A mad month for sports cliches

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Some madnesses are episodic, unpredictable and part of the bewildering fabric of history, but other madnesses are totally contrived by humans and have now become so ingrained in our culture that they appear to have been operative since the dawn of civilization. Among these man-made insanities are such enterprises as the Iowa caucuses, Groundhog Day in Pennsylvania and a novel form of mass dementia called March Madness.Basketball, one of the most popular of America's spectator sports, had its greatest growth in the Midwest during the first half of the 20th century. By late 1930, more than 600 Illinois high-school basketball teams were competing annually in a late-winter interscholastic event. Henry V. Porter of the Illinois High School Association called it "March Madness" -- a name perpetuated by sportswriters with little else to write about between the end of the football season and the start of professional baseball.In 1939, the pandemic frenzy extended to the NCAA when it initiated a nationwide single-elimination tourney at the University of Kansas. By the 21st century, 65 college teams, from various regions, were chosen to participate. The bounce of the basketball, the sweet swish as it flew into the hoop and the resulting roar of the crowd became the signature sounds of March.With little else to occupy their creative spirits, sportswriters have invested their rhetorical energies in finding alliterative names for each successive round of the collegiate March Madness. By a process of elimination, each year, 16 teams endure after a handful of preliminary rounds; and these surviving teams, inevitably, have been designated as "The Sweet 16." These 16, after another round, then morphed into "The Elite Eight," which then, after yet another round, evolved into "The Final Four."The ultimate game to determine the national championship of what is humorously called amateur collegiate basketball was then referred to as "The Big Deuce." While no unique name has yet been chosen for the final winner, perhaps "The Awesome One" might be appropriate.(Stanley M. Aronson, M.D., is dean of medicine emeritus, Brown University. E-mail smamd(at)cox.net.)(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)