[Ads-l] Barry Popik Major Antedating of "Hail Mary" Football Play

[Shapiro, Fred]

The OED's first use for the football sense of "Hail Mary" is 1972 Roger Staubach.  About 20 years ago Barry Popik posted a terrific antedating.  I'm not sure whether the OED picked it up for its files.  I'm pasting it below.


10 January 1932,  Portsmouth (OH) Times, pg. 12, col. 2:
“Hail Mary”
Play  Wins
Football Game

NEW YORK, Jan. 9—Gus Welch retained  the “Brown Derby” at the annual banquet
of the American Football Coaches’  association, but Jim (Sleepy) Crowley, one
of the Four Horsemen of Notre Dame  and now a coach at Michigan State,
brought down the hall with this one:

“In 1922 Notre Dame had nine sophomores on the team that went to Atlanta  to
play Georgia Tech,” Crowley related. “In the first half Tech got a field goal
 and things looked pretty dark for us. In the third period Layden punted to
Red  Barron, who muffed. We recovered on the 20-yard line and tried three plays
in  vain. It was fourth down.

“It so happened that we had a Presbyterian on  the team. He stopped play and
said to us, ‘Boys, let’s have a Hail Mary.’ Well,  we prayed, and Layden soon
went over for a touchdown.

“Believe it or  not, the formula was repeated. Again Layden kicked, again
Barron fumbled, again  we tried three plays in vain. ‘Let’s have another Hail
Mary,’ said the  Presbyterian. Well, again Layden went over for a touchdown.

“After the  game I discussed the strange series of events with our
Presbyterian. ‘Say, that  Hail Mary is the best play we’ve got,’ he exclaimed.”


The journalist who wrote this was Alan Gould, who probably was the coiner of the term "Ivy League."

Fred Shapiro


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