Bradbury Robinson - The First Pass

The First Pass

On September 5, 1906, Robinson threw the first pass in a game against Carroll College at Waukesha, Wisconsin. Jack Schneider was the receiver for the Blue & White (St. Louis would not adopt "Billikens" as a nickname for its sports teams until sometime after 1910).

The pass had been officially legalized the previous spring by the newly created Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States (IAAUS) as part of a strategy to make the game safer. In 1910, the IAAUS became the NCAA.

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. However, the 1906 Blue & White squad under coach Eddie Cochems (1877–1953) built its offensive strategy around "the new rules."

The Blue & White cruised to an 11–0 record in 1906. Cochems and company led the nation in scoring, collectively outscoring their opponents 407–11.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch sportswriter Ed Wray covered SLU football during Robinson's career. By the 1940s, Wray was a columnist and had served as the paper's sports editor for 38 years. In an October 1947 "Wray's Column", he wrote, "the football world in general and the college and professional treasuries in particular are indebted to Cochems and Robinson and St. Louis University... That's because the tremendous rise of gridiron interest everywhere can be traced directly of the Cochems–Robinson forward passing and to the improved spectacle it has made of this fine and manly game."