Hail Mary pass : a long forward pass in football
thrown into or near the end zone in a last-ditch attempt to score as time runs
out —often used figuratively. Merriam-Webster online.
The expression “Hail Mary
pass” is generally believed to have taken its permanent place in American
pop-culture on December 28, 1975, when Roger Staubach heaved a miraculous
50-yard touchdown pass to Drew Pearson with 24 seconds left in the game to cap
a 17-14 comeback victory over the Minnesota Vikings. In the aftermath of the game, Staubach
described the pass:
I guess you’d call it a Hail Mary pass. You throw it up and pray he catches it.[i]
The term
does not seem to have been widely used before that game, as evidenced by a
contemporary report explaining that, “Staubach a Catholic called the bomb to
Pearson a ‘Hail Mary’ pass.” But the
expression, itself, was not new. Roger
Staubach himself had been throwing “Hail Mary” passes, by that name, since at
least 1963,[ii] sportswriter
Bill Shefski used the expression regularly in the Philadelphia Daily News from as early as 1961, and a smattering of
references to “Hail Mary” passes appeared in print in the 1930s, 1940s and
1950s.
In a
parallel development, Catholic-school basketball teams had been shooting “Hail
Mary shots” since at least 1931[iii]:
Sister Helen Rose, at St. Peter’s High,
calls Miss Virginia Bahash’s shots, “Hail Mary shots.” You know the kind – give ‘em a fling and
breathe a prayer. And for those who
might wonder who Miss Virginia Bahash is we’ll whisper to you that she’s St.
Peter’s star forward who not so long ago made good on thirteen out of fourteen
foul attempts, in a single game.
The Central New Jersey Home News (New
Brunswick, New Jersey), March 4, 1931,
page 13.
The
expression “Hail Mary shot” was itself an apparent variant of the earlier, more
generic “prayer shot” which dates to at least 1916:
Scranton was first to score in the
nightcap, a foul goal by Long making the totals 11 to 10. Muller followed with
a prayer shot for a deuce that sent Nanticoke ahead but Berger came through
with a two pointer that again changed the leadership.
The Scranton Republican (Scranton,
Pennsylvania), December 26, 1916, page 10.[iv]
Years before
“Hail Mary passes,” as such, appear in the record, ex-Notre Dame star Jim
Crowley frequently told anecdotes about “Hail Mary” plays, in which players said
“Hail Marys” in the huddle before big plays or in desperate situations. He told the stories so frequently that a
sportswriter said of a humorous basketball story in 1935, that it, “rivals the
famous ‘Hail Mary!’ story that Jimmy Crowley told so often.”[v]
Jim Crowley had
the ear of sportswriters and held the attention of the public because he was
one of the most famous football players of his day, as famous (or more) as
Staubach was in his day. Crowley was one
of the “Four Horsemen” in Notre Dame’s backfield during their first undefeated National
Championship season in 1924. The “Four
Horsemen” were immortalized in arguably the most memorable piece of sports journalism
ever written, Grantland Rice’s account of Notre Dame’s 13-7 win over Army in
1924 (See Game Highlights here):
Four
Horsemen of Notre Dame Ride to Victory Over Army Team
Powerful
Cadet Line
Buckles
Before Speed
Of Brilliant
Backfield
Outlined against a blue-gray October sky the Four Horsemen
rode again. In dramatic lore they are
known as Famine, Pestilence, Destruction and Death. These are only aliases. Their real names are Stuhldreher, Miller,
Crowley and Layden. They formed the
crest of the South Bend cyclone before which another fighting Army team was
swept over the precipice at the Polo Grounds this afternoon, as 55,000
spectators peered down upon the bewildering panorama spread out upon the green
plain below.
The Courier-Journal (Louisville,
Kentucky), October 19, 1924, page 60 (also appearing in several other
newspapers nationwide).
Ironically,
perhaps, Jim Crowley’s “Hail Mary” stories related back to a time when Notre
Dame football was led by a non-Catholic head coach, the legendary Knute Rockne,
and the person he credited with suggesting the first in-huddle “Hail Mary” was a
Presbyterian. Real Catholics, I suppose,
may have (correctly?) assumed that it would be blasphemous to invoke the
Virgin’s name for something as earthly as football success – that is, until it
worked. But times change; now, even
“Touchdown Jesus” (Notre Dame’s famous mural showing the “Son of God” – his
hands aloft in a pose similar a football referee’s touchdown signal) might
approve of the practice.
 |
| http://lostangelesblog.com/2010/11/26/arrogant-game-preview-notre-dame/ |
And in a
further irony, although “Hail Mary” passed into the national consciousness in
the aftermath of a Minnesota Vikings’ loss, Notre Dame’s earlier “Hail Mary” play
has even deeper (if tangential) ties to the Vikings’ conference rival, the
Green Bay Packers. Jim Crowley played
one year of high school football under coach Curly Lambeau (the founder of the
Green Bay Packers and namesake of their stadium), briefly for the Green Bay
Packers during the 1925 season, and coached Vince Lombardi (legendary Packers’
coach and namesake of the Super Bowl trophy) during his college playing days at
Fordham in the 1930s.
“Hail Mary” – Notre Dame’s “best
play.”
“Rock’s football attack,” a foe once jeered, “consisted of 5
Hail Marys and 11 All-Americans.”
“A New
Rockne, With Hair,” Jim Murray, The Des
Moines Register (Iowa), December 3, 1964, page 18.
The earliest
example of a Notre Dame “Hail Mary” anecdote I could find is a single
reference, published in 1931, to a game against the New York Giants
professional football team in 1930. The
story appeared a few weeks before Sister Helen Rose’s “Hail Mary” shot, so it
is possible that the football usage preceded the basketball usage.
In 1930, Knute
Rockne led Notre Dame to its third undefeated National Championship season and
second in a row. To close out the
season, Knute Rockne agreed to a season-ending charity match against the New
York Giants, to be played in New York City one week after its season finale in
Los Angeles against the University of Southern California. To boost ticket sales and reinforce his tired
team of younger players coming off a long season, he bolstered his roster with
a who’s-who of Notre Dame stars from the past, including all of the Four
Horsemen from his 1924 team. The
reinforcements were not just old players coming off the couch. Nearly all of them were still involved in
football as college coaches, and some of them had played professionally in the
recent past.
Although a
game between professionals and collegians may sound ridiculous today, the college
game and college players of the time enjoyed a better public reputation than
the professionals. American football
rose to prominence as a collegiate sport, and had been popular for several
decades. And although “professional” or
semi-professional football had been around for about thirty years, mostly
outside the limelight in smaller Midwestern cities, the NFL was still fighting
for respect in only its tenth season.
And the professionals, although bigger, stronger, more experienced and
more mature, were not the beneficiaries of today’s money, training, diet or
marketing machine.
Even Knut
Rockne had actively advocated an opposition to professional football:
 |
| Tampa Times, January 26, 1922, page 10. |
“Professionalism is the big menace to college football.
Unless the tendency in that direction is curtailed it may be
necessary to abolish the game as an intercollegiate sport.” – Knut Rockne,
1922.
But this game
may have helped put that misunderstanding to rest. It did not go well for the collegians, they
lost the game 22-0, with only one first down, zero completed passes, two
interceptions, and without ever advancing the ball past the 50 yard line (for
more details of the game, see “The
Time Notre Dame Played the New York Giants (for the Unemployed!),” Ethan Trex,
MentalFloss.com).
Notre Dame never
had a prayer – or rather, they only had a prayer:
Crowley said that after a few minutes of that game the Four
Horsemen stalled on every play by saying four or five
“Hail marys” in the huddle; but that after a while they could not do any
better than the “Amen.”
Green Bay Press-Gazette, January 3,
1931, page 15.
Crowley later
told and retold a second “Hail Mary” anecdote, which was widely published and
republished throughout the 1930s. The
story recounted events in a game played against Georgia Tech in 1922, when
Crowley was a starting, sophomore halfback for Notre Dame. It was Notre Dame’s first foray into the Deep
South, so the game had was closely watched as the first test of regional
powerhouses. Notre Dame won the game 13-3, coming from
behind to score two touchdowns. Georgia
Tech’s five fumbles (to Notre Dame’s one) were the determining factor. But Jim Crowley credited the win to the
recitation of a “Hail Mary” before each of their two touchdowns.
This is the earliest
version of the story I could find:
In 1922 Notre Dame had . . . ten sophomores and a senior in
the starting lineup . . . . It so
happened that the senior was a good Presbyterian, the other ten of Catholic
faith.
Tech smashed down the field in the first few minutes of play
but we finally managed to stop them on the 30-yard line. From this point they booted a field goal
giving them a 3-to-0 lead. Layden was
doing some magnificent punting and in the third quarter he lifted a high,
twisting spiral down the field which “Red” Barron, the Tech safety man,
muffed. We recovered on the 10-yard line
but in three plays were thrown back to the 20-yard strip. It was fourth down.
Back came the Presbyterian and said to us, ‘Boys, let’s say a Hail Mary. We prayed an on the next play Layden crashed
over for a touchdown. We kicked goal and
led 7 to 3 but still things didn’t look rosy.
Tech was again pressing when Layden got off another kick and the formula
was repeated. Barron fumbled and again
we tried three plays but without success.
‘Let’s say another Hail Mary,” said the Presbyterian. Again Layden ran through a big hole for a
touchdown.
That night I encountered the Presbyterian standing against
the cigar counter of the hotel. “Say,
Jimmy,” he said, “you can’t tell me that Hail Mary doesn’t work. That’s the best play
we’ve got”
Democrat and Chronicle (Rochester, New
York) January 1, 1932, page 28 (see, Ben Zimmer, Word on the Street: 'Hail Mary,' From the Gridiron to Politics, The Wall Street Journal, September 29, 2013).
It’s a good
story, and one that may even be essentially true, despite from diverging from
the actual facts of the game. Later retellings of the story identify the Presbyterian
as Nobel Kizer, who was, in fact, a Presbyterian. Kizer did play in the game, but he was not
then a senior. Like Crowley, he was a
sophomore in 1922. Furthermore, the
story claims that Elmer Layden ran for the two second-half “Hail Mary” touchdowns,
but contemporary accounts of the game show that Layden did not score any
touchdowns that day. They did score two
touchdowns, but only one in the second half.
It is not
clear whether Crowley simply forgot unimportant details or intentionally
embellished the story for dramatic or humorous effect. But if the deviations from fact were
intentional, he may have learned the art of telling a tall tale from his old
coach. Knute Rockne is best known today
for his “win one for the Gipper” speech at halftime of Notre Dame’s 1928 game
against Army. At halftime, Knute gave a
rousing, emotional speech, invoking a purported death-bed request by former
Notre Dame player, George Gipp, who died during his senior season in 1920.
During
halftime, with the score tied 0-0, Rockne addressed his players. “Boys, I want to tell you a story I never
thought I’d have to tell.” He then
related what he claims was one of Gipp’s last requests. As Rockne told the story (there were no other
witnesses), Gipp said, “Sometime, when the team is up against it, when things
are going wrong, and the breaks are beating the boys – tell them to go in there
with all they’ve got and win just one for the Gipper.” Rockne
insisted that the story was true, despite there being some
question about whether Gipp would have been too modest to have made such a
request.
True or not,
the Gipp speech was not the first time Knut Rockne had invoked the name of an
ailing boy to inspire his team. In 1975,
Crowley recalled a pre-game speech six seasons before the Gipp speech, in which
Rockne tearfully asked the team to win the game for his son Billy who was home
with an illness. It was a complete
fabrication. Coincidentally, the speech
was delivered before the 1922 Georgia Tech game that is said to have featured
the first two “Hail Mary” plays:
“I remember a game with Georgia Tech where our Notre Dame
team wasn’t given a chance to win.
Georgia Tech had just whipped navy, 45 to 0, the week before. We had just an average ball club.
“An hour before game time, Mr. Rockne came into the clubhouse
with head bowed, tears in his eyes, lips trembling.
“’Boys,’ he said, solemnly, ‘we’re not given much of a chance
to beat Georgia Tech. I know this. But, I want you to win this game for my boy,
Billy, who is ill. I have a telegram
here sent by Billy asking you to win this game for him. Now, go out and beat the hell out of Georgia
Tech!’
“We didn’t wait for him to finish his speech. We were so worked up, we jumped up, knocked
Mr. Rockne down and blasted our way through the doors without opening
them. We were on the field 20 minutes
before Georgia Tech came out.
“The Ramblin’ Wreck players gave us the physical beating of
our lives, but when the game was over, the score was Notre Dame 13, Georgia
Tech 3. We won the game for Billy, but
almost got killed doing so.
“They had a big crowd at the South Bend station welcoming our
limping, battered Irish team. Guess who
was front and center, looking like a Milk Fed healthy boy? Billy, who else?”
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, February 10,
1975, page 15.
 |
A healthy
Billy Rockne, several years after his fake illness. Detroit
Free Press, October 31 1926 page 23.
|
If Rockne
lied about the health of his own son Billy, might he also have lied in 1928 about a
death-bed request made by a former player eight years earlier?
And if Rockne used false or misleading stories to motivate his players,
did Crowley similarly embellish his anecdotes to entertain his listeners? Whether intentional or not, Crowley’s
sick-Billy anecdote itself, for example, was mistaken on at least one detail. Georgia Tech had played Navy the week before,
but it lost the game by a score of 13-0, as opposed to winning 45-0. Georgia Tech was, however, highly regarded,
having outscored
its three previous opponents by 83-13, including a 33-7 win over Alabama. Chalk it up to failing memory and the passage
of time, or to intentional embellishment for rhetorical purposes? In either case, the sick-Billy story (if it
is to be believed) may give more fuel to the win-one-for-the-Gipper doubters.
Crowley’s 1930s
accounts of the original “Hail Mary” plays against Georgia Tech in 1922 had
similar factual inaccuracies. But in
hindsight, the real story may be more interesting, particularly in light of the
current, pass-specific meaning of “Hail Mary.”
If the general details of Crowley’s account of the first in-huddle “Hail
Mary” against Georgia Tech are true, the first “Hail Mary” play was also the
first “Hail Mary” pass.
Notre Dame did
score its first touchdown shortly after “Red” Barron fumbled during a punt
return, but it was in the second quarter, not the third. And instead of recovering on the 10 yard line
and being pushed back to the 20 before scoring a touchdown on fourth down, they
recovered on the Georgia Tech 22 yard line, made a first down at the 11 yard
line, advanced the ball to the 6 yard line on two short runs and were then stuffed
for no gain on third down. Then they scored
with a fourth down pass from Stuhldreher to Castner. Castner, the star of the game, later had
perhaps the worst major league pitching career in history. He gave up 14 hits with 5 walks and no
strikeouts in 10 innings of relief pitching for the Chicago White Sox between
August 6 and October 3, 1923.
If Crowley’s
story is true, Stuhldreher threw the pass after saying a “Hail Mary” in the
huddle, making it arguably the first “Hail Mary” pass.
 |
| Atlanta Constitution, October 29, 1922, page 1D. |
"Price caught Castner as he was about
to receive the forward pass that gave Notre Dame its first touchdown."
Notre Dame’s
second touchdown also came after a punt, but not as a result of another Georgia
Tech fumble, as Crowley said. Early in
the fourth quarter, Notre Dame pinned Georgia Tech deep in its own territory,
forcing a punt giving Notre Dame the ball on the Georgia Tech 40 yard
line. Notre Dame advanced the ball to
the 10 yard line with pass completions of twenty and fifteen yards, while
losing five yards on an off sides penalty.
Then “Stuhldreher rammed center for a short gain and a touchdown. Castner failed to kick goal.”
Fordham’s “Hail Mary”
Whether true
in all of its particulars or not, Jim Crowley’s frequent retelling of the
original “Hail Mary” story from his Notre Dame playing days may have helped
cement the phrase’s position in sporting circles. But Crowley did not just live in the
past. He took a similarly prayerful
approach to his coaching duties at another Catholic school, Fordham
University. In December 1933, during a
return visit to Green Bay following his first year at Fordham (Vince Lombardi’s
freshman year), someone asked Crowley about Fordham’s ambitious 1934 schedule,
which included the likes of West Virginia, Southern Methodist University,
Tennessee, and Purdue:
“What will you have to send up against those teams?” someone
asked.
“Six regulars, the water-boy and plenty
of ‘Hail-Mary’s,’” Jim replied grinning.
Green Bay Press-Gazette, December 22,
1933, page 13.
Other “Hail Mary’s”
Golfers were
also known to say “Hail Mary’s” before a big match:
Tommy Armour, paired with Mike Brady yesterday, was requested
Saturday night to say four Hail Mary’s for Mike
yesterday. The order came from Mrs.
Mike. Tommy compromised by saying three
for Mike and one for himself – and it appears that a Scot doesn’t benefit from
an Irish Hail Mary.
The Miami News, January 8, 1934, page 8.
In 1934,
Notre Dame’s quarterback William Shakespeare (no, really) heaved a long pass
for a touchdown:
Particularly in the first period, did Master Will
Shakespeare, about whom I promise you I will not make a single, solitary pun,
heave a wild, long pass high into the air. This pass carried on it several “Hail
Mary’s,” not to mention the special blessings of Rome. It was fired with devout faith, as I say, by
Master Shakespeare who was at the time greatly harassed by Army rushers. Far down the field, 30 yards, to be exact,
stood a Notre Dame end by the name of Dominic Vairo, the captain of the
team. On either side of Mr. Vairo stood
two West Point students, Mr. Ducrot and Mr. Dumbjohn, I suspect. “He is yours, Mr. Ducrot,” said Mr.
Dumbjohn. “You do me too great honor,
Mr. Dumbjohn,” replied Mr. Ducrot. “He
belongs to you, I am certain,” insisted the other. At this juncture, Captain Vairo leaped into
the air, caught the football and ran it over the goal line, a distance of some
20 yards from the point of the catch.
Detroit
Free Press, November 25, 1934, Sports page 1.
Since this
pass was in the first quarter, and not thrown into the end-zone in desperation,
it would not qualify as a “Hail Mary pass” by today’s standards, but it is
clear that the foundation had been laid for the expression that would later
become a fixture in American sports and pop-culture.
William
Shakespeare was involved in another “Hail Mary” pass play in the original “Game
of the Century” against Ohio State on November 2, 1935. With 32 seconds remaining in the game and
Notre Dame trailing the Buckeyes 13-12 (after having trailed 13-0) and with the
ball on the Ohio State 19 yard line, Shakespeare stopped mid-scramble to heave
a desperation pass into the end-zone, where it slipped through a Buckeye
defender’s hands into the arms of Wayne Millner for the game-winning touchdown.[vi] Several weeks later, Notre Dame’s coach, Elmer
Layden (one of the original Four Horsemen), said that the pass was “a ’Hail
Mary’ play that Notre Dame kept in its arsenal.”[vii]
The coaches
and players were not the only ones saying their “Hail Mary’s” that day. A fan listening to the game on his radio also
took some credit for the victory:
“Do you know, ma’am,” he said, “I had the last word of me third ‘Hail Mary’ just barely out of me mouth when
they made the winnin’ goal? I said them
right into the loud speaker.”
Chicago Tribune, November 13, 1935, page
17.
In 1936, St.
Peter Claver High School in New York City[viii]
hit three “Hail Mary” shots in a second-half rally that helped them turn a
12-22 halftime deficit into a 50-21 win over St. Lucy’s:
Confident of walking away with an easy victory, St. Lucy’s
failed to continue their defensive guarding in the second half. It should be recorded, however, that Skippy
Hollon heaved three “Hail Mary” shots through
the cords to put the colored team into a threatening position. Stretch Stewart and Dolly Williams
contributed the balance of the scoring for Claver.
The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, March 23,
1936, page 20.
Different
versions of Jim Crowley’s “Hail Mary” story appeared throughout the 1930s. In one instance, the person retelling the
story made the player saying the first “Hail Mary” Jewish, instead of
Presbyterian, but for the most part the story generally remained the same. And Notre Dame football teams continued
saying their “Hail Mary’s,” and not just for pass plays:
Brennan said little at the half to his team. “We weren’t too worried but worried enough to
say three ‘Hail Marys,’” the Irish coach grinned
when he was asked about it later.
Indianapolis Star, October 17, 1954,
Sports, page 1.
“Hail Mary Pass”
The “Hail
Mary pass,” as such, appears to have been coming into its own by 1940, if only
within a limited circle. And once again
it was at a Catholic school, Georgetown University, located in Washington DC:
A “Hail Mary” pass, in the talk of the Washington eleven, is one that is
thrown with a prayer because the odds against completion are big.
Tampa Bay Times (St. Petersburg, Florida),
December 31, 1940, page 11, column 6.[ix]
It is not
clear how widespread or persistent this usage was throughout the following
decade. I could not find any evidence of
similar usage until 1959 when it appeared in connection with a little known Protestant
variant, suggesting that “Hail Mary” had been in regular use for some time. Former Yale and professional football player,
Fritz Barzilauskas, used the expression in his analysis of an upcoming game
between Cornell and Yale:
Apparently Cornell can pass a little, too. Saturday, they came from behind to beat
Harvard on a spectacular 65-yard heave from Dick McKelvey to Phil Taylor with
only 24 seconds left.
“They call it their Martin Luther
play,” the Yale scout said. “The
same thing at Notre Dame would be called the Hail Mary
pass.”
The Hartford Courant (Hartford,
Connecticut), October 13, 1959.
During the
following season, not far down the road from Notre Dame, Evansville beat Ball
State on the strength of a late-game, desperation touchdown pass. This example may be noteworthy as it is the
earliest example I’ve seen of a “Hail Mary” in football or basketball that did
not refer explicitly to a Catholic school.
 |
Muncie Star
photographer Harold Smith caught in these two pictures the decisive maneuver in
Ball State’s heart-breaking 10-7 Home-coming loss to Evansville Saturday at
Ball State Field.
|
With only one minute, 32 seconds remaining, and Ball State
leading, 7-3, and the biggest upset of the Indiana Collegiate Confeence season
all but wrapped up, an Evansville halfback named Don LeDuc rolled out to his
left and heaved a mile-long pass to an end named Larry Duncan. The result was a 58-yard completion and
Evansville’s only touchdown. . . . “I
was real lucky on that pass,” [LeDuc] remarked.
“It was that last Hail Mary I said that did it. It was just in the books.”
The Star Press (Muncie, Indiana),
October 9, 1960, page 17.
In 1961,
Philadelphia sports columnist, Bill Shefski, quoted a long-time Villanova
football fan’s description of the 1927 (well, actually, it was 1929) game
between Villanova and Boston College, both Catholic schools. His description of the pass reflects the
modern sense of what a “Hail Mary pass” looks like:
“They were flying high,” he reminisced. “Major Kavanaugh was coaching ‘em then. They had beaten Yale and some of those big
clubs. . . . They wound up on their
five-yard-line on fourth down. I felt
good. Then on fourth down they threw a ‘Hail Mary’ pass (long, arching pass) and
darned if they didn’t score a touchdown on it to tie us.”
Philadelphia Daily News, October 21,
1961, page 27.
In 1962,
“Harvard, with an 80-yard “Hail Mary” pass, [was] the only team to score a
touchdown against Dartmouth all season.”[x] And “Mike [McCoy, of the University of Miami
basketball team] [was] looking for his opportunities . . ., rather than
shooting so many ‘Hail Mary’ shots.”[xi]
Again in
1962, Bill Shefski quoted another Philadelphia native, Tony Colletta, who was recounting
his role in the “Greatest Game of Them All,” the 1945 City championship of
Philadelphia.
“I was lucky I spotted (Aaron) Telinske. It was a ‘Hail Mary’
pass. . . . I was around the 40
yard line, when I spotted Telinske in the clear and just threw his way and
prayed. He caught it and walked into the
end zone. I couldn’t believe it. It was a ‘Hail Mary’
pass – throw and pray.”
Philadelphia Daily News, December 4,
1962.
Thanks to
research by baseball historian and blogger Gary
Ashwill, of AgateType.Typepad.com, it’s now known that Roger Staubach, a
devout Catholic whose aunt, Sister Mary Antonella Staubach, was a Catholic
hospital administrator in Louisville, Kentucky , used the term as early as
1964, but not in the now conventional sense.
While narrating a highlight reel of his 1963 heroics, the season he won
the Heismann Trophy, he referred to a pass play in Navy’s 26-13 win over Michigan
as a “Hail Mary play,” even though the play resulted in a measley one-yard gain.[xii]
First NFL “Hail Mary”
In 1971, four
seasons before Roger Staubach threw a “Hail Mary pass” in the glare of the playoffs’
spotlight, Bill Shefski described what may be the first known reference in
print to an NFL “Hail Mary” pass thrown by the Philadelphia Eagles in a tie-game
against the Washington Redskins. But
again, the expression referred a play that would not fit neatly into the
current understanding of the term.
Another sideline discussion led to what the sandlotters call
the “Hail, Mary” play – a long pass and a prayer. Liske arched the ball toward Harold Jackson
who ran a fly pattern right at Mike Bass.
Jackson caught the ball at the 25 and Bass smashed him to the ground,
staying on top of him as the clock crept down to zero.
Philadelphia Daily News, November 8,
1971, page 64.
The pass was
not thrown into the end-zone, but it did give the Eagles an opportunity to rush
down field to line up for a winning field goal as time expired – but time did
expire, and the game ended in a tie.
Not quite as
dramatic as Staubach’s game-winning pass over the Vikings in a playoff win four
seasons later. It’s no wonder the term
didn’t catch on in a big way until a successful “Hail Mary” was thrown in a Nationally
televised playoff game.
Fast-forward
four decades and Green Bay quarterback Aaron Rodgers raised the “Hail Mary” to
high art with three successful “Hail Mary” passes in a 23 game span between
December 2015 and January 2017, including two in playoff games.
Ex-Packer
and Green Bay East High star Jim Crowley, his high school and professional
coach Curley Lambeau, and his Fordham lineman Vince Lombardi must be so proud.
Hail Mary!
[i] Gary
Ashwill, “Hail
Mary,” AgateType.Typade.com, October 29, 2010.
[ii] Gary
Ashwill, “Hail
Mary,” AgateType.Typepad.com, October 29, 2010 (“In an NBC broadcast in
1964, Staubach called a pass he’d completed for Navy in a 26-13 win over
Michigan in 1963 ‘a Hail Mary play.’”).
[iv] Garson
O’Toole posting on the ADS-L, January 17, 2018.
[v] Lansing State Journal (Lansing,
Michigan), January 8, 1935, page 13.
[vi] Gary
Ashwill, “Hail
Mary,” AgateType.Typade.com, October 29, 2010.
[vii] Gary
Ashwill, “Hail
Mary,” AgateType.Typade.com, October 29, 2010 (citing Edward J. Neil’s
column in the Florence (South Carolina) Morning News, December 2, 1935.
[viii]
For more on St. Peter Claver’s basketball team, see, “The Life and Times of
John Isaacs, Basketball’s Boy Wonder,’” Part 1, Claude Johnson, BlackFives.org,
September 29, 2015 ( http://www.blackfives.org/article-john-isaacs-naismith-memorial-basketball-hall-fame-part-1/
).
[ix]
This cite was first identified by Bill Mullins,
posting on the ADS-L, January 17, 2018, which sparked my investigation into
the history of the “Hail Mary pass.”
[x] Democrat and Chronicle (Rochester, New
York), November 15, 1962, page 15.
[xi]
The Miami News, November 16, 1962.
[xii] Gary
Ashwill, “Hail
Mary,” AgateType.Typade.com, October 29, 2010.
