Immaculate Reception

1972 AFC Divisional playoff

Three Rivers Stadium, the site of the game
Oakland Raiders (10–3–1) Pittsburgh Steelers (11–3) 7 13 Head coach: John Madden Head coach: Chuck Noll
1 2 3 4 Total OAK 0 0 0 7 7 PIT 0 0 3 10 13
Date	December 23, 1972
Stadium	Three Rivers Stadium, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Referee	Fred Swearingen
Attendance	50,327
TV in the United States
Network	NBC
Announcers	Curt Gowdy and Al DeRogatis

The Immaculate Reception is one of the most famous plays in the history of American football. It occurred in the AFC divisional playoff game of the National Football League (NFL), between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Oakland Raiders at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on December 23, 1972. With the Steelers trailing in the last 30 seconds of the game, Pittsburgh quarterback Terry Bradshaw threw a pass attempt to John Fuqua. The ball bounced off the hands of Raiders safety Jack Tatum and/or Fuqua and, as it fell toward the ground, Steelers fullback Franco Harris scooped it up and ran for a game-winning touchdown. The play has been a source of unresolved controversy and speculation ever since, as many people have contended that the ball touched only Fuqua or the ground before Harris caught it, either of which would have resulted in an incomplete pass by the rules at the time. Kevin Cook's The Last Headbangers cites the play as the beginning of a bitter rivalry between Pittsburgh and Oakland that fueled a historically brutal Raiders team during the NFL's most controversially physical era.

NFL Films has chosen it as the greatest play of all time, as well as the most controversial. The play was a turning point for the Steelers, who reversed four decades of futility with their first playoff win ever, and went on to win four Super Bowls by the end of the decade. The play's name is a pun derived from the Immaculate Conception, a dogma in the Roman Catholic Church. The phrase was first used on air by Myron Cope, a Pittsburgh sportscaster who was reporting on the Steelers' victory. A Pittsburgh woman, Sharon Levosky, called Cope before his 11 PM sports broadcast on the 23rd and suggested the name, which was coined by her friend Michael Ord. Cope used the term on television and the phrase stuck.