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Most people agree that the Immaculate Reception is the single most memorable moment in professional football history. In a playoff game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Oakland Raiders, Steelers’ quarterback Terry Bradshaw threw a pass that took a totally improbable ricochet off the helmet of a Raiders defensive back, which the Steelers’ Franco Harris cradled in full stride and at shoe-top level, taking it in for the winning touchdown in the game’s final minute. It happened almost exactly 50 years ago (Dec 23, 1972), and as the sports world was about to celebrate the event, the man who was at the center of it all, Franco Harris, passed away at age 72.
There have been many memorable plays in sports history. But the orchestration of events that needed to occur for that pass to have ended in Harris’s hands suggests that there must have been some divine intervention, that the completion was somehow an act of God. This was not just another Hail Mary pass; this was the Immaculate Reception.
All very interesting, but I’ve got the one detail of that miraculous event that will convince you that there really was help from above, and to the best of my knowledge, it has never been told.
The back story: Art Rooney, the revered founding owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers, was a devout Catholic, and likely visited Ireland many times. But on one of those trips, he met a young outgoing local priest–I don’t even remember his last name, to me, well as to others he delighted, he was simply Father John. The friendly and outgoing Father John invited Rooney to visit with his local Gaelic football team, the team he fervently rooted for. Rooney, impressed by the team and even more by his host, told Father John that if he ever visited the US he would have to come to Pittsburgh to visit with his team.
Having come to the US to get a Masters Degree in Counseling Psychology, the priest took Rooney up on his offer and was flabbergasted to learn that by “his team” Rooney meant the team he owned, not simply the team he rooted for.
Introduced to the players, it was obvious to Rooney that Father John had an amazing knack for establishing immediate rapport and bonding with the players—so much so that Rooney arranged for Father John to fly every weekend from Boston, where I got to know him as one of his Psychology professors at Boston College, to be with the team for each Steelers home game.
During my weekly one-on-one meetings with Father John that grew out of the course, he would regale me with stories about his experiences with the players, providing me with endless anecdotes that probably contained a little more detail than they probably should have. Many of these young men had troubles beyond the field with money or marital problems, drinking or drug issues, and insecurities about their identities or futures inside and outside of sports.
In short, Father John quickly became the unofficial confessor and source of spiritual guidance for the team as the season unfolded and the team’s performance on the field blossomed, perhaps coincidentally, perhaps not.
But as much as Father John counseled them, he also PRAYED for them. And, to cut to the chase, it’s hardly surprisingly to know who was on the sideline that day in Pittsburgh as Franco Harris rumbled by. Divine inspiration, heavenly-inspired events, miraculous outcomes, they were Father John’s specialty—even if few beyond the team knew of his powers.
Having known him many years ago and for a relatively short time, my memory is vague on how long Father John remained a fixture with the Steelers. I know that I lost touch with him after he received his degree from BC and returned to Ireland, but I’ll bet many of the players he befriended continued to rely on his guidance. Still, no one can convince me that he wasn’t the intermediary in that moment of divine intervention.
My last contact with the good Father, by the way, was typical of him. Referring to his retirement from US professional football he wrote, “I’ve prayed out my option.”
