Chapter 4

It was a good game, from a Los Angeles standpoint at least, for the visitors from California, after trailing 16-0 at the start of the second quarter, came back to cop a 30-16 victory.

Arlene's young, brilliant quarterback acquaintance, Jim O'Flanagan, was the hero. The Pros were grooming Jim to take over the number one quarterbacking job from the veteran, Ron Jessup.

Jim had connected on three scoring passes and in general called a faultless game after Collins sent him in when it was apparent Jessup was not having one of his better days.

After the victory the old quarterback dressed slowly and thoughtfully in the team dressing room. He alone was not celebrating wildly like the rest of the Pros. The new kid quarterback was the center of all attention-particularly the newspapermen from Los Angeles who were now in the steaming, congested place with their tape recorders and pencils, taking down quotes from Coach Collins and the shouting, victorious players.

"The greatest throwing arm since Luckman," someone shouted. "You mean Baugh," someone else yelled. Young Jim O'Flanagan appeared to be genuinely astonished by all the uproar, embarrassed at the adulation of players, coaches and press alike.

"That was a nice job, Jim," Jack said, patting the nude hero on the shoulders as he sat on the bench in front of his locker smoking a cigarette.

"Thanks very much," Jim said. Jim was just one year out of a small Texas college where he achieved quite a reputation on the football field. While Jim talked he glanced to where Ron Jessup was quietly pulling on his trousers. "There's one thing I'd like to say right now though to all you fellows of the press, no matter how good I was out there today, I've got a long way to go before I can be in Ron's class. I only hope someday I can."

Without commenting, without even changing the rhythm of his dressing ritual, Ron reached over and patted Jim with real affection.

"You were great, kid," he said. He wasn't going to muscle into Jim's big moment. There had been plenty of great days when the press had surrounded him after notable victories. The sobering realization he entertained now was that perhaps there wouldn't be many more of them for him.

Jack Pusher, the newspaperman, was aware of Ron's feelings. Ron wasn't the day's hero, but Jack wasn't the best newspaperman in the world either.

"Ron," he said, "you weren't having one of your better days out there today. Nothing wrong with the foot though. Three field goals for three times at bat." The quarterback shot an understanding glance at Jack.

The team was going to stay an additional week in Chicago before moving on to the next date in Milwaukee. Sunday night, that night, of course, would be given over to uninhibited celebrating. Drills would not start until Tuesday and the Pros had earned their keep by winning. That meant booze and broads. Coach Hank Collins had already started relaxing.

Collins mounted a bench.

"You guys are going to win the championship," he shouted, hoarse, red-faced, totally happy. "Now I want you to get the hell out of here and I don't give a damn when you go to bed or who you go to bed with. There won't be any bed check tonight. And you can stay out Monday night til midnight. But then on Tuesday we'll get down to work-we'll go to work winning the championship!"

That evening when Hank got back to the hotel where the Pros stayed in Chicago, he noted with amusement the usual lobby scene. The ancient hotel was a relic from Chicago's pre-Capone era, a venerable pile of faulty plumbing, red bricks and termite-eaten wooden terraces surrounded by lovely landscaped ground with tidy cement walks. These walks were for the safe and smooth passage of wheel chairs for carrying old ladies, pushed by colored attendants in blue coats-the livery of the hotel.

Collins, ever on guard against moral backsliding, considered this hotel, the Lake South Hotel, quite the finest place in the city to house his athletes. There wasn't a woman in the place under 60. True, a loophole existed in the person of the red-haired telephone operator and a couple of cute colored maids who dawdled in the rooms of some of the men while cleaning up. But he felt confident he could nip any possible shenanigans through the hotel management. Also, the entire squad was housed in one wing on the second floor. Names of the players sharing rooms were posted on the doors-a great aid for bed-checking activities.

Collins despised the big hotels in the Loop where his players' rooms could be scattered all over the place and where consequently black sheep on the team could slip in and out at night for a piece of ass-losing, he feared, enormous quantities of blood which could be better spilled on the gridiron. Jack Fisher spotted Collins at a lookout station in the lobby beside a grove of sad potted palms. Collins' untrustworthy assistant, Jess Henderson, was with him.

"Any truth to the rumor that you're not starting Ron against Milwaukee next Sunday?" Jack asked.

"As long as I'm coach of this club, this year and next, Ron will start every game," shot back Collins, talking through the side of his mouth, committed to a stubby cigar he puffed fiercely.