When Terry Brennan trudged away through the snows of Christmas, 1958, the old guard returned. He was Joe Kuharich, a South Bend native and hard-nosed right guard from the Layden years, rated one of the NFL's top coaches.

Joe didn't find the finest material in the world waiting for him. In the early fall of 1959, he confided to about four thousand well-wishers at a Chicago Touchdown Club luncheon: "We have halfbacks so small they could run under this table. Without ducking." A few years at Notre Dame, and Joe would be the one wanting to duck under a table.

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Which brings us to a grey, windy, freezing day at Philadelphia's JFK Stadium. Over the years, thousands of Philadelphians have moved to Florida and Arizona, and all because of days like this. Up in the stands, people were checking their fingers for frostbite. Down on the field, Notre Dame was dancing the expected jig over a hapless Navy bunch. The lead was insurmountable midway through the fourth quarter, and anxious glances were being exchanged at the far corner of the Irish bench. Four reserves were worried: Ara would be sending them into the game very soon.

Hours earlier, long before the kick-off, these four had trotted onto the field for a few calisthenics, a few run-through plays. Then they spent the rest of the afternoon frozen to the bench. Numbed to the bone, all four were wondering if they could move well enough to lumber back to the locker room at game's end. Now it seemed they would have to enter that beastly, dangerous swirl of blocking and tackling and protect themselves against serious injury.

A big tackle tried to warm up by swinging his arms and found he was moving with the agility of a sedated hippo.

Another man discovered he could not feel his legs. "How can I run?" he whined, his shoulder pads chattering softly as he shivered.

A third remained grimly silent, hot breath steaming through his face mask. Uneasily, he pictured his brittle body getting dashed to a field as hard as a hockey rink.

A fourth string scatback wrapped words around it: "We could get killed!"

The assistant coaches were coldly scanning the bench now, preparing to put fresh blood into the center of the arena. The four reserves averted their eyes. In doing so, they noticed the cloaks.

Wide were these cloaks and thick, made to wrap

around the most gigantic, heavily padded football monsters. All the extras were there, heaped in a huge pile just to the left and slightly behind the four reserves.

The idea sparked in every brain; it beckoned like a warming bonfire.

The halfback looked appealingly at the tackle. "Nah," quivered the big fellow. "We couldn't."

The players stared back out to the field. The first-stringers, the stars, were out there, getting their pictures snapped. They would know delights the reserves could only imagine: fan letters, pro offers, and girls with perfect teeth.

The reserves considered that. They compared their plight: so many years on the bench, bottled up, dusty, unused. All those Saturdays spent cheering for the first-string glamour boys.

Now the reserves were supposed to enter this freezing, dangerous contest, at great risk, and give the first team a head start toward the warmth of the dressing room. Two of the reserves glanced back at the cloaks; the other two checked the coaches, who were already beginning wholesale substitution.

"To hell with it," said one. "Let's do it."

All silently agreed.

Smoothly, quietly, hardly betraying their stiffness, the four slunk off the bench and crawled under the cloaks. When the assistants came looking for them, the four reserves were safe and warm and well hidden. Their chance to play had finally come. They didn't want it.