Page:The fighting scrub, (IA fightingscrub00barb).pdf/160

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can run the team and carry the ball, too. Some of the finest quarterbacks have been all-around men."

"I know, but they aren't so numerous, Tom. The average fellow, especially if he is prep school age, can't do a lot of things at once and do them all well. Any quarter, I don't care who he is, will be of more value to his team if he just has to run it and isn't expected to carry the ball himself."

"Well, I don't know," said Tom doubtfully. "If he's a cracker-jack runner and hard to stop—"

"Make him a halfback then and find another quarter," said Loring.

"Yes, but he might have ability to run the team, too," objected Tom. "No, I don't believe I agree with you, Loring. I've seen some mighty good quarters who could do both things."

"I'm not saying there haven't been some or won't be more," replied Loring pleasantly. "But they're the exceptions. A fellow only has one brain and it will hold only so much. When he tries to get too much into it he crowds it. If he has too much on his mind he's bound to trip up now and then, and now and then is far too often. To-day Stoddard wouldn't have made three or four glaring mistakes in judgment if he'd had only the running of the team to think about. I've never played the game, Tom, but you can't make me believe that a fellow, the average fellow, anyhow, can take the ball, run thirty yards with it, dodging three or four tacklers, be thrown hard and sat on and then