page_title: Bradbury Robinson
section_title: Men on a mission
hierarchical_section_title: Bradbury Robinson / Taking full advantage of the new rules / Men on a mission
caption_attribution_description: English: Bradbury Robinson Throwing a Spiral Football Pass
context_page_description: Bradbury Norton Robinson Jr. was a pioneering American football player, physician, nutritionist, conservationist and local politician. He played college football at the University of Wisconsin in 1903 and at Saint Louis University from 1904 to 1907. In 1904, through personal connections to Wisconsin governor Robert M. La Follette, Sr. and his wife, Belle Case, Robinson learned of calls for reforms to the game of football from President Theodore Roosevelt, and began to develop tactics for passing. After moving to Saint Louis University, Robinson threw the first legal forward pass in the history of American football on September 5, 1906, at a game at Carroll College in Waukesha, Wisconsin. He became the sport's first triple threat man, excelling at running, passing, and kicking. He was also a member of St. Louis' "Olympic World's Champions" football team in 1904.
  Robinson graduated from Saint Louis University in 1908 with a medical degree and practiced as a surgeon at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.
  In World War I, he was commissioned a captain of infantry in the U.S.
context_section_description: Cochems and his charges took it upon themselves to convert the football world to their belief that the forward pass had fundamentally changed the sport.
  In an early November 1906 newspaper interview, Cochems' enthusiasm was evident. "I think the forward pass is sensational. My men never think of throwing the ball underhand.  They throw it overhand as hard as they can."
  "It's really a puzzle to me why the other teams are not given new style plays by their coaches," Cochems continued.  "[The] Eastern elevens are using nothing but the old-style formations ... It will be a matter of a season or two until the coaches throughout the country come around to my way of thinking or I will be badly mistaken."
  Cochems was, in fact, badly mistaken. The power teams of the East, who dominated the attention of national sportswriters in the early 20th century, were slow to adopt the forward pass. It would be seven years before Knute Rockne began to follow Cochems' example at Notre Dame. But, the slow adoption of his ideas was not for lack of promotional effort by Cochems.
  The coach detailed his concepts in wires and letters to influential men in the sport.
  Cochems wrote a 10-page article entitled "The Forward Pass and On-Side Kick" for the 1907 edition of Spalding's How to Play Foot Ball, edited by the "Father of American Football", Walter Camp.  The coach explained in words and photographs (of Robinson) how the forward pass could be thrown and how passing skills could be developed.  "[T]he necessary brevity of this article will not permit ... a detailed discussion of the forward pass," Cochems lamented. "Should I begin to explain the different plays in which the pass ... could figure, I would invite myself to an endless task."
  The coach even urged the redesign of the football itself ... to make it better fit the passer's hand ... more aerodynamic ... in other words the football we know today.
  The Post-Dispatch's W.G. Murphy reported on November 7, 1906 that the prostelitizing included indoctrinating the youngest fans: "In pursuance with Coach Cochems' plan to popularize the new game, Kenney, Schneider, Acker, Robinson and other members of St. Louis U.'s team visited a number of the local schools Monday and addressed the students on the fine points of the game."
caption: Brad Robinson demonstrating "Overhand spiral—fingers on lacing" in "The Forward Pass and On-Side Kick" an article in Spalding's How to Play Foot Ball, American Sports Publishing, Revised 1907 edition, written by Eddie Cochems, Walter Camp, Editor
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