Chapter 9

Coach Sam Holsmer turned this game into a psychological as well as a physical war by having Billy lead off the warmups with a demonstration of drop kicking. Sam never intended for Billy to drop kick a single ball during the game, but he wanted the opposition to see what Billy could do if he were pressed. Billy consistently put the ball through the uprights with every kick, the last one being at the 50 yard line. That would have been the longest drop kick in the history of any high school if it had happened during the game.

Next, the entire team came out and went through their warmup exercises. That was more or less to be expected, but the boys looked more like a precision drill team than a bunch of football players. Following that, the defense went through a series of blitz drills. Finally, it was the turn of the offense, and they put on a passing and running show that would have done honor to many college teams.

The Geneva HS football team had been on the field throughout this display, and they were as impressed as anyone in the crowd in the stands. In fact, they had often stopped their own warmup to watch the Central HS team go through its intimidating routine. The Geneva coaches continually had to prod their players to stop watching the opposition and get back to their own very necessary warmups. After all, they had spent almost three hours on a bus to get to the game.

As part of the psychological attack, Coach Holsmer called his team back into the locker room as soon as they had put on their show, and he had not given time for them to see what the Geneva players could do to match the home team. This was a further blow to the morale of the Geneva HS team, since they had not been given the opportunity to show off for their opposite numbers.

When it was time for the Central HS team to return to the field, Coach Holsmer had the team run out along a path between two columns of men dressed as firefighters and spraying carbon dioxide from fire extinguishers into the air over the players as they passed. Meanwhile, the band was madly playing Central's "fight song." The whole display looked very much like something that the NFL (National Football League) pro's would do to incite the crowd. Ha, as if the crowd needed inciting to do anything!

On the other hand, the Geneva HS team returned to the field to almost dead silence. Oh, there was some cheering from their fans, but there were relatively few of those because this was an away-game that did involve considerable travel. In any case, the contrast in the reception received by the two teams was remarkable. Earlier, the home crowd had been instructed not to "boo" or anything else when the Geneva HS team came out. Coach Holsmer had hired a psychologist to help him set this up, and the psychologist assured him that the intimidation was worth at least 7 points in his favor. Dammit, Sam was determined to beat his older brother this time around!

To cap it off, Central won the toss and "deferred" to the second half. Geneva took the ball, and Billy was ready to show what he could do with his kick. He did use a kicking tee to hold the ball, but, for his first trick, Coach Holsmer had planned an on-side kick. Billy put the ball high enough in the air to allow a Central teammate to recover the kick after it had gone the required 10 yards. The stands went wild over this little piece of successful legerdemain.

The Geneva team was rocked back on its heels by this strategy, and it took only four plays for Central to score the first touchdown of the game. Billy kicked the PAT, and the score was 7-0 almost before the crowd was comfortably seated. In fear of another on-side kick, most of the Geneva team was clustered as close to the ball as they could legally get. Naturally, Billy put the ball over their heads and had it roll to a stop on the 4 yard line.

Only the Central team had been prepared for this bit of trickery, so one of their players recovered the ball and ran it in for a touchdown. [The ball is "live" and anybody can pick it up after it has traveled 10 yards from the kicking tee.] Again, the PAT was successful, and the score was 14-0 in favor of Central HS.

Now it was time for Billy to kickoff the ball again, and everybody, including the Geneva football team, was wondering what he would do for an encore. Coach Holsmer figured that he had made his point, so this was a conventional kick which was downed in the endzone by a Geneva player, so the ball came out to their 20 yard line. Geneva showed remarkable resilience from their earlier surprises and managed to move the ball down to the Central 23 yard line. However, they went to the well once too often, and a pass was intercepted on the Central 9 yard line.

The ball was run back to the Central 27 yard line before the ball carrier was tackled. The rest of the quarter was used up with short running plays, more to give the running backs a chance to show their prowess than for any other reason. The offensive line was inspired, and Geneva never got close to laying a hand on Billy.

It was still in the first quarter when Central pushed the score to 21-0. By this time, the Geneva defense was exhausted, and the Central offense was so high on adrenalin that they hardly touched the ground as they ran. Billy was instructed to drop another kickoff on the 5 yard line, and he did. However, Geneva recovered this time, and they had the ball, though they were pushed back well into their own territory.

This time, the Geneva offense began to act desperately. They did manage to push the ball out to their 33 yard line before the quarter ended. This was partly because of two off-side penalties of 5 yards each against Central. They were pumped up, too, and, in the words of the NFL pros, they couldn't hold their water.

The short rest at the end of the quarter was enough to calm down the Central defense, and they forced a punt from Geneva. Harry Johnson took the punt and ran it back to the Geneva 48 yard line before he was forced out of bounds. The Central offense trotted onto the field to a tremendous ovation from the crowd. Billy didn't disappoint them—he threw a 27-yard pass on the first play from scrimmage to the tight end, who was beginning to wonder if he was going to get any action tonight.

The next play was a power run by the fullback that was good for 7 yards. The third play of the drive was a pass to a slot back that got them to the 1 yard line. Now, with little space to guard, the Geneva defense showed what it was made of. Coach Holsmer got conservative again and tried three runs into the center of the line by various backs. Geneva stopped them each time, so it was now fourth down and only a few inches to go for a touchdown.

Another power buck into the line was signaled in from the bench, but Billy had had enough of that nonsense. He called that play in the huddle, but did not make any effort to hand the ball off to the fullback as he came charging by. Instead, Billy took two steps back and to his left. From there, he ran around left end for the score. The PAT was good, and the score was now 28-0. That was not close to the 100-0 that some people wanted, but it was getting there, and the crowd was going wild!

"Billy, you seem to have a good sense of the right play. From now on, you can just consider my calls as suggestions, but I'll change that if you start to run into difficulties. Good luck, Son. You definitely are the best quarterback that I ever had! Just don't let that go to your head. I'd hate for you to screw up."

"Thanks, Coach. Don't worry about me changing much. I recognize your superior experience. It's just that sometimes I can see things from my place on the field that you can't see. I'll do my level best not to let you down."

"OK, Billy, you keep that attitude and we will get along fine."

Geneva managed to hang on to the ball longer this time when they received Billy's kick, but they still could not score. They missed a field goal from the 27 yard line, and that seemed to set the tone for the rest of the game. Coach Holsmer kept Billy in for the whole game simply because he did not have anybody else who knew his ass from third-base when it came to being quarterback. Well, it was time to start grooming Billy's backup. Sam was sure that Billy would never play every offensive play for the rest of the season. Of course, he knew nothing about Genie.