FULFILLING REQUESTS

     Since I, the Kornerman, gave a speech recently, BOONE-My Kind of Town, especially some who weren't able to attend in person, have wondered about some of the contents of my talk. As a result, I've decided I will use upcoming Korner's to provide some of that material. 

     Here was one of the stories....

     How important is the forward pass in football? Checking recent statistics on games from Little League on up to the pros, I noted that 20, 30, 40, even 50 and 60 pass attempts were made in a single game. Today's football offenses must feature forward passing 2/3 of the time.

     In 1886, Howard Savage was born in Boone, Iowa. He went to the University of Wisconsin to play football. There, he met Bradbury Robinson and they became teammates and the best of friends. Robinson was a kicker and in practice, he would kick and Savage would catch his kicks.....over and over. Robinson became enamored with the fact that Savage could throw the ball back to him with accuracy and distance and held the ball a certain way to get like.....a spiral action.

     Robinson asked Savage if he would show him how to throw that football and Savage obliged.

     In 1906......ROBINSON BECAME THE FIRST FOOTBALL PLAYER TO EVER THROW A FORWARD PASS AND A TOUCHDOWN PASS IN A FOOTBALL GAME. Then a member of the St. Louis University team, he had transferred there from Wisconsin. 

    After an incomplete pass on his first try, his second throw resulted in a touchdown, in a 22-0 victory over Carroll College in Waukesha, Wisconsin on September 5, 1906. John Schreider caught that first completed pass. The game of football had just started 15 years previous when Princeton battled Rutgers in 1869.

     Obviously, this was big news nationally, making the sport "much safer and more exciting." There had been so many deaths in the sport in the early years, there was much talk about banning it forever. So, many proclaimed that passing "saved the sport."

     Robinson was always very gracious with the media when they approached him about his feats AND always conceding that it was his good friend Savage that actually showed him how to throw the football,"revolving as it sailed through the air."

     Savage eventually became the National Commander of the American Legion. His picture was on the cover of the famous Time Magazine.

     Robinson earned a medical degree and was a surgeon at the famous Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN..

K-----K

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