senior, "and he's a--a
fiend, Butch, at drop-kicking. And yet, here it is
time for the last game of his college years, and--he lacks confidence to
tell you, or Coach Corridan. Oh, I'm afraid he will be angry with me for
betraying him, and yet--I just
can't let him miss his splendid chance,
now that Thor is out and old Bannister
needs a drop-kicker!"
Big Butch was silent for a time. The football leader was deeply impressed
and thrilled by Theophilus Opperdyke's story of T. Haviland Hicks, Jr.'s
ambition. As he roosted on the Senior Fence, the behemoth gridiron
star visioned the mosquito-like youth, whom nature had endowed with a
splinter-structure, sneaking out on Bannister Field, at every chance, to
practice clandestinely his drop-kicking.
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