Bradbury Robinson
Bradbury Norton Robinson (Born February 1, 1884 in Bellevue, Ohio - Died 1949 in Florida) was a college football player for St. Louis University who threw the first legal forward pass in American football history and was the game's first Triple threat man.
The pass
On September 5, 1906, Robinson threw the first pass in a game against Carroll College (Wisconsin) at Waukesha. 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).
Jack Schneider, receiver (left) and Bradbury Robinson, passer (right)
circa 1906
An Offensive Concept Ahead of Its Time
The power teams of the East, who dominated the attention of national sportswriters in the early 1900s, were slow to adopt the forward pass. However, the 1906 Blue & White squad under coach Eddie Cochems (1877-1953) built its offensive strategy around what was then a newly legalized play.
Robinson and Schneider practiced running "pass routes" in the months leading up to the 1906 season. Their passes were not the awkward heaves typical of the era, but overhand spirals that hit the receiver in stride. Robinson credited his uncanny ability to throw long and accurate passes in part to a crooked little finger on his throwing (right) hand that was the result of a childhood injury. The finger imparted a natural spiral to his tosses.
In his memoirs, Brad Robinson recalled that he and Schneider pushed their coach to emphasize the pass. And, according to archives at St. Louis[1], Cochems (coke-ems) 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.
In that historic 1906 game, after an earlier Robinson-to-Schneider attempt fell incomplete (which resulted in a turnover to Carroll under the rules at that time), Cochems called for his team to again execute the play he called the "air attack".
Robinson took the fat, rugby-style ball and threw a 20-yard touchdown pass to Schneider. The play stunned the fans and the Carroll players. St. Louis went on to win, 22-0.
Total dominance
Decades later, in interviews with St. Louis Post-Dispatch sports columnist Ed Wray (1873-1961), Robinson gave Cochems the credit for creating the St. Louis offensive scheme that resulted in the Blue & White cruising to an undefeated (11-0) 1906 season in which they led the nation in scoring, annihilating their opponents 402-11.
The highlight of the season was St. Louis' shocking 31-0 thrashing of Iowa. Writing in his book The Anatomy of a Game: Football, the Rules, and the Men Who Made the Game, which was published posthumously in 1994, College Football Hall of Fame coach David M. Nelson (1920-1991) reports that "eight passes were completed in ten attempts for four touchdowns" in the Iowa game. "The average flight distance of the passes was twenty yards."
Nelson continues, "the last play demonstrated the dramatic effect that the forward pass was having on football. St. Louis was on Iowa's thirty-five-yard line with a few seconds to play. 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."
"Cochems said that the poor Iowa showing resulted from its use of the old style play and its failure to effectively use the forward pass", Nelson writes. "Iowa did attempt two basketball-style forward passes."
"During the 1906 season [Robinson] threw a sixty-seven yard pass... and... Schneider tossed a sixty-five yarder. Considering the size, shape and weight of the ball, these were extraordinary passes."
A "record" toss
What Nelson cites as Robinson's 67-yard pass was long listed as an all-time record 87-yard heave from Robinson to Schneider in St. Louis' 34-2 win over Kansas. Twenty-five years after the play, the Spaulding record book still listed the throw as official... 87 yards in the air from passer to receiver. Even Robert Ripley highlighted the toss in his famous Ripley's Believe It or Not newspaper feature in the 1930s. On October 15, 1947, the St. Louis Star-Times referred to the play as "a record that still stands."
The development of “the pass”
The forward pass as employed by St. Louis in 1906 was the product of at least two years of practice and preparation.
Robinson had played college football before arriving in St. Louis. He played as a freshman at the University of Wisconsin in 1903. He scored two touchdowns in the Badgers’ 87-0 thrashing of Beloit as a reporter observed, “Robinson’s star work seems to show [the] second eleven is not far behind the first.”
It was in the preseason of 1904 that Robby first completely recognized the potential of the pass. Robinson wrote, ”there came to the Wisconsin U squad a tall young Irishman from Chicago. His name was H.P. [Howard Paul] Savage, the same who later… became the National Commander of the American Legion[2] and was known as “High Power” Savage. They were trying to develop me into a kicker at Wisconsin and H.P. generally teamed up with me to catch my punts. I noticed that he could throw my punts back almost as far as I could kick them. Here was the trick I must learn. I got H.P. to show me how he did it." Twenty-five years later, Robinson told St. Louis sportswriter Sid Keener that Coach Savage threw, "the pigskin to his players with the ball revolving as it sailed through the air." "From then on," Robby wrote in his memoirs, "my football hobby became forward passing or anyway passing the ball.”
After getting in a fight with the “team bully”, Robinson left Wisconsin and enrolled as a medical student at St. Louis, where he played the 1904 season. Interestingly, almost the entire St. Louis squad consisted of future medical doctors.
Dr. D.C. Todd was (according to Ed Wray) "a factor in St. Louis University athletic circles". Todd, along with Father Pat Burke, set out to build up the football program at St. Louis in the early 1900s. In an interview with Wray decades later, Dr. Todd remembered that "Robinson spoke to me about the pass the fall he joined St. Louis University (1904). He came to me and told me he thought the forward pass was going to be a great asset. He told me that he had tried it and found he could throw the ball like he could a baseball. I spoke to Father Burke about it in the presence of one of your reporters, also named Burke (the late Miles Joseph Burke), and he was interested.
"About that time Pike Kinney, Robinson and Schneider got together and began to work on the pass and soon developed amazing proficiency. Robinson and Schneider used to run the side lines throwing the ball clear across the field as they ran."
Each preseason, back home in Wisconsin, Robinson was invited to work out with the Badgers and the development of the pass and possible pass plays at that venue continued. It was at Wisconsin that Robinson first met Cochems, who was an assistant coach with the Badgers. Robinson recalled, “What I saw at Wisconsin before returning to St. Louis to school convinced me that Edward B. Cochems had an outstanding football system for that time. Actually years ahead of most of the other coaches of that period.
"After the season of 1905 was over the rules committee put the forward pass and several other things in the rules. This is what I had been waiting for since 1904. I induced my school to hire Mr. Edward B. Cochems to come to St. Louis as coach. He brought with him 3 or 4 outstanding players. With them and what we already had at St. Louis U he developed the team sensation of the country for the two seasons of 1907 and 1908."
"Triple threat"
As St. Louis' premier passer, its principal kicker and a standout runner, Robinson became the first Triple threat man in football history, although that term would not be used regularly by sportswriters until the 1920s.
One sports journalist of the time opined that, "of the local kickers, Robinson of St. Louis easily excels all others. He is good for at least 45 yards every time he puts his toe to the ball and some of his punts have gone 60 yards."
Robinson's prowess as a ballcarrier was particularly noted by a reporter after a November 11, 1904 victory over the University of Missouri at Columbia: "Robinson and (John "Pike") Kinney, the halfbacks of the visiting team were the fastest seen here in years and the Tigers seemed unable to stop them." Another writer at the game observed that Robinson's "offensive play was fast and in running back punts he gained much ground for his team, besides tackling well while on defensive." The St. Louis Globe-Democrat added, "Robinson's return of punts electrified the spectators time and time again. He was always good for a gain of 20 yards or more."
The 1904 Olympics, the World's Fair & a perfect season
1904 was Robinson's first season at St. Louis University. That was the year in which both the World's Fair and the third Olympic Games of the modern era were held in St. Louis.[3] Blue and White games were played before Exposition crowds. St. Louis (under Coach Martin Delaney) outscored its opponents 336 to 0 that year, including a win over Kentucky by the unlikely score of 5-0, the 17-0 victory over Missouri and a 51-0 trouncing of Arkansas. The Spaulding Athletic Almanac of 1905 offered this commentary:
“The (Olympic) Department knew perfectly well that it would be unable to have an Olympic Foot Ball Championship, though it felt incumbent to advertise it. Owing to the conditions in American colleges it would be utterly impossible to have an Olympic foot ball championship decided. 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. There were many exhibition contests held in the Stadium under the auspices of the Department wherein teams from the St. Louis University and Washington University took part and competed against other teams from universities east and west of the Mississippi River. The Missouri-Purdue game was played in the Stadium on October 28….. The Olympic College Foot Ball Championship was won by St. Louis University, St. Louis, Mo., by default.”
"All-around athlete"
Brad Robinson was also a standout in baseball and track and field for the Blue & White and was elected captain of both teams.
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, He played an excellent game at end for Cochems' eleven and did all the kicking for that team. His punting was consistent and proved a very valuable asset to the blue and white eleven. Aside from this, Robinson won recognition for his work in negotiating the famous forward pass, which gained favor every time it was employed. He throws the ball virtually as far as he kicks it, and astounded many of the eastern enthusiasts by his work in this regard.
"He is a clever fielder and one of the hardest hitters on the varsity team. He also led the batters in the Bank Clerks' league, in which organization he played after the close of the collegiate season last year.
"He is a good hurdler and at present is pushing Schneider hard for the supremacy in this event at the Jesuit school. He was captain of the track team last year."
Medical career
Robinson earned his medical degree at St. Louis in 1908. He pursued post-graduate work at the University of Bordeaux and clinical studies across Europe from 1920 to 1926 as a surgeon on the staff of Surgeon General Hugh S. Cumming. After returning to the United States, Dr. Robinson located to St. Louis, Michigan in 1927, where he opened The Robinson Clinic in 1935 and where he twice served as mayor.
Dr. Robinson was an advocate of naturopathic and holistic medicine. He was a frequent author on medical matters.
Warnings against use of DDT
In the mid to late 1940s, Robinson became one of the earliest to warn of the dangers of using the pesticide DDT in agriculture. This was a radical view at the time, since, beginning in 1944, DDT had been researched and manufactured in St. Louis by the Michigan Chemical Corp. (later purchased by Velsicol Chemical Corp.). DDT had become an important part of the local economy.[4].
It would be more than a decade before the dangers of DDT would be the subject of Rachel Carson's 1962 landmark book, Silent Spring. DDT's use in agriculture would be banned worldwide in the 1970s and 80s.
The Gratiot County, Michigan Landfill just outside of St. Louis, in which some of the chemicals from the DDT-producing plant had been disposed, became a Superfund site in the 1970s[5].
Death in Florida
Dr. Robinson died in Florida in 1949 from complications after routine surgery.
A World War I combat veteran, he was buried at Arlington National Cemetery. Captain Robinson was sent overseas in July 1918 and was an instructor at the Inter-Allied Tank School in Recloses, France, until his battalion was ordered to the front on November 1, 1918, ten days before the Armistice.
Brad Robinson was inducted into the St. Louis Billiken Hall of Fame[6] in 1995.
References
- St. Louis University archives
- Boyles, Bob & Guido, Paul, 50 Years of College Football, 2007
- Nelson, David M., Anatomy of a Game: Football, the Rules, and the Men Who Made the Game, 1994
- Michigan Centennial History, Volume 5, Pages 109 to 111, 1939
- Scrapbook of Bradbury N. Robinson