and might have filled one of the positions in the back field this year if he had not promised to return to the 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. Louis." Robinson simply could not break his word. So, if he wanted to play in Cochems' "outstanding football system", Robinson would have to bring the 29-year-old coach to St. Louis ... so that is exactly what he set out to do. 1906: The forward pass is legalized and Cochems is hired by SLU 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. This was part of the plan to make the game safer that had been undertaken at the behest of President Roosevelt. Robinson wrote: 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 1906 and 1907. "It was chiefly through Robinson that Cochems, the assistant coach at Wisconsin last year, was engaged by St. Louis University," a newspaper at the time confirmed. "(Robinson) recommended him to the faculty." 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." 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." The first pass Some 20 miles from the Lake Beulah training camp, on September 5, 1906, Robinson threw the first pass in a game against Carroll College at Waukesha, Wisconsin. Jack Schneider was the receiver for the Blue & White (St. Louis would not adopt "Billikens" as a nickname for its sports teams