History of Football's 'Hail Mary' Pass

Before a University of Miami–Notre Dame football game in the late 1980s, a team chaplain for the Hurricanes dismissed the notion that the Catholics from South Bend, Indiana, had the Almighty on their side. “God doesn't care who wins football games,” the cleric huffed.When Lou Holtz, the Fighting Irish coach at the time, heard that, he said, “I don't think God cares who wins either,” adding with a sly grin, “but his mother does.”

How did Mother Mary, the most renowned female figure in history, a paragon of virtue and pacifism, become so inextricably linked to the violent game of American football? How is it that on almost any autumn weekend her name is invoked not only in prayer but by broadcasters? How did the most spectacular play in America's most popular sport come to be known as the Hail Mary pass, and why do we love it so? “The greatest stories have the largest arcs,” says ESPN analyst Brock Huard, a former NFL quarterback. “That's what makes the Hail Mary special. In an instant, it flips the entire story upside down.”