Advances in Football Had a Few Setbacks

Not wanting to allow a significant milestone in sports history to pass quietly, Morning Briefing today pays tribute to the 100th anniversary of the forward pass.

On Sept. 5, 1906, St. Louis University Coach Eddie Cochems called the play that would change football history, having quarterback Bradbury Robinson pass the ball forward in a game against Carroll College at Waukesha, Wis. Foreshadowing the exploits of Kerry Collins and J.P. Losman a century later, the ball fell incomplete.

Unfazed, Cochems called another pass on St. Louis’ next possession. This time, Robinson passed 20 yards to teammate Jack Schneider, who successfully caught the awkward rugby-shaped ball. This development proved so shocking that Carroll’s defenders could do little more than watch Schneider cruise in for the touchdown.

With that, the “projectile pass” had been born. A hundred years later, fantasy leaguers would be seen wasting goodly portions of their lives wondering whether Alex Smith or Jon Kitna will complete more in 2006.

Trivia time: When was the first recorded forward pass completion in a pro football game?

Passed history: For years, Notre Dame Coach Knute Rockne had been credited with pioneering the forward pass. But according to St. Louis University officials, Rockne acknowledged in his biography that Cochems had been the first to use it.

Rockne wrote that Cochems had “enrolled a few boys with hands like steam shovels who could toss a football just as easily and almost as far as they could throw a baseball.”

“One would have thought that so effective a play would have been instantly copied and become the vogue. The East, however, had not learned much or cared much about Midwest and Western football. Indeed, the East scarcely realized that football existed beyond the Alleghenies.”

Knock, knock: The national soccer teams of Italy and France meet today for the first time since the World Cup final, an event that moved Italian defender Marco Materazzi to finally reveal the words that sent France’s Zinedine Zidane into a head-butting furor.

In an interview with the Gazzetta dello Sport, Materazzi said that after he grabbed Zidane’s shirt, the French captain told him, “If you want, I’ll give you the jersey later.” Materazzi said he responded by telling Zidane “that I preferred his sister.”

Materazzi also said he hoped he and Zidane could make “a peace among men,” and if Zidane feels similar, “he knows where to find my address.”

So, Marco, the next time you hear someone head-butting on your front door ...

Trivia answer: The first on record happened Oct. 27, 1906, when George “Peggy” Parratt connected with Dan “Bullet” Riley for Massillon in a game against a combined Benwood-Moundsville team.

And finally: Phoenix Coyotes forward Jeremy Roenick, to the Arizona Republic about NBC’s decision not to include the Coyotes on its 2006-07 regular-season broadcast schedule: “Just having Wayne Gretzky as an owner, that’s enough to get at least one of our games on. I mean, come on, throw a dog a bone.”

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mike.penner@latimes.com