Forward Pass - American and Canadian Football - History - First Legal Pass

First Legal Pass

Most sources credit St. Louis University's Bradbury Robinson from Bellevue, Ohio with throwing the first legal forward pass. On September 5, 1906, in a game against Carroll College, Robinson's first attempt at a forward pass fell incomplete and resulted in a turnover under the 1906 rules. In the same game, Robinson later completed a 20-yard touchdown pass to Jack Schneider. The 1906 St. Louis University team was coached by Eddie Cochems. Football authority and College Football Hall of Fame coach David M. Nelson wrote that "E. B. Cochems is to forward passing what the Wright brothers are to aviation and Thomas Edison is to the electric light."

While St. Louis University completed the first legal forward pass in the first half of September, this accomplishment was in part because most schools did not begin their football schedule until early October.

In 1952, football coaching legend Amos Alonzo Stagg discounted accounts crediting any particular coach with being the innovator of the forward pass. Stagg noted that he had Walter Eckersall working on pass plays and saw Pomeroy Sinnock of Illinois throw many passes in 1906. Stagg summed up his view as follows: "I have seen statements giving credit to certain people originating the forward pass. The fact is that all coaches were working on it. The first season, 1906, I personally had sixty-four different forward pass patterns." In 1954, Stagg disputed Cochems' claim to have invented the forward pass:

"Eddie Cochems, who coached at St. Louis University in 1906, also claimed to have invented the pass as we know it today ... It isn't so, because after the forward pass was legalized in 1906, most of the schools commenced experimenting with it and nearly all used."

Stagg asserted that, as far back as 1894, before the rules committee even considered the forward pass, one of his players used to throw the ball "like a baseball pitcher." On the other hand, Hall of Fame coach Gus Dorais told the United Press that "Eddie Cochems of the St. Louis University team of 1906–07–08 deserves the full credit." Writing in Collier's more than 20 years earlier, Dorais' Notre Dame teammate Knute Rockne acknowledged Cochems as the early leader in the use of the pass, observing, "One would have thought that so effective a play would have been instantly copied and become the vogue. The East, however, had not learned much or cared much about Midwest and Western football. Indeed, the East scarcely realized that football existed beyond the Alleghanies ..."

In his history of the game, historian David Nelson concluded that the first forward passes were thrown on Christmas Day 1905 in a match between two small colleges in Kansas: "Although Cochems was the premier passing coach during the first year of the rule, the first forward passes were thrown at the end of the 1905 season in a game between Fairmount and Washburn colleges in Kansas." According to Nelson, Washburn completed three passes, and Fairmount completed two.

Once the 1906 season got underway, many programs began experimenting with the forward pass. On September 26, 1906, Villanova's game against the Carlisle Indians was billed as "the first real game of football under the new rules." In the first play from scrimmage after the opening kicks, Villanova completed a pass that "succeeded in gaining ten yards." Following the Villanova-Carlisle game, The New York Times described the new passing game this way:

"The passing was more of the character of that familiar in basket ball than that which has hitherto characterized football. Apparently it is the intention of football coaches to try repeatedly these frequent long and risky passes. Well executed they are undoubtedly highly spectacular, but the risk of dropping the ball is so great as to make the practice extremely hazardous and its desirability doubtful."

Another coach sometimes credited with popularizing the overhead spiral pass in 1906 is former Princeton All-American "Bosey" Reiter. Reiter claimed to have invented the overhead spiral pass while playing professional football as a player-coach for Connie Mack's Philadelphia Athletics of the original National Football League (1902). While playing for the Athletics, Reiter was a teammate of Hawley Pierce, a former star for the Carlisle Indian School. Pierce, a Native American, taught Reiter to throw an underhand spiral pass, but Reiter had short arms and was unable to throw for distance from an underhand delivery. Accordingly, Reiter began working on an overhand spiral pass. Reiter recalled trying to imitate the motion of a baseball catcher throwing to second base. After practice and experimentation, Reiter "discovered he could get greater distance and accuracy throwing that way." In 1906, Reiter was the head coach at Wesleyan University. In the opening game of the 1906 season against Yale, Reiter's quarterback Sammy Moore completed a forward pass to Irvin van Tassell for a thirty-yard gain. The New York Times called it "the prettiest play of the day," as Wesleyan's quarterback "deftly passed the ball past the whole Yale team to his mate Van Tassel." Van Tassel later described the historic play to the United Press:

"I was the right halfback, and on this formation played one yard back of our right tackle. The quarterback, Sam Moore, took the ball from center and faded eight or 10 yards back of our line. Our two ends angled down the field toward the sidelines as a decoy, and I slipped through the strong side of our line straight down the center and past the secondary defense. The pass worked perfectly. However, the quarterback coming up fast nailed me as I caught it. This brought the ball well into Yale territory, about the 20-yard line."

The football season opened for most schools during the first week of October, and the impact of the forward pass was immediate:

• On October 3, 1906, the Des Moines Daily News reported "probably the first use" of the "long forward pass" in the University of Missouri's 23–4 win over Kirksville Normal School.
• On October 4, 1906, Princeton opened its season with a 22–0 win over Stevens. Press accounts indicate that Princeton put the forward pass to good use, as "old-time football gave way to the new game."
• On October 4, 1906, the Carlisle Indians beat Susquehanna University 40–0, as "the forward pass was used for a number of good gains."
• On October 4, 1906, Harvard defeated Bowdoin 10–0 "in a hard-fought contest that was featured by a newfangled and daring forward pass that Crimson worked in the closing minutes of play."
• On October 4, 1906, Williams College defeated the Massachusetts Agricultural College, scoring the game's only touchdown on a forward pass by Waters.

Some publications credit Yale All-American Paul Veeder with the "first forward pass in a major game." Veeder threw a 20 to 30-yard completion in leading Yale past Harvard 6–0 before 32,000 fans in New Haven on November 24, 1906. However, that Yale/Harvard game was played three weeks after St. Louis completed 45 and 48-yard passes against Kansas before a crowd of 7,000 at Sportsman's Park.