As a coach’s son, I’ve heard nearly every football term known to mankind. My dad was an option coach back in late 1970s/early 1980s, so dive, pull and pitch were ingrained at an early age. As my football intellect grew, I can’t say for certain when I heard the term fade route. There were other terms for what we now know as the fade route, but it really wasn’t until I got to college in 1990 that I remember hearing that throw to the corner of the end zone as a fade route.
The one day it struck me more than any other was in 1993 at University of Pennsylvania’s Franklin Field as we tangled with the Penn Quakers.