This time of the year, the phrase “March Madness” is everywhere, from pre-game shows to office pools. The words have become synonymous with college basketball, and have raked in cash for the NCAA.
Many believe the phrase has its origins in a high school coach from Illinois, though across the border, the Hoosiers see it differently.
Henry Van Arsdale Porter, a successful coach from central Illinois, is widely credited with coining the phrase “March Madness” in 1939, while he was serving as an assistant executive secretary for the Illinois High School Association. Oddly, Porter used the words in a literary sense, rather than as sports jargon.
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Overlooked by many outside of Illinois for decades, the term was first applied to the NCAA tournament by CBS sportscaster Brent Musberger in 1982. Since then, many basketball junkies simply refer to their favorite tourney as “March Madness.”
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The glitz and glamour of today’s “March Madness” is a far cry from Porter’s modest beginnings. Born in the Mason County town of Manito, southwest of Peoria, on Oct. 2, 1891, he grew up on a farm near Washington and later enrolled at Illinois State University in Normal.
There, Porter earned the esteem of his professors; one account claimed that all “agreed that [Porter] will reach high eminence in his chosen work.”
Porter graduated from Illinois State in 1913 and quickly landed a teaching job at Mount Zion High School before accepting a position as principal and coach at Keithsburg High School in northwestern Illinois. At Keithsburg, Porter, a self-taught violinist, was active in the school violin club and was known to organize music bands at many of his coaching stops.
He remained at Keithsburg for only a year before moving on to Delavan, north of Lincoln, where he spent the next four seasons as high school principal and boys basketball coach. In 1919, he settled in Athens, Illinois, 15 miles north of Springfield, and put together a legendary run.
In nine years at Athens, Porter’s teams rolled to a combined record of 217-41 and never had a losing record. Two of his squads played in the state tournament, including the 1923-24 team, which went into the state title game at 29-0 before falling to Elgin, whose student body was six times greater. Porter also led Athens to a fourth-place state finish in 1926.
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Following the 1927-28 school year, Porter moved into administration, becoming the assistant executive secretary of the IHSA. Part of his duties included editing the monthly magazine of the IHSA, the Illinois High School Athlete.
It was well-suited for Porter, who clearly showed some literary flair. In March 1939, he authored a seemingly insignificant article called “March Madness,” a tribute to the IHSA’s annual state tournament and its devoted fan base.
“When the March madness is on him,” wrote Porter, “midnight jaunts of a hundred miles on successive nights make him even more alert the next day.”
Porter added that a “little March madness may complement and contribute to sanity and help keep society on an even keel.” His wry words were in contrast to the hoops-crazed junkies who lose their minds at every buzzer-beater and behind-the-back pass, and spend hours on something called “bracketology.”
Ironically, 1939 marked the first edition of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, an eight-team affair that culminated with Oregon knocking off Ohio State 46-33 in the title game at Northwestern on March 27. Unlike today’s hardcourt extravaganza, few noticed or cared.
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Porter waxed poetic in 1942 in another edition of the IHSA magazine, with a rhyme called “Basketball Ides of March” that, again, referenced the “madness.” Among the lines were “A sharp-shooting mite is king tonight / The Madness of March is running / The winged feet fly, the ball sails high / And field goal hunters are gunning.”
As Porter penned his words, the globe was gripped by World War II, and Porter was not oblivious. He closed his poem with “In a cyclone of hate, our ship of state / Is the courage, strength, and will / In a million lives where freedom thrives / And liberty lingers still / Now eagles fly and heroes die / Beneath some foreign arch / Let their sons tread where hate is dead / In a happy Madness of March.”
By the end of that decade, “March Madness” was regularly used by the IHSA as a nickname for the annual state basketball tournament. As the term became part of the vernacular with the NCAA basketball tournament, however, the IHSA lawyered up.
In 1996, the IHSA filed suit to halt GTE, an NCAA corporate sponsor, from distributing a video game with the title “March Madness.” The matter was resolved when the IHSA and NCAA embarked on a joint venture, the March Madness Athletic Association, which held all trademark rights to the two words.
Since then, the MMAA has aggressively prevented infringements, right down to the smallest violators. Reportedly, the NCAA was assigned complete ownership of the trademark in 2012.
Today, the NCAA tournament is a multi-billion-dollar industry, a long way from the simple publication where Henry V. Porter flexed his literary muscle on “The Madness of March.”
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Most sources, including the NCAA website, credit Porter with the two words and Illinois as the site of the phrase’s birth. But there is plenty of debate.
Across the border in the hoops hotbed of Indiana, some Hoosiers claim that the phrase originated in their backyard. Research has shown that the phrase was first been used in a newspaper in Rushville, Indiana, on March 11, 1931 – eight years before Porter’s initial reference. The two words were used in a subhead on local high school sports news.
Multiple references to “March Madness” followed in papers across Indiana for the rest of the decade, including in Indianapolis, Lafayette, Richmond and Logansport.
However, the Indiana High School Athletic Association never trademarked the phrase, unlike their counterparts in Illinois. As a result, Indiana, where basketball reigns supreme, was forced to watch while its neighbors claimed ownership of the phrase.
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Porter’s two words were not his only contribution to basketball. Some of his other ideas shaped high school basketball and the game itself, more than his famous two words.
From 1940-58, Porter was the executive secretary and, not surprisingly, editor of publications for the National Federation of State High School Athletic Associations. He was also the first representative from high school sports to serve on the National Basketball Rules Committee.
In 1936, Porter published the first standardized high school basketball rulebook and worked to create basketball and football rulebooks specifically for the high school level. He was the first to use motion pictures to study basketball techniques and developed the fan-shaped backboard that was a staple in high school basketball until the 1990s.
Porter also redesigned the basketball itself. Formerly a 32-inch leather sphere with protruding laces, Porter’s new version was a composite-molded, seamless 29½-inch model that was much easier to dribble. That certainly helped the flow of the game in another of Porter’s implementations, the 10-second line.
His foresight ensured his induction into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1960. There, he joins the immortals of the game, many of whom helped the NCAA tournament – and the famous two words – become part of American culture.
Porter retired to St. Petersburg, Florida, where he died on Oct. 27, 1975, years before his beloved phrase was on everyone’s lips come March.
• Tom Emery is a freelance writer and historical researcher from Carlinville, Illinois. He may be reached at 217-710-8392 or ilcivilwar@yahoo.com.