He was not always so successful. Sometimes Butler would fall squarely upon him, and so give Buist or Wendt a chance to hurdle them both. Sometimes Butler would catch him badly balanced on his feet, and throw him before he could steady himself. At times, also, the older player would resort to more violent methods, especially when the second had the ball and the first were free to use their hands, and would charge open-handed at Wolcott’s eyes, or with a sudden upward sweep of his forearm bring the head of his crouching opponent up to the desired level. But Wolcott kept both his temper and his wits. When a new trick was used against him, he devised a way of meeting it. He learned to hold his head up long enough to detect the course of the play, and safely down when he went for the ball; to start like a flash without false moves; to strike his opponent, with his feet not one behind the other or in each other’s way, but well apart and strongly braced; to fall, when a heavy man tried to flatten him, not helpless with legs and arms outstretched, but on his hands and knees in a crawling position; to turn his opponent’s direction by a dexterous twist; and, above all, to play his game on the ground. It was a personal contest day after day between the old and the new guard to see which should prevail over the other—a contest which, though not bitter, was yet hard and fierce and exciting. And every day, though the coachers behind the first exhorted and reviled, Lindsay’s advantage grew.
The second was transformed. The efforts and example of Durand and Lindsay and Milliken had put life into the whole faint-hearted flabby set. Their plays often did not work; the right side of their line regularly broke after a momentary struggle, to let Laughlin through. But on the other side Lindsay and Peters, his tackle, could usually open some kind of a hole; and when Milliken hugged the ball in his two arms and butted, bull-like, at an opening, something usually gave way. And now and then Durand would get a chance to run back a punt, or would slip round the school tackle on a quarter-back run, and with the jerky, zigzag, dodging movement that made him disappear under the hand like a flea, would work his way a third the length of the field. Such occurrences were, however, exceptional; the practice of the second was mainly on the defence.