Eddie Cochems - Football Career After St. Louis University

Football Career After St. Louis University

In 1909, Cochems worked for a time as the director of the public playground system in St. Louis. In November 1909, a Wisconsin newspaper reported that Cochems was coaching "a minor team" in St. Louis and had been beaten badly by "another equally minor institution" from Chicago. The report noted that Cochems "changed his berth for some unexplained reason this year and is doing a bump the bumps that makes a marble rolling down stairs look like a toboggan for smoothness, by comparison."

In the fall of 1910, Cochems was reportedly coaching the Barnes University football team, playing its games at Handland Park in St. Louis. He also coached a Missouri "all-star" team that played against Frank Longman's Notre Dame team at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis on Christmas Day 1910. Notre Dame won the game by a score of 12 to 0, and one newspaper called the game a "fiasco" and reported there was "not much that would indicate all star football" in the play of Cochems' team.

In January 1911, Cochems was considered for the position of football coach at the University of Wisconsin, but did not get the job. He moved to New York in 1911.

Cochems briefly returned to coaching in 1914 as the head football coach for the University of Maine. He led Maine to a 6–3 record in 1914.

After he left coaching, Cochems continued to be connected to the sport and interacted with its leading figures. He attended meetings of the Rules Committee with the likes of Walter Camp and John Heisman. In 1911, he proposed a "radical" change in the rules, allowing each team a single set of five downs within which to score. He also became a well-known game official. In 1921, he was the umpire for the Notre Dame – Army game played at West Point.