[Ads-l] antedating "immaculate reception"

[Laurence Horn]

Nice story, if a bit bittersweet. Generous of the (erstwhile) couple never
to claim credit--I wonder if either Levosky or Ord will be around for the
50th anniversary this week.  I didn't realize the extent to which the
Immaculate Reception changed the entire history of Pittsburgh, but I can
believe it.



On Thu, Dec 22, 2022 at 9:36 PM Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Thu, Dec 22, 2022 at 7:45 PM Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>
> wrote:
>
> > OK, not as historically significant as "scientist" or "physicist", but
> > topical, since the death of Franco Harris earlier this week.
> >
> >
> >
> https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/21/sports/football/franco-harris-dead-steelers.html
> >
> > Not just the obituaries, but all l the stories about Harris over the last
> > five decades have led off with his role in this all-time play (which I
> > remember seeing live and whose golden anniversary is this Saturday), but
> of
> > course what has made the play especially unforgettable is the coinage,
> due
> > I presume to a sportswriter (maybe the same or next day?).  But who was
> > it?  Most sources, like the wiki-entry
> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco_Harris, treat it as though the
> > immortal monicker was foreordained. The legendary longtime Steelers
> > announcer Myron Cope made it famous, but as far as I know he didn't come
> up
> > with the name himself.
> >
>
> The story goes that Cope was the first to use the phrase on air, but it was
> coined by a couple of fans, Michael Ord and Sharon Levosky, who came up
> with it at a post-game celebration. Levosky called up Cope to tell him
> about it and he used it on that night's newscast on WTAE-TV.
>
> See: "Couple who coined name for Immaculate Reception never sought credit,"
> Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Nov. 11, 2012
>
> https://web.archive.org/web/20160217053740/https://www.post-gazette.com/sports/steelers/2012/11/11/Couple-who-coined-name-for-Immaculate-Reception-never-sought-credit/stories/201211110191
>
> --bgz
>
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