figurative "full-court press"

[Benjamin Zimmer]

In an email, Jonathan Lighter recalls hearing "full-court press" as a
political metaphor around 1982-84.  OED2 has this:

-----
1978 W. SAFIRE Political Dict. 248 'Full-court press' became White House
lingo in the late sixties... In politics, the term has come to mean a
strenuous effort to get legislation passed probably because of its
resemblance to 'all-out pressure'. In basketball, however, the phrase is
used only to describe a defense.
-----

>From what I can tell the first significant public usage of the metaphor
was on Feb. 28, 1973, when L. Patrick Gray faced the Senate Judiciary
Committee in the confirmation hearing for the post of FBI director.  Gray
insisted that the FBI's Watergate investigation had been "a full-court
press" -- a sports metaphor that would prove as inauspicious as George
Tenet's notorious claim that the case for WMDs in Iraq was "a slam-dunk".

Cites for the figurative usage follow -- as sticklers like Safire would
point out, the term is usually (mis)applied to offensive rather than
defensive maneuvers.


1967 _Los Angeles Times_ 13 Jun. IV-12/6 Nothing so embarrassing as humor
which doesn't come off, and John Godey's actor mistaken for a gangster
doesn't in spite of a full court press.

1973 _Wall St. Journal_ 1 Mar. 16/4 Mr. Gray repeatedly insisted the
investigation was thorough, and using what he said was FBI jargon, said
that when he heard of the Watergate break-in "I pushed the FBI button and
said, 'Go, give it a full-court press.'"

1973 _Washington Post_ 1 Mar. A1/2 Gray called the investigation a "full
court press" and a "massive special" with no holds barred and no
interference, despite implications of involvement high in the Nixon
administration.

1973 _Wall St. Journal_ 8 Mar. 16/1 L. Patrick Gray III has been getting
what the FBI calls a "full court press," or an all-out grilling, from the
Senate Judiciary Committee in preparation for a Senate vote on whether to
confirm him as the FBI's permanent director. In basketball, a full-court
press can either break the opposing team's nerve or give it renewed
determination. Mr. Gray is holding up reasonably well. ... The Senate is
fully justified in giving a candidate for such a sensitive post its
full-court press.

1973 _New York Times_ 10 May 16/3 A more thorough examination, called
"full court press," apparently because it recalls hard-driving basketball
tactics, has also achieved a kind of notoriety in the division [sc. Third
Armored Division] and elsewhere.

1973 _Advocate_ (Newark, Ohio) 24 Jul. 15/3 In Illinois, for instance,
Republican investigators were scurrying around Cook County, but we had a
full-court press operating in Southern Illinois.

1973 _Daily Times News_ (Burlington, N.C.) 22 Nov. 15B/4 It's not the job
of a doctor to make moral judgments about his patients. ... No matter who
is on the table, you give it the full court press.

1974 _Washington Post_ 30 Jan. B1/1 The evidence developed in court showed
the Army was practicing something it called "the Full Court Press" on its
own men. This consists of ordering a whole company out into the yard,
ordering them to strip naked as jay birds while the officers go down the
line inspecting every "cavity" for the feared contraband.

1974 _New York Times_ 6 Feb. 29 (heading) Sports under full-court press as
lawsuits keep increasing.

1974 _Progress_ (Clearfield, Pa.) 23 Dec. 4/5 [T]he hostess launched a
full-court press to find us.

1975 _New York Times_ 4 Apr. 25/3 [H]e described "the full-court press"
that the city plans for the Democratic National Committee officials who
plan to visit New York next month as part of their quest for a host city
for next year's Democratic National Convention.



--Ben Zimmer