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

Fri Apr 3 12:00:28 UTC 2026

The OED first use being antedated is dated 1972.

Fred Shapiro

________________________________
From: Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu>
Sent: Friday, April 3, 2026 7:58 AM
To: American Dialect Society <ads-l at listserv.uga.edu>
Subject: Re: Barry Popik Major Antedating of "Hail Mary" Football Play

Thanks for making that point, Larry.  Here's a substantial antedating that is a more perfect semantic match:  It is interesting that this citation seems to indicate that the "Hail Mary" term was already established in 1940.

1940 Atlanta Constitution 31 Dec. 8 (ProQuest)  [Joe] McFadden — a great actor in the huddle — is willing to call any play from a straight line buck to a "Hail Mary" pass with never a thought of the second-guessers.  A "Hail Mary" pass, in the talk of the Washington [Georgetown] eleven, is one that is thrown with a prayer because the odds against completion are big.

Fred Shapiro

________________________________
From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Laurence Horn <00001c05436ff7cf-dmarc-request at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Thursday, April 2, 2026 9:14 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Subject: Re: Barry Popik Major Antedating of "Hail Mary" Football Play

Well, yeah, it's "Hail Mary" used in a football sense, but not the
*relevant* football sense.  I'd bracket this if it goes into the OED
entry.  Praying for a favorable outcome before a running play is not
"praying" in the middle of a pass play, where the Madonna is invoked while
the ball is in the air to assure a completion. In the latter (= extant)
sense, the play itself, as in Staubach's coinage, is extremely unlikely to
succeed *without* divine intervention, which is crucial to the meaning. The
1922 situation seems to me to be more akin to basketball players crossing
themselves before shooting a foul shot, where no divine intervention is
perceived as necessary for success.  (Also, while I'm no native speaker, I
always thought Hail Marys were Catholic rather than Presbyterian.)

LH

On Thu, Apr 2, 2026 at 6:50 AM Shapiro, Fred <
00001ac016895344-dmarc-request at listserv.uga.edu> wrote:

> 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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