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| Harvard's All-American QB Barry Wood, who introduced the world to the idiom "Monday morning quarterback". |
A “Monday
morning quarterback” is “one who criticizes or passes judgment from a position of
hindsight.”[i] Or, as Frank Sinatra more poetically put it,
in replaying the events leading up to a painful break up:
[I]t's so easy looking
at the game the morning after
Adding up the kisses and the laughter
Knowing how you'd play
it if the chance to play it over ever came
But then, a Monday morning quarterback never
lost a game
In the
United States, the National Football League (NFL) generally plays its games on
a Sunday, so it is not particularly surprising that these hindsight quarterbacks
would discuss the game on Monday. What
is more surprising, however, is that the idiom first came into widespread use with
respect to college football games played on Saturdays. Monday, it seems, was the day when people
went back to work and picked apart the game with their friends.
In an
earlier post, I traced the origin of “Monday Morning Quarterback” to a widely
reported speech by Harvard quarterback Barry Wood to delegates of the 46th
annual meeting of the New England Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools
on December 4, 1931. In the face of
criticism of the evils inherent in the overemphasis on football in schools and
colleges, Woods deflected blame from the game and its players, placing it with
the “Monday morning quarterbacks” in the stands. The expression was certainly in use within
the narrow subculture of Ivy League and other major football powerhouses before
the speech, but it quickly took hold among sportswriters across the country
after Woods’ comments appeared in print.
The idiom was later used in an Army officers’ training manual and was
frequently used in accounts of military action during World War II.
(See The
History and Origin of “Monday Morning Quarterback” – it’s worth a look, if
only to see a photo of General Patton wearing a football helmet with his Army
uniform)
The earlier post is accurate, as far as it goes, but it missed
the forest for the tree. “Monday morning
quarterback” was only one, albeit the most popular one, of more than a dozen
alternate hindsight quarterbacking idioms, and it wasn’t the first. “Grandstand quarterbacks” sat in judgment from
as early as 1927. And many people did,
in fact, get together to kvetch about the game on Sundays– and there was a name
for that – “Sunday Morning Quarterbacks.”
Sunday Morning Quarterback
The earliest
example of the expression “Sunday Morning Quarterback” in print I found is from
1927. It appeared, appropriately enough,
in a syndicated column written by the archetype of the America football coach –
Knute Rockne. Unlike other critics of
football’s hindsight critics, Rockne respected the Sunday morning quarterbacks,
even if he took their advice with a grain of salt:
It has been my experience, however, that no
college quarterback has ever been able to compete with the Sunday morning quarterback. This latter species is always correct. He insists on the right of playing Saturday’s
stock market on Sunday, whereas the poor little quarterback has to play it on
Saturday. However, I wouldn’t be without
the Sunday morning tactician for the world as
they are always interesting, they add color and they are the barometer of
interest.
The Sunday morning soothsayers are never harmful as long
as they kept within bounds but none of them will ever make the All American.
The Des Moines Register (Des Moines,
Iowa), September 28, 1928, page 16.
A few days
later, a writer in Indiana (where Rockne coached Notre Dame University’s
football team) used the expression:
A Corner in Pigskin, by
W. F. Fox Jr.
Various coaches,
successful and otherwise, throughout this country have refreshing names for the
gents and ladies who devote half of Sunday morning and all of Sunday afternoon
to the business of verbally firing a coach.
Some coaches call them “Sunday morning
quarterbacks”; others call them “boards of tragedy,” and still others
resort to the more or less trite appellation “second guessers.”
The Indianapolis News (Indianapolis,
Indiana), October 31, 1928, page 26.
The
expression “Sunday morning quarterback” appeared in print occasionally before
1932, but does not appear to have been as popular as “Monday morning quarterback”
became soon after appearing in print in late-1931. Perhaps
it was the alliteration; perhaps it was because more people did, in fact,
discuss the games on Mondays. The
widespread use of the expression, “Monday morning quarterback,” may even have
paved the way for the various other hindsight idioms, many of which first appeared within a year or to following its debut.
The proliferation of second-guessing idioms may also have been spurred by technological advances that made it easier for more fans to
enjoy and second-guess games.
The All-American quarterback Barry Wood, who was Phi Beta Kappa at
Harvard, suggested as much in the same speech in
which he introduced the world to the expression “Monday morning quarterback”:
In brief, Wood said the
growth in public interest was due chiefly to increased
means of transportation and the radio; that the press in printing what critics
called “football ballyhoo” was only meeting the
readers’ demands; that football coaches who strive for winning teams are forced
to by the alumni and the spectators; that a football player who gets a false
idea of his own importance, as critics charge, quickly realized he is “just one
of the mob” when he gets into the football world. The answer to over-emphasis was to be found
not on the field but in the stands where sit what Wood called “the Monday morning quarterbacks.”
Wilkes-Barre Record (Wilkes-Barre,
Pennsylvania, December 5, 1931, page 28.
With “Monday
morning” and “Sunday morning” quarterbacks making the rounds, “day-after
quarterbacks” might be the next logical step.
However, I could find only a single, one-off example of the expression
in print in 1939, illustrating once again that pop-culture and linguistic
fashions are not entirely logical.
Santa Cruz Evening News (Santa Cruz,
California), October 5, 1939, page 4.
But despite
many coaches’ misgivings about so-called “Sunday morning” or “Monday morning”
quarterbacks, Knute Rockne always knew where his bread was buttered and even
his obituary noted his good relationship with the fans, as noted in an item
published the day after his untimely death in a plane crash on March 31, 1931:
He knew his boys, he
knew the thousands of “Sunday morning quarterbacks;” he knew the fair-weather
friends who travel with only winners and he knew the loyal type who stick when
the road is rocky.
All that acclaim that
he won never changed him. He hated the
“high hat” just as thoroly [sic] as he did the “drug store cowboy.” He never wore it.
Lincoln Evening Journal (Lincoln,
Nebraska), April 1, 1931, page 19.
Coincidentally,
the final lines of this brief tribute hint at another pre-“Monday morning”
quarterback idiom.
Drugstore Quarterback (and cigar
store)
In November
of 1931, two weeks before Barry Wood introduced “Monday morning quarterback” to
the masses, little Hobart College of Geneva, New York was on the verge of
breaking a 27 game losing streak. It was
an away game at the home of their ancient rival, the University of Rochester, and
their fans behaved poorly (at least as reported by the Rochester press):
Hobart supporters in
the left end of the stand were in ecstasy.
The drugstore quarterbacks from Geneva,
who wore Hobart colors and little purple footballs on their coat lapels, were
being just as scurrilous and low-lived and loud-mouthed as drugstore quarterbacks, under such circumstances,
could be expected to be. College city
“townies” have been ever thus.
Democrat and Chronicle (Rochester, New
York), October 22, 1927, page 9.
“Drugstore
quarterback” appears to be a riff on (or echo of) an earlier, more widely used idiom,
“drugstore cowboy.” A “drugstore cowboy”
seems to have been a dandified version of what became known as the “Urban
Cowboy” in the 1980s; a ladies’ man who hangs out at drugstore soda fountains affecting
the suave, debonair air of a silent film matinee cowboy:
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| Logansport Pharos-Tribune (Logansport, Indiana), February 29, 1924, page 5. |
The
“Drug Store Cowboy is the latest classification
given local “faddish” young men.
Beside
“Jelly-bean” and “Cakeeater” “Drugstore-cowboy” will go down in the book the
ever changing younger generation.
The
dress of the “Drugstore Cowboy” is distinctive as is that of the “Jelly-bean”
and “Cake-eater.”
The
biggest and fussiest cowpuncher John E. available, classy boots, and in some
instances the real thing – high heeled rough leather boots, a classy wool shirt
of the right shade of blue or gray, and a neck scarf with lots of cow boy lingo
compose the apparel distinctive of the “drugstore
Cowboy.”
Winfield Daily Free Press (Winfield,
Kansas), November 1, 1922, page 2.
The evils of
the “Drugstore Cowboy” were well documented (or at least sensationalized):
 |
| Pittsburgh Daily Post (Pennsylvania), October 18, 1923, page 7. |
 |
| Decatur Herald (Decatur, Illinois), July 9, 1923, page 2. |
Although
“drugstore quarterbacks” may have been less dangerous to the public welfare,
they were still up to no good – or at least up to pointing out the faults of
their no-good favorite football team:
Football coaches call
them the drug store quarterbacks.
Anyway after any game
there are several scores of people who can tell you the faults of both
teams. They can tell you why a certain
team lost and why a certain team won. In
very few cases does the other team win because it was just good enough to win
anyway, but usually because there was a certain break or a certain negligence
of which the winner took advantage.
A drugstore quarterback can play one of the best
retrospective games in the world. He
can’t lose, for he is looking back over the game that has been played, knowing
what the other team has done.
The Anniston Star (Anniston, Alabama),
June 1, 1936, page 8.
If someone
could hang out at the soda fountain talking sports, wouldn’t “soda fountain
quarterback” make just as much sense?
And it did:
Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, Mississippi),
October 24, 1932, page 7.
The early popularity
and longevity of the expression “drugstore cowboy” (which is still in
occasional use today) may help explain how “drugstore quarterback” survived for
so many years. It was still in regular
(if not frequent) use during the 1950s and it appeared in print as recently as the
1990s.
The
expressions “drugstore” and “soda fountain” quarterbacks debuted during
Prohibition, when alcohol could not be sold openly. Since Prohibition ended in 1933 there have
been a few, scattered or one-off expressions that reflect the change; “beer
parlor” and “beer garden” quarterbacks (just once, in the same article in
1934), “tavern quarterback” (just twice, in 1955 and 1972) and “bar room
quarterback” (twice, in 1972 and 1975):
“Soda
fountain quarterback” and several other alternate, second-guessing quarterback
idioms debuted within a few years after “Monday morning quarterback” became
widely known. And while “Sunday morning”
and “drugstore” predate “Monday morning” with respect to quarterbacks, they are
not the earliest known such idiom.
Grandstand Quarterback (and Bleacher
and spectator)
In October
1927, one year before “Sunday morning quarterback” first appears in print, Joe
Williams, the Sporting Editor of the New York Evening Telegram writing in his
syndicated column, As Joe Williams Sees It, seems to credit Percy Haughton, who
coached Harvard from 1908 to 1916 and Columbia from 1923 to 1924, with
expression “Grandstand quarterback”:
Haughton made the
observation that the stands surrounding the football fields held several
hundred times as many quarterbacks as ever got into uniform. He never missed an opportunity to put the grandstand quarterbacks on the griddle. He wrote a book on the game and devoted
considerable space to the subject. The grandstand quarterbacks, Haughton pointed out, fail to
realize the quarterback is a mere boy who has probably not reached voting age,
and that under the eligibility rules in force he could not have piloted a major
football team for more than two years, and probably not that long.
“As Joe
Williams Sees It,” Pittsburgh Press (Pennsylvania),
October 17, 1927.
But although
Haughton’s book, Football and How to
Watch It (1922), addresses the subject, he did not refer to the
second-guessing fan as a “grandstand quarterback,” he called them “Mr.
Know-it-all.” It seems likely, then,
that Williams was using a term that was already in use in 1927 but which may
have been coined sometime after 1922.
And people
in the grandstand were not the only ones who were critical of their team’s
performance. If you could only afford a
cheap seat in the bleachers, you might be a “bleacher quarterback,” which first
appeared in print in 1932:
All the passes evolve
from spinners, reverses, multiple spinners, end arounds, or some deceptive
play. A [UC Santa Clara] Bronco never
takes the ball from the center and just fades back so that even the bleacher quarterbacks in tier 42 can see it coming.
Oakland Tribune (California), November 18,
1932, page 27.
The early
second-guessing quarterback idioms all presuppose seeing the game in person
(grandstand or bleacher) or complaining about it after the fact (Sunday or
Monday), perhaps at a drugstore soda fountain.
But advances in technology gave rise to new opportunities. Radio and television made it possible for fans
to enjoy the game at home, in their own parlor or living room, from the comfort
of their favorite armchair or easy chair.
Armchair
Quarterback
 |
| Time Magazine, Volume 20, Number 24, December 12, 1932, page 44. |
But while
listening at home has its comforts and benefits, you had to rely on the
play-by-play announcer to fill in all of the details – and that wasn’t always
pretty. Instead of second-guessing the game, a disgruntled "Armchair quarterback" might second-guess the announcer:
Now that Rt. Hon. R. B.
Bennett, Hon. James G. Gardiner and Premier Bracken of Manitoba, have all
joined in the paens of praise for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers it might not be
remiss for a Saturday afternoon radio quarterback
to make some observations.
To begin with I didn’t
see the game. I sat in a comfortable
overstuffed chair at home, and while the radiators hummed with heat I heard of
the frozen ground at Lansdowne Park; how men, women and children sat huddled in
fur coats, parkas, mackinaws, rugs and buffalo robes, while a “cross” wind blew
in their faces.
I sipped tea while the
Blue Bombers gave the coup de grace to the Rough Riders. It was a typical football broadcast with all
the old school tie traditions of sportsmanship. . . .
We started off with the
lineups of both teams but the announcers didn’t bother much with the
substitutions. Poor Tony Golab must have
been on for a few minutes because we suddenly heard he made a nice gain. Then “Tony” became the forgotten man. We wondered about his ankle, too.
Minor Mystery.
Once in a while our
jittery announcer made life really interesting.
Ottawa had intercepted a Winnipeg forward just before half-time, but the
Blue Bombers came right back with the ball.
It was one of life’s little mysteries, so we threw a few lumps of sugar
in the tea.
The Ottawa Journal (Ontario, Canada),
December 12, 1939, page 16.
Luckily,
play-by-play announcing has advanced to a higher art form, so it’s unlikely
that you will have the same difficulties today (although I seem to remember the
local announcer bungling a few high school and local college games when I was
in school a few decades later).
Easy Chair Quarterback
 |
| Decatur Daily Review (Decatur, Illinois), September 28, 1934, page 14. |
 |
| Daily Plainsman (Huron, South Dakota), October 20, 1936, page 9. |
Radio
Quarterback
Next Saturday is the
blank space on plenty of college eleven schedules as the teams rest up for
strenuous Thanksgiving day games. But the radio quarterback can still turn his dial to a
goodly number of not-so-bad tilts.
Statesman
Journal (Salem, Oregon), November 18, 1934, page 9.
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| Statesman Journal (Salem, Oregon), October 15, 1939, page 1. |
Parlor
Quarterback
Another of [Bo]
McMillin’s stock phrases used in admonishing the parlor
quarterbacks is “Say son, I’ll bet you were nine years old before they’d
let you go bye-bye.”
The Advocate-Messenger (Danville,
Kentucky), December 12, 1936, page 3.
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| Arizona Daily Star (Tucson), November 12, 1942, page 3. |
Television
Quarterback
 |
| Chicago Daily Tribune (Illinois), September 14, 1952, page 212. |
As radio
gave way to television, the “radio quarterback” gave way to the “television (or
TV) quarterback,” further complicating the life of football coaches under
pressure from an ever increasing number of hindsight “quarterbacks”:
Sol Kampf, assistant
football coach at the University of North Dakota, was asked by a New Yorker
whether fans saw the Dakotans games on television . . . “We don’t have
television in North Dakota,” replied Kampf . . . “You’re lucky,” commented the
New Yorker. “At home we not only have grandstand and Monday morning quarterbacks, but now we
have television quarterbacks . . . .”
Pampa Daily News (Pampa, Texas),
September 21, 1949, page 7.
Living Room Quarterback
As
some combination of home design, marketing and linguistic fashion
transformed the
Victorian “parlor” to the mid-century modern “living room,”
second-guessing quarterback idioms followed suit, as evidenced by this
discussion of the changing economics of football:
Blackout
Saturday
The ridiculous thing
about a “blackout Saturday” was the blacking out of a city which had no actual
game. It happened one Saturday in New
York when neither Columbia, NYU nor Fordham had a home game. This was one Saturday when the NCAA couldn’t
find TV’s so-called impact on football attendance.
Whether TV helps or
hurts the college gate is not important to the guy who watches the game from
his parlor easy chair. The fact remains
that there are more living room quarterbacks than there
are grandstand quarterbacks. The
NCAA should take these fellows into consideration.
Fairbanks Daily News-Miner (Fairbanks,
Alaska), January 5, 1952, page 4.
Relative
Frequency of Use
“Monday morning quarterback” is, and has been, far and away
the most common hindsight quarterbacking idiom since it first appeared in print
in late-1931. To get a sense of the
relative frequency of use of the various hindsight idioms and how that changed
over time, I recorded the approximate number of newspaper archive search-hits for each of several such idioms
during the period from 1925 to 1945 and from 1950 to 1959.
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