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Not that Mrs. Hanratty isn't a sports fan: she named Terry after her favorite baseball player, St. Louis Cardinals Outfielder Terry Moore, and she played on the tennis team at Slippery Rock State Teachers College. Terry came on early and strong. He won two letters at Butler High in basketball. He pitched a no-hitter the first time he took the mound for the baseball team. He broke his brother's school high-jump record on his first try. And the fellow who really raised Terry's competitive hackles was a football quarterback from just down the pike in Beaver Falls, Pa., named Joe Willie Namath.
Hanratty had nothing personal against Namath—who was already off at Alabama building a reputation for flinging and swinging that would later win him a $400,000 contract with the pro New York Jets. What bugged Terry was that people were forever comparing him with Joe. Since Terry had deliberately patterned himself after Baltimore's Johnny Unitas, the classiest—and probably the quietest—of pro quarterbacks, he wasn't sure that the other comparison was much of a compliment. So the biggest thrill of his high school career was beating Beaver Falls 41-21—scoring a touchdown in the process on an 82-yd. quarterback sneak. The film of that game, forwarded to Notre Dame by a scout, may well have been the one Ara Parseghian was idly viewing one day at South Bend when he suddenly started to yell: "No. 11! Who's that No. 11? We've got to have him!" Thanks to qualms about Penn State, No. 11 was available.
Sidearm & Clamp. Hanratty and Seymour hit it off together early at South Bend. They patiently took their lumps as scrubs for last year's varsity (Notre Dame does not field a freshman team); then last winter they began slipping away at night to the Notre Dame field house for some serious get-acquainted sessions. Before that very first 42-yd. pass against Purdue could be completed, there were a lot of things they had to know about each other. For instance, what kind of delivery does Hanratty prefer? "I like to throw overhand, but if I'm being rushed, I sometimes do a sidearm"—because it is harder for onrushing linemen to block.
How does Seymour catch the ball? "It all depends on how high it is. But I like to get the ball in close to my body and clamp on it"—one hand on top of the ball, the other underneath. Where does Jim prefer the pass to reach him? "Anywhere but low. I don't like to catch it down low, because my face mask hinders me." How does Seymour handle the defensive man guarding him? "The first thing I do is go out and test him. If he isn't going to back up, I run right by him and say hello. But if he does, I'll cut the pattern short. It's a little bit of a bluff I try."
The learning process was slow, and sometimes painful. On one occasion, Hanratty launched an extra-hard bullet pass; Seymour caught it and broke both little fingers. But the private practice sessions began to pay off last May, in the annual game between the Irish and the alumni, when on the fourth play from scrimmage Hanratty hit Seymour with a 50-yd. clothesline scoring toss that spectator George Dickson, backfield coach of the pro Atlanta Falcons, called "one of the greatest passes I have ever seen."