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It was the pass that would change football forever. And no one caught it.
The first recorded legal forward pass in American football history marks its 100th anniversary Tuesday.
It took years for Saint Louis University football coach Eddie Cochems to get credit for calling the first pass play for a football program that was disbanded more than 50 years ago.
The play would go on to lift football's grueling battle on ground to the air and create a faster and more exciting sport.
And the St. Louis player who wrapped his big hands around the fat, rugby-shaped ball to throw what they called a "projectile pass" is remembered only in obscure sports trivia as Bradbury Robinson.
The pass was incomplete and the other team automatically got the ball, according to university archives. But the game wasn't over.
"It was the coach who pushed to do the play. He was definitely looking to draw some attention to his school," said Jerry Vickery, curator for the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame in Springfield.
Ten years ago, Vickery did extensive research on the Catholic university's team and the forward pass. The St. Louis school was considered a regional powerhouse at the time but received little recognition, Vickery said. It was overshadowed by larger football schools in the East, such as Yale and Harvard.
"Football was like a war. Bloody and dangerous. They had plays where they would slingshot players over the line and over the pile," Vickery said.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/football/ncaa/09/04/bc.fbc.forwardpass.ap/index.html
The first recorded legal forward pass in American football history marks its 100th anniversary Tuesday.
It took years for Saint Louis University football coach Eddie Cochems to get credit for calling the first pass play for a football program that was disbanded more than 50 years ago.
The play would go on to lift football's grueling battle on ground to the air and create a faster and more exciting sport.
And the St. Louis player who wrapped his big hands around the fat, rugby-shaped ball to throw what they called a "projectile pass" is remembered only in obscure sports trivia as Bradbury Robinson.
The pass was incomplete and the other team automatically got the ball, according to university archives. But the game wasn't over.
"It was the coach who pushed to do the play. He was definitely looking to draw some attention to his school," said Jerry Vickery, curator for the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame in Springfield.
Ten years ago, Vickery did extensive research on the Catholic university's team and the forward pass. The St. Louis school was considered a regional powerhouse at the time but received little recognition, Vickery said. It was overshadowed by larger football schools in the East, such as Yale and Harvard.
"Football was like a war. Bloody and dangerous. They had plays where they would slingshot players over the line and over the pile," Vickery said.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/football/ncaa/09/04/bc.fbc.forwardpass.ap/index.html
