McGill University Athletics

Robert (Boo) Anderson, a football and hockey star who also rowed at McGill, declined NHL offers from Boston and the Montreal Maroons.

Anderson, who graduated with an engineering degree in 1923, was part of McGill's 1919 Yates Cup championship football team that did not allow a point all season and went on to serve as captain in 1921. He played 60 minutes on offence (quarterback, running back, outside wing), defence (defensive end, defensive back) and also served as a place-kicker and punter.

On Nov. 5, 1921, he became the first Canadian to throw a forward pass when McGill played an exhibition game against Syracuse. The Canadian Rugby Football Union eventually agreed to formally adopt the forward pass in 1931 and football in Canada was forever changed.

In 1973, Dink Carroll of The Montreal Gazette wrote, "Boo Anderson was one of those talented, versatile, amateur athletes that one used to see occasionally in the first half of the (20th) century. You don't see his type nowadays because of the emergence of the professional specialist in sport. He was so well coordinated that he would doubtless have excelled at any sport he took up."