Roots of Madness: A Brief History Lesson
You probably have never heard of Henry V. Porter. We need to address this right now. It might not help with your NCAA bracket, but it may well make you the only person in your office/fraternity/sorority/community pool who is fully informed about the history of one of the greatest spectacles in American sport.
A member of the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame since 1960, Porter was an innovator and inventor, a coach and a catalyst for change. Porter had a massive impact on high-school basketball in Illinois, and far beyond. Not only did he publish the first standardized prep rulebook, design the fan-shaped backboard and lobby for a 29 ½ inch molded leather basketball to replace the clunky 32-inch sewn model, he was the man who, 75 years ago, came up with the phrase “March Madness.”
That’s right. It wasn’t Brent Musburger, the broadcaster who did much to popularize the term in the 1980s. It wasn’t some NCAA marketing maven who knew a brilliant bit of alliteration when he saw it. It was Porter, who, in 1939, wrote a piece about the Illinois boys’ basketball tournament for the publication of the Illinois High School Association (IHSA), referring to it as, yes, “March Madness.” Porter, the assistant executive secretary of the association, loved basketball so much that he wrote an ode to it three years later, called Basketball Ides of March.
It begins:
The gym lights gleam like a beacon beam
And a million motors hum
In a good will flight on a Friday night;
For basketball beckons, "Come!"
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.
Illinois sportswriters covering the state tournament (then just for boys, of course) latched on to the phrase. (One of them was Musburger, who was a Chicago newspaperman before pivoting for television and becoming a face of CBS Sports.) ISHA secured the trademark to it, much to the chagrin of the NCAA, which realized it was the perfect description of the three-week crucible and one-and-done mayhem of its season-ending tournaments. Long-running litigation and negotiations led to a joint LLC between the the NCAA and ISHA, allowing both entities to license “March Madness” before the NCAA bought it outright.
The NCAA did not stop there, because when licensing loot is on the line, it does not tread lightly. It has since trademarked “March Mayhem,” “Final Four,” “Elite Eight,” and “NCAA Sweet Sixteen.” The only reason it hasn’t trademarked “Sweet 16” and “Sweet Sixteen” is that Kentucky beat them to it; that’s what it calls its annual boys’ and girls’ tournaments.
If you have a business or website you are looking to promote with any of these terms and you don’t have an NCAA licensing deal, you would be wise to have your counsel’s number on speed dial. The NCAA has entire squadrons of attorneys and isn’t shy about unleashing them.
Three years ago, the NCAA issued a complaint after Virginia Urology, a medical practice in Richmond, Va. successfully trademarked “Vasectomy Mayhem.” (One commercial featured a urologist dribbling a basketball, saying: “Hey guys, looking for a reason to sit on the couch and watch the games this weekend? We can help with that.” A pregnant doctor appears, grabs the basketball, and says: “And your wife will totally be on board with it. We promise.”)
The NCAA, which tangled with the same company five years earlier when it had a “Vasectomy Madness” campaign, assailed Virginia Urology’s naked attempt to confuse customers into thinking that the NCAA was sanctioning the tube-tying.
“The N.C.A.A. objects to other businesses associating themselves with their tournament when they are not one of our corporate champions or partners,” an NCAA attorney told The New York Times.
Virginia Urology doesn’t seem inclined to go back to try the NCAA a third time; its current website makes no mention of madness or mayhem. All it says is Vasectomytime.com
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