Free Tough to Tackle by Matt Christopher Page B

play fullback on offense and middle linebacker
     on defense, for example. Don’t worry. We have enough subs so that no one will get so tired he can’t walk. Neither Coach Dekay
     nor I will be that cruel with you.”
    A chuckle rippled from some of the boys.
    “But we want a good team,” the coach went on emphatically. “We want playerswho want to play. If any of you think you’re here just to get out of doing chores at home you might as well quit right now.
     I don’t want to waste time with that kind of player. There are a lot of kids who are anxious to play but won’t go out for
     football because they fear they won’t have a chance. So drill this into your heads: Be serious about playing football, or
     hand in your uniform right now.”
    Boots felt that the coach was talking directly to him, for he wasn’t really sure now whether he could be serious about playing
     football or not. He wanted to play quarterback. That was the position he was set on. That was the position in which he felt
     he could put his best effort.
    Limiting a quarterback’s weight to one hundred and twenty-five pounds was a crazy rule, Boots reflected. That was okay for
     the other backs because they usually ran withthe ball. A quarterback seldom ran with it. A quarterback was boss. He called the plays. He handed the ball off to the backs
     or threw forward passes.
    What did a tackle or guard do? Nothing but ram his shoulders against the guy in front of him, or throw a block on somebody.
     You didn’t need brains to play tackle or guard. Just broad shoulders.
    Well — weight, too.
    And guts. Yeah, you really had to have guts. You could get a lot of pounding from the other guy. A helmet and shoulder pads
     weren’t all you needed to be able to take that pounding.
    “Well, I’m through with my speech,” said Bo Higgins. “Are there any among you who want to throw in the towel now?”
    His eyes wandered slowly over the boys. They met Boots’s eyes and Boots didn’t flinch. He wasn’t going to admit to Bo thathe didn’t have his heart one hundred percent in playing just because he couldn’t play quarterback. He couldn’t. Not in front
     of all the guys.
    He didn’t know what he’d do. Maybe he’d tell the coach tomorrow. Or the day after.
    The coach wasn’t giving a guy a chance asking him to decide this very minute.

3
    T he Apollos had intrasquad scrimmage on Thursday and Friday, and Boots Raymond was with the team both days.
    He tried to tell himself that he hadn’t made up his mind yet what to do, but he knew that the truth was he didn’t have the
     nerve to tell Coach Bo Higgins he wanted to quit.
    The coach wouldn’t just stand there and take back the uniform without saying something. “Why?” he’d say. “Why are you quitting?”
    “Because I don’t want to play tackle,” Boots would have to answer. “I want to play quarterback.”
    If his life depended on it he couldn’t see himself looking into the coach’s eyes and admitting that.
    Coach Higgins worked with the offense and Coach Dekay with the defense. It had taken almost all week for the boys to call
     Mr. Dekay “Coach.” A lot of the boys had known him a long time and had always called him “Mr. Dekay.”
    Boots played both on the offensive and defensive squads. Opposite him was Tony Alo, who alternated positions with him. Tony
     was tall and wiry and much stronger than he looked. He bucked with his head and his shoulders, and it took all of-Boots’s
     strength to push Tony back, to control him. Once Tony caught him off balance andshoved him back on his rear, at which Tony smiled proudly and said, “Thought you were tough, fat stuff.”
    The remark rattled Boots. He didn’t like to be called “fat stuff,” “fatso,” or any other name referring to his build. But
     he laughed it off. He knew as well as Tony did that he could lick Tony any day of the week. He had done it.
    Forty-three. Twenty-two. Thirty-four.
    Forty-three meant that number