Bradbury Robinson

Life and work

The story behind the role.

American football player (1884-1949).

Bradbury Norton Robinson Jr. (February 1, 1884 – March 7, 1949) was a pioneering American football player, physician, nutritionist, conservationist and local politician. He played college football at the University of Wisconsin in 1903 and at Saint Louis University from 1904 to 1907. In 1904, through personal connections to Wisconsin governor Robert M. La Follette, Sr. and his wife, Belle Case, Robinson learned of calls for reforms to the game of football from President Theodore Roosevelt, and began to develop tactics for passing. After moving to Saint Louis University, Robinson was credited as throwing the first legal forward pass in the history of American football on September 26, 1906, at a game at Carroll College in Waukesha, Wisconsin. However, in 2026, it was discovered that on September 22, 1906, Bates College sophomore quarterback Stephen Cobb completed the first legal forward pass in college football history, connecting with freshman Ralph Cummings. Robinson became the sport's first triple threat man, excelling at running, passing, and kicking. He was also a member of St. Louis' "Olympic World's Champions" football team in 1904. Robinson graduated from Saint Louis University in 1908 with a medical degree and practiced as a surgeon at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. In World War I, he was commissioned a captain of infantry in the U.S. Army, arriving in France in 1918 where he became an instructor in the use of the newly developed tank, later serving as a front line infantry officer in the last ten days of the war. He returned to France after the war to study advanced medical techniques at the University of Bordeaux. In the early 1920s, he oversaw the medical screening of immigrants while serving on the European staff of Hugh S. Cumming, Surgeon Gene…

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