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Guest Blog Author Barry Popik
“March Madness” is the name of the NCAA’s college basketball tournament, held in the month of March (and sometimes extending into April). Who first called it that, and when? Did the term originally apply to Illinois high school basketball, or Indiana high school basketball? Let’s find out!
ALLITERATION
We’ll start by why the “March Madness” term is successful, and it’s because of alliteration. We have “Manic Monday” and “Taco Tuesday” and “Wine Wednesday” and “Freaky Friday” and “No Nut November,” among many other such terms. Can you be manic on a Tuesday? Can you have tacos on a Wednesday? Can you have wine on a Thursday? Can you be freaky on a Saturday? Can you have madness in April? Sure, but it’s the alliteration that makes the terms stick in our memory. The letters “MM” have also made celebrity names popular, such as Marilyn Monroe and Marilyn Manson.
“MAD AS A MARCH HARE” BECOMES “MARCH MAD(NESS)”
Ultimately, credit for the phrase “March madness” goes to rabbits. Easter bunny, take a bow. In the month of March, winter is ending, and rabbits go about breeding and, as the idiom goes, multiplying like rabbits. The Oxford English Dictionary records “mad as a March hare” from 1529, and “March mad” from 1625. The OED defines “March madness” as “A form of wild or uncharacteristic behaviour said to affect people in March,” with a first citation from 1825.
ONE PERSON REMEMBERS A PHRASE, AND POPULARIZES IT IN A DIFFERENT CONTEXT
The annual National Collegiate Athletic Asssociation (NCAA) Division I men’s basketball tournament began in 1939, and it had no special name, like baseball’s “World Series” or football’s “Super Bowl” or hockey’s “Stanley Cup.” The NCAA tournament has been called the “Big Dance” since at least 1982, and the NCAA trademarked this phrase in 2002, but “Big Dance” hasn’t been the most popular name for the event.
The article “What is March Madness: The NCAA tournament explained” by Daniel Wilco, published February 9, 2026 on NCAA.com, provides an official explanation:
“March Madness was first used to refer to basketball by an Illinois high school official, Henry V. Porter, in 1939, but the term didn’t find its way to the NCAA tournament until CBS broadcaster Brent Musburger (who used to be a sportswriter in Chicago) used it during coverage of the 1982 tournament. The term has been synonymous with the NCAA Division I men’s basketball tournament ever since.”
American sportscaster Brent Musburger (born in 1939) was with CBS Sports from 1973 until 1990. He was born in Oregon and raised in Montana. He went to school at Northwestern University (Evanston, IL) and got his start as a sportswriter on the Chicago American. Musburger remembered the term “March Madness” from the Illinois high school basketball tournament, and he probably applied the term to the NCAA basketball tournament even before 1982. “March madness: Real cage season begins” by sportswriter Mike Lupica was printed in the New York Daily News on March 6, 1979.
The National Invitation Tournament (NIT) started in 1938, and its association with “March madness” is even earlier. “Basketball’s March madness reaches its wackiest peak tonight with the NIT” was written by Associated Press sportswriter Don Weiss on March 13, 1958. “College basketball powers, heading toward their annual March madness” was printed in the Spokane Daily Chronicle on February 15, 1960.
THE MAN WHO POPULARIZED “MARCH MADNESS” FOR ILLINOIS HIGH SCHOOL BASKETBALL
Henry Van Arsdale (“H. V.”) Porter (1891-1975) was assistant manager of the Illinois High School Athletic Association in 1927, and became editor of its publication, The Illinois High School Athlete. “When the madness of March is on him,” Porter wrote in The Illinois High School Athlete in 1939, “midnight jaunts of a hundred miles on successive nights make him even more alert the next day.” Porter wrote the poem “Basketball Ides of March” in 1941 for the National Press Service, the monhtly journal of the National Federation of State High School Athletic Associations.
The term “March Madness,” as applied to the Illinois high school basketball tournament, was printed in the Rockford Register-Republic on March 6, 1939. H. V. Porter was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1960, and his Wikipedia page details his popularization of “March Madness” in the Illinois high school basketball.
INDIANA’S “MARCH MADNESS” PREDATES ILLINOIS, OR, HISTORY MUST BE CHECKED!
Our basketball “March Madness” story ends with H. V. Porter, or does it? History must be checked. When people use a term, they often don’t immediately know that it’s going to catch on and become widly popular. I research words and phrases, and I check these things. The new tools of digitized newspaper databases has made this task much easier. I first checked back in 2012, and then wrote a “March Madness” entry for my blog, BarryPopik.com.
I found many “March madness” citations for the high school basketball tournament in the 1930s, but they all came from Indiana, not Illinois. “HOOSIER MARCH MADNESS BOILS TO A CLIMAX TODAY” was printed in the Chicago (IL) Daily Tribune on March 30, 1940. “The annual March Madness” was printed in the Logansport (IN) Press on February 25, 1938. “March madness, whcih reaches epic proportions in the state of Indiana every Spring” was printed in the Richmond (IN) Palladium and Sun-Telegram on February 27, 1937. “The annual March Madness — the state tournament” was printed in an Associated Press story in the Evansvilee (IN) Courier on January 5, 1937. “March Madness” was a headline in the Rushville (IN) Republican–taken from the New Castle (IN) Courier-Times of a day earlier–on March 11, 1931.
In 2014, the Los Angeles Times did a lengthy story about H. V. Porter, stating that he coined “March Madness.” I asked for a correction, and they made one. “Although Porter is widely credited, word historians have found earlier references regarding March Madness being used to describe the annual high school basketball tournament in Indiana” was printed in the Los Angeles Times on March 21, 2014. My work (and my name!) was credited in the Evansville (IN) Courier and Press on April 7, 2018, in Time magazine on March 21, 2019, and in the story “March Madness: NCAA and the Illinois high school basketball own it, but Indiana invented it” in the Indianapolis (IN) Star) by Nathan Brown on March 16, 2021. After a protracted legal battle, the NCAA and Illinois high school basketball agreed to share the “March Madness” trademark–which, perhaps, should belong to Indiana anyway.
Indianapolis is hosting the March Madness “Final Four” this year. Newspapers are constantly being digitized, and on a re-check of Newspapers, I found an even earlier “March Madness” citation in “City Recreation Department Sponsors Big Sports Program Throughout Year” by Howard C. Smith, on February 16, 1930, in the Indianapolis (IN) Sunday Star:
“Basketball surely is king of sports in Indiana. (…) Why this thing of basketball has got to be in Indiana a matter of more than a few hoops, backboards and a floor. It’s a major state industry — and a state obsession with its peak of March madness in the state high school tournament and companion meets.”
Indiana would also use other basketball terms, such as “Hoosier Hoopla” and “Hoosier Hysteria” and “Indiana Insanity” and Midwest Madness.” When Illinois high school basketball began to use “March Madness” in the 1940s, its use in Indiana lessened and became completely forgotten. It is forgotten no more!
AND IN THE END, THE TRUTH BECOMES KNOWN AND PREVAILS. RIGHT? RIGHT???
I posted the 1930 discovery on X/Twitter on February 20, 2026, where it received over 3,700 views and a whopping five likes. I tweeted the editors of the Indy Star, and also wrote a letter to the editor. Hey, everybody, I found a 1930 “March Madness” in the Indy Star! Could you tell people, and correct the 2021 story? No one responded to me, and my letter was not printed.
I wrote to the Indiana Historical Society and to the Indiana State Museum. No one responded at these places, either.
I wrote a comment on Newspapers.com’s “Fishwrap” blog, saying that I had discovered the earliest basketball “March Madness” using its service, but that none of my many discoveries has ever been featured. No one at Newspapers.com responded. However, Scott Johnson, who is retired from the Illinois High School Association, corresponded with me and appreciated my research. He is author of the books “100 Years of Madness: The Illinois High School Association Boys’ Basketball Tournament” (2006) and “Association Work: Whitten, Porter and the Course of Interscholastics” (2018).
The NCAA has its headquarters in Indianapolis, Indiana. The Indy Star in 1930 has the first “March Madness” basketball citation, and this was following by many other 1930s citations from Indiana. Does anyone want to write to the NCAA and to the Indy Star, showing this article? Fourteen years after I first discovered in Indiana origin of the basketball term “March Madness,” the truth will finally prevail, right? Right?
The evolution of the term “March Madness,” over 500 years, provides teachable lessons for us all.
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“March Madness” Indiana state high school basketball (1930).
| “March Madness” Indiana state high school basketball (1930).Clipping found in The Indianapolis Star published in Indianapolis, Indiana on 2/16/1930. “March Madness” Indiana… |