Why Football’s Last-Second Pass Is Called a 'Hail Mary'

Today we understand a “Hail Mary” pass simply as a long-range throw by the football quarterback, usually into deep coverage to pull victory from the jaws of defeat.

But how did the Virgin Mary become the patron saint of fourth-quarter pluck?

Popular devotion to the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, dates back as far as the fourth century. In the Middle Ages, the so-called “cult” of the Virgin spread in philosophy and art. Iconography, sculpture and cathedral design reflected a concept of Mary as “the Bride of Christ, Personification of the Church, Queen of Heaven and Intercessor for the salvation of humankind,” states The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

“Mary appears in a unique form, one that expresses God's closeness to the people when the official Church seems hostile or remote," explains Mollie Wilson O'Reilly, editor-at-large at Commonweal magazine. As a symbolic figure, Mary is important for many people across time and cultures.

In the modern era, Marian devotion can take a wide variety of forms that range from church ritual to lived religion (how ordinary people engage with spirituality), the latter sometimes at odds with Catholic teaching. Mary is honored and celebrated in procession and pilgrimages, beloved iconography and the repetitive recitation of the rosary, including her traditional “angelic salutation” prayer, known as the “Hail Mary.”

"Even Catholics whose practice of the faith has lapsed will find themselves whispering a 'Hail Mary' if their airplane encounters turbulence. When you're looking for help, quickly and without judgment, you turn to Mary," says O'Reilly.

Perhaps one of the most surprising places where Marian language and devotion have put down roots, though, is in American football stadiums. Football players and the journalists who cover them love a good religious image—from the Pittsburgh Steelers' 1972 “Immaculate Reception," to the 1920s “Four Horsemen” of collegiate football and the famous “Touchdown Jesus” mural on the side of the University of Notre Dame’s Hesburgh library overlooking its football field.

It began with a prayerful student body. In the 1930s, news articles across the country featured the reminiscences of “Sleepy Jim” Crowley, a Notre Dame football player and “Horseman” who went on to coach at Michigan State and Fordham University. Crowley recalled a 1922 game when Notre Dame, in dire straits against Georgia Tech, decided to literally pray for success.

Seeing the game slip away, a senior on the squad looked at his teammates and said, “Boys, let's say a 'Hail Mary.'” They scored a touchdown, and then the cycle repeated itself: another prayer, another score. In conclusion, Crowley recalled the unnamed senior said: "You can't tell me that 'Hail Mary' doesn't work. That's the best play we've got.”

In the 1940s, the "Hail Mary" play was at least familiar in Catholic college locker rooms. Coverage of Georgetown football repeated that “A ‘Hail Mary’ pass, in the talk of the Washington 11, is one that is thrown with a prayer because the odds against completion are big.” By the 1960s, news clippings showed broader casual use of the phrase “Hail Mary” to talk about a quarterback going for broke with a deep throw.

Not everyone liked the colloquialization of the concept, though. A 1966 letter to the editor in the Michigan-based Saginaw News complained about the previous weekend’s Notre Dame-Michigan State game. The football was good enough, but once halftime started, writer Francis J. Francomb complained that “we had to see parade before the cameras a banner stating, 'Hail Mary full of grace, Notre Dame in second place.’” This did not, Francomb wrote, bespeak “future leaders.”

It was in the 1970s that the “Hail Mary” solidified its status in sports culture.

During the December 28, 1975, NFC playoff game between the Dallas Cowboys and the Minnesota Vikings, the Cowboys were down 14-10 with about 30 seconds left in the game and no timeouts remaining. Quarterback Roger Staubach dropped back from near midfield and launched a 50-yard pass to receiver Drew Pearson, who caught the ball and ran it in for a game-winning touchdown. You can see the play here.

The play won the Cowboys the game and ultimately sent them to the Super Bowl. Staubach, in a 2000 online chat hosted by the Pro Football Hall of Fame, recalled: “We were a wild card team that year against the Vikings and a big underdog. It was 14-10 at the time and time was running out. When I threw the ball to Pearson, I kind of under-threw it. The term ‘Hail Mary’ was developed because after the game, I told the press I closed my eyes and said a ‘Hail Mary.’”

Since the 1970s, there have been hundreds of “Hail Mary” passes, standardizing the play in coaches’ playbooks. According to ESPN’s Kevin Siefert, it is no longer a random act of desperation but a piece of strategy: “Hail Marys have succeeded roughly once in every 12 attempts over the past decade,” he says, “boosted by unique protection schemes, enhanced quarterback fundamentals, counterintuitive defensive techniques and a debate on whether to blitz or play coverage.”

Not only is “Hail Mary” a common term in modern football, the phrase is now used both within and beyond sports to refer to any audacious, last-ditch effort to pull something off.