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.

[1] 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.

'"[citation needed] Writing in his memoirs, Robinson remembered suggesting "increasing the distance to be gained in a set number of downs, to develop the kicking angle and introducing some of the elements of basketball and English Rugby; with perhaps allowing the throwing of the ball forward.

to show me how he did it.Twenty-five years later, Robinson told St. Louis Star-Times sports editor Sid Keener (1888–1981)[23] that Savage threw "the pigskin to his players with the ball revolving as it sailed through the air.

"[citation needed] A short time after Savage instructed him in the art of throwing a spiral, Robinson got in a fight with the "school bully" and was dismissed from the Wisconsin football team.

[25] Absent the apology, as a matter of honor, Robinson chose to leave Wisconsin, enrolling as a medical student at the Jesuit Saint Louis University, where he played the 1904 season, although he sat out many games with a broken shoulder blade.

[27][28] As an eyewitness to what he considered football history, Wray wrote extensively about Robinson and the development of the forward pass, both contemporaneously and in retrospective columns published over the next four decades.

The only college that seemed absolutely willing to give up its financial interests to play for the World's Fair Championship was the St. Louis University and there is more apparently in this honor than appears in this report.

He is in close touch with the athletic authorities at the Madison school and, knowing of their desire to play one more game this season, arranged the contest with St. Louis University."

"He received several requests from Phil King (who had resumed his position as Wisconsin's head coach) to return to Madison and play on the Badgers, but would not desert his teammates in St.

[citation needed] The pass was officially legalized in the spring of 1906 by the newly created Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States (IAAUS), which became the NCAA in 1910.

To prepare for the first season under the new rules, Cochems convinced the university to allow him to take his team to a Jesuit sanctuary at Lake Beulah in southern Wisconsin for "the sole purpose of studying and developing the pass.

"[44][45] Newbery Medal winning author Harold Keith wrote in Esquire magazine that, in August 1906, Lake Beulah became the birthplace of "the first, forward pass system ever devised.

According to archives at St. Louis, Cochems (pronounced coke-ems)[49] didn't start calling pass plays in the Carroll game until after he had grown frustrated with the failure of his offense to move the ball on the ground.

"[52] After returning to St. Louis, Cochems drilled his players relentlessly in long evening practice sessions "behind closed gates ... in absolute secrecy" according to one contemporary newspaper account.

"[30] "Another Cochemesque feature of the practice," according to columnist Dan Dillon, "was his placing his two star forward pass artists — Robinson and Schneider — in front of the big score board in center field (at Sportsman's Park).

Murphy[57] 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,[58][59][60][61][62][63] Schneider, Acker, Robinson and other members of St. Louis U.

The fundamental change to the sport engendered by the introduction of the forward pass was manifest in St. Louis' 1906 Thanksgiving Day game at Sportsman's Park, where the Blue and White hosted the Iowa Hawkeyes.

Timekeeper Walter McCormack walked onto the field to end the game when the ball was thrown twenty-five yards and caught on the dead run for a touchdown."

On the other side of the ball, Wray observed, "Although Iowa seemed to know just when the (forward pass) was coming, the members of the Hawkeye team seemed to be unable to form a defense capable of stopping it.

[67] He had worked games involving the top Eastern powers that year and, just the Saturday before, had officiated in Chicago where Coach Amos Alonzo Stagg's national defending champion Maroons thrashed Nebraska 38-5.

Dan Dillon's "How the Game Was Played" in the Post-Dispatch the next morning gave no yardage details but he wrote that, "(a)t this magnificent exhibition of the spectacular forward pass the crowd went wild and Kansas was plainly up in the air on account of the machine-like method with which it was executed for such material gains.

In an October 1947 "Wray's Column," the Post-Dispatch editor 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.

Several Midwestern universities, including Kansas, Missouri, Iowa and Wisconsin, refused to schedule games with St. Louis for the 1908 season, "claiming the team is tainted with professionals.

Watching a St. Louis practice in 1906, journalist Dillon observed Robinson "kicking in fine form and with a slight wind behind him, was dropping them over regularly from the 45-yard line and was averaging close to 50 yards on his punts.

Upon his election as captain of the 1907 baseball team, the Post-Dispatch reported that Robinson has demonstrated, since his entrance at the blue and white school, that he is a good all-around athlete.

Upon the United States' entry into World War I, Brad Robinson, Jr. enlisted and was sent to the First Officers Training Camp at Ft. Sheridan, where he won his commission as a captain of infantry on August 15, 1917.

[5] These included stays in Leeds, Liverpool, and London, England; Rotterdam, Holland; Antwerp, Belgium; Bordeaux, Le Havre, Nantes, Paris, and Poitiers, France; Edinburgh, Scotland; and Dublin, Ireland.

He cited the increased use of refined sugar as a particular threat to good health, an idea scoffed at during his lifetime and decades later,[110] but an observation supported by an exhaustive study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2014[111] and reported by the Harvard Heart Letter that year and in 2016.

"[121][122] In 2010, Complex magazine recognized Robinson as the "Best Player" on the 1906 St. Louis squad, which the publication ranked among "The 50 Most Badass College Football Teams" in history, placing the Blue and White at 38th.