had moved from Wisconsin to St. Louis with Cochems and Schneider, explained the impact of the 1906 rules in an interview with Wray published in September 1945: By the time of the interview, Acker was, according to Wray, "a stocky, broad-shouldered 59-year old guy", a retired Southern California physician and real estate investor. But even 39 years distant, the memories of those early days of college football were fresh. Men on a mission Cochems and his charges took it upon themselves to convert the football world to their belief that the forward pass had fundamentally changed the sport. In an early November 1906 newspaper interview, Cochems' enthusiasm was evident. "I think the forward pass is sensational. My men never think of throwing the ball underhand. They throw it overhand as hard as they can." "It's really a puzzle to me why the other teams are not given new style plays by their coaches," Cochems continued. "[The] Eastern elevens are using nothing but the old-style formations ... It will be a matter of a season or two until the coaches throughout the country come around to my way of thinking or I will be badly mistaken." Cochems was, in fact, badly mistaken. The power teams of the East, who dominated the attention of national sportswriters in the early 20th century, were slow to adopt the forward pass. It would be seven years before Knute Rockne began to follow Cochems' example at Notre Dame. But, the slow adoption of his ideas was not for lack of promotional effort by Cochems. The coach detailed his concepts in wires and letters to influential men in the sport. Cochems wrote a 10-page article entitled "The Forward Pass and On-Side Kick" for the 1907 edition of Spalding's How to Play Foot Ball, edited by the "Father of American Football", Walter Camp. The coach explained in words and photographs (of Robinson) how the forward pass could be thrown and how passing skills could be developed. "[T]he necessary brevity of this article will not permit ... a detailed discussion of the forward pass," Cochems lamented. "Should I begin to explain the different plays in which the pass ... could figure, I would invite myself to an endless task." The coach even urged the redesign of the football itself ... to make it better fit the passer's hand ... more aerodynamic ... in other words the football we know