He studied at Brigham Young Academy (the predecessor of Brigham Young University) from 1898-1904. He also studied at Brigham Young University itself receiving at Bachelor of Arts degree. He then studied at Yale University.
The family ran the Roberts Hotel in Provo. He later went to the University of Southern California from which he received a masters degree. Roberts married Sytha Brown in 1906.
A few days later they jointly left to serve an Latter- Day Saints (Mormons) mission.
lieutenant was here, watching the procession of 5000 to worship atop a mountain near Einsiedeln that Roberts conceived the idea of an annual Mount Timpanogos hike, an idea he later implemented while on the Brigham Young University faculty, with the first hike occurring in 1912. In fact Roberts was so heavily connected with the mountain, and viewed as a man of such stature, that he was often called "Timpanogos" or "Timp".
Roberts was on the Brigham Young University faculty and coaching staff from 1910-1928. Around 1912 he was one of the main advocates of the Latter-day Saints adopting the Boy Scouts as an activity organization for the Church and published an article in the Improvement Era that argued for the Church supporting the Boy Scout movement and convinced higher leaders of the Church to do so, including B. H. Roberts who had previously opposed adopting the Boy Scout movement.
During this time he functioned in part in a way that would later have given him the title athletic director
He oversaw the reintroduction of football at Brigham Young University and also named the team the cougars. Among the athletes trained by Roberts were Alma Richards and Clinton Larsen, the latter of whom held the world high jump record from 1917 to 1935. Roberts was also a journalist.
He was editor of the BYA newspaper while a student there, and was a sports writer for multiple Salt Lake City papers.
lieutenant was in this capacity that he introduced references to Brigham Young University athletic teams as the cougars. He also wrote correspondence under an assumed name and identity for the Provo Herald to encourage Provo residents to appreciate Mount Timponogos and also clean up trash and beautify the city.
When the Herald editors learned that they had been duped into misrepresenting their correspondent, they were not pleased. However instead of exposing Roberts they got him to write a set of moral sermons for them to publish under another assumed name.
He is also credited with writing The Legend of Timpanogos.
He then began a coach at the University of Southern California. One of the peaks of Mount Timponogos is named Roberts Horn in his honor.
As of 1912 when he began the annual Mount Timponogos hikes he was not only the head of physical education at Brigham Young University, he was the only member of the faculty who was trained in that discipline.