in 1901, the Chicago Daily Tribune reported, "Larson and Cochems again and again skirted the Kansas ends for gains of forty, fifty, sixty and seventy yards. Nothing approaching the play of the Badgers trio of backs, Larson, Driver and Cochems, has ever been seen on Randall Field." On November 28, 1901, in his final game as a Wisconsin football player, Cochems ran back a kickoff for a touchdown against Amos Alonzo Stagg's Chicago Maroons. According to a contemporaneous press account, the touchdown run came late in the game with Wisconsin already leading 29 to 0: "The Maroons appeared to be demoralized, and on the kick-off Cochems caught the ball on his own twelve-yard line and ran ninety-eight yards for a touchdown, the Chicago players making little or no effort to stop him." Twelve years later, football historian and former University of Wisconsin coach Parke H. Davis described the same run more colorfully, reporting that Cochems "dashed and dodged, plunged and writhed through all opponents for a touch-down... Cochem's great flight presented all of the features of speed, skill, and chance which must combine to, make possible the full-field run... he boldly laid his course against the very center of Chicago's oncoming forwards, bursting their central bastion, and then cleverly sprinting and dodging the secondary defenders." According to Cochems' obituary in the Wisconsin alumnus, his kickoff return against Chicago in 1901 "brought him undying fame as a gridder." Cochems also scored two touchdowns in a 39–5 victory over Chicago in November 1900, and has been credited with four touchdowns in a 54–0 win against Notre Dame in 1900. Cochems was also a bicycling enthusiast who gained attention for a 1900 bicycle trip across Europe with classmate George Mowry. The pair left Wisconsin on August 1, 1900, and rode through England, Scotland, Belgium, Holland, France, Germany, Austria, Italy and Spain. Their cyclometers were stolen after they had completed 1,500 miles, and they had no record of the full distance they covered. The entire trip cost each of the two $125. On their return to Wisconsin, they were dressed in "well-worn knickerbockers" that "gave plain evidence of much exposure to variable weather and of hard riding." Early coaching career In 1902, Cochems at age 25 was hired as the head football coach at North Dakota Agricultural College (now North Dakota State University) at Fargo. He led the North Dakota Aggies to an undefeated