Dancing with the NCAA: Why It's Called "The Big Dance"

March Madness. The Big Dance. The Tourney. The Brackets.

You say any those phrases and immediately people know you are talking about the NCAA Division I men’s basketball tournament. Rarely do you ever hear someone say that whole title. Who can blame them, it’s quite a mouthful! But where did those colloquial expressions come from?

“Tourney” is obvious, since it’s just short for tournmant. “Brackets” are the ranking system of the teams in the tournament. And by now, most people know that the term “March Madness” originated from a high school in Illinois. H.V. Porter coined the term in 1939 in his poem “the Basketball Ides of March.”

“The Madness of March is running/The winged feet fly, the ball sails high/And field goal hunters are gunning.

But what about “The Big Dance?” How did this phrase become so intertwined with the Division I basketball tournament that the NCAA registered a trademark for it? Why do we talk about teams “going dancing” when obviously they are off to play basketball, not perform a Viennese Waltz?

According to the Double Tongue Dictionary, “The Big Dance” is

“an important event, [in particular] the culmination of long preparation or a series of smaller events; (hence) in sports, a tournament or championship game.”

Yeah, but why? I mean, don’t get me wrong, it does take hours and hours of preparation to get ready for a Big Dance. First you have to find an  amazing dress, fabulous shoes, sparkly accessories and a really hot date. And then the day of the dance you spend hours in front of the mirror primping. And if you are like me, it takes a whole day just to fix up the hair.

But what on earth does that have to do with a basketball tournament?

Go ahead, Google it. You won’t find much info on where the term “The Big Dance” originated. Even those who work for the NCAA commission don’t know the origin of the word they trademarked. I’ve never even given much thought–always just used the term. It wasn’t until I saw that someone came to Stiletto Sports from the Google “why big dance name NCAA tournament” that I thought to look it up.

It actually took me hours to find the backstory. Most sites I came across told me the story of March Madness with a quick “yeah, no one knows about the Big dance”.” But I was determined to find out. While I was looking I developed a few ideas of my very own.

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