▪ I. ˈquarterback, n.
1. Austral. and N.Z. (See quots.)
| 1891 [see come-back n.2 4]. 1940 E. C. Studholme Te Waimate 96 Using Merino rams on the cross-bred ewes, the progeny being known as Quarter Backs. |
2. U.S. Football. a. A player stationed between the forwards and half-backs by whom the team's play is usu. co-ordinated and directed. Usu. in modern practice, a player lining up behind the centre of an offensive team, who calls the signal to initiate a play and receives the ball when it is snapped back by the centre. (See also quot. 1895).
| 1895 Westm. Gaz. 8 Nov. 2/1 Your ‘quarter-backs’, as half-backs were then called, waited for the ball to roll out. 1899 W. Camp in Badminton Football xxii. 286 Seven rushers or forwards,..a quarter-back, who stands just behind this line; two half-backs [etc.]. 1947 Sun (Baltimore) 15 Aug. 12/6 He is a stocky man who..has the build of a quarterback. 1979 Arizona Daily Star 5 Aug. c. 9/1 Oakland quarterback Ken Stabler..played the first quarter and part of the second. |
b. transf. A supporter or critic of a football team. Also downtown quarterback, an interested supporter of the home team; grandstand quarterback (in quot. fig.); Monday morning quarterback, one who engages in reductive ‘post-mortem’ criticism of a game; also fig.
| 1932 B. Wood What Price Football vi. 100 A kind of sportswriter known to football players and coaches as a ‘Monday morning quarterback’... Not content with reporting the game..the writer must analyze it. 1947 Collier's 15 Nov. 17 (heading) Penn's downtown quarterbacks were a gloomy lot when George Munger became grid coach. 1949 Ibid. 19 Nov. 18/3 The quarterbacks in the stands consider Pop Warner's system..obsolete. 1976 President Ford in Sunday Sun (Baltimore) 10 Oct. k. 4/4 Somebody who sits in Washington D.C., 18 months after the Mayaguez incident, can be a very good grandstand quarterback. |
c. fig. One who directs or masterminds an operation; a leader.
| 1961 in Webster. 1968 Globe & Mail (Toronto) 10 July 27/5 Van Burkleo is an original-thinking quarterback who can run his own show. 1971 Sci. Amer. Aug. 38/1 It was my privilege to be working in Colombia as ‘quarterback’ of a team of investigators. 1978 Guardian Weekly 1 Jan. 18/1 King Juan Carlos I, Franco's 39-year-old successor, and Premier Adolfo Suarez, the monarch's 44-year-old political quarterback. |
3. attrib. and Comb. (sense 2), as quarterback club, an association of supporters actively interested in promoting their team's success; quarterback sack = sack n.1 1 j; quarterback sneak (see quot. 1966).
| 1948 Life 1 Nov. 110/2 Factory workers as well as merchant princes belong to the Quarterback Club, an organization of last-ditch rooters who gather..to put questions to the Ohio State head coach..and to see movies of the team's latest games. 1951 Sun (Baltimore) 9 Oct. 21/1 Special funds contributed by..downtown quarterback clubs. 1974 Plain Dealer (Cleveland, Ohio) 26 Oct. 6-d/2 Alzado..leads the defense in quarterback sacks with four. |
| 1923 J. Wilce Football viii. 105 Quarterback sneak,..R. takes the ball from centre directly, pauses a moment as the line charges forward, then sneaks through any opening that may appear between the guards. 1947 Time 3 Nov. 74/3 The story Bob liked best was Dad's quarterback sneak. 1966 J. R. Winter Lang. Pro Football 132 Quarterback sneak, play where quarterback moves straight ahead into line behind charge of his center and guards immediately after taking snap. |
▪ II. ˈquarterback, v. U.S. Football.
[f. the n.]
trans. a. To play quarterback for (a team); to direct as quarterback.
| 1948 Sun (Baltimore) 13 Jan. 13/5 McCann..has ‘quarterbacked’ the LaSalle team to nine consecutive victories. 1950 Life 9 Oct. 66/2 Bob calmly quarterbacked the team to its first victory. 1972 J. Mosedale Football v. 62 Detroit, coached by Buddy Parker and quarterbacked by Bobby Layne, exhibited a strange mastery. 1979 Tucson (Arizona) Citizen 20 Sept. 11 d/1 He used to..quarterback the Sun Devils from 1974 to 1977. |
b. fig. To direct or co-ordinate (an operation).
| 1952 Britannica Bk. of Year 666/2 Quarterback,..(extension of n. in U.S. football terminology). To direct (1945). 1971 Daily Colonist (Victoria, B.C.) 26 Oct. 1/7 Bush..quarterbacked what UN observers regarded as Washington's worst diplomatic defeat. 1976 Guardian Weekly 7 Mar. 18/3 Relations were particularly strained after the 1972 election success, which Wehner felt he had quarterbacked without credit. |
So ˈquarterbacking vbl. n., the action of playing or directing as quarterback; also fig., esp. Monday morning quarterbacking (see quarterback n. 2 b).
| 1947 Time 17 Nov. 75/2 (heading) Quarterbacking by telephone. 1948 Sat. Even. Post 18 Sept. 24/3 There also should be less of the Western Union quarterbacking from the bench, which frequently backfired in the face of the masterminds. 1950 Sport Life Feb. 9/1 Royal, nominated by the coach to take over for Mitchell at the quarterbacking post. 1960 Guardian 9 May 6/6 The realities of sheer, hard political quarter-backing. 1966 ‘H. B. Taylor’ Triumvirate iv. 30 There was the usual Thursday morning quarterbacking over what I had put in the paper and how I'd put it in. 1972 Science 9 June 1083/2 But Monday-morning quarterbacking is an easy sport. 1977 N.Y. Rev. Bks. 13 Oct. 14/3 Despite President Ford's admonition against ‘Monday morning quarterbacking’ about presidential responsibility for assassination plots, Rockefeller has said..that there was ‘White House knowledge and/or approval of all major undertakings’. |