[Ads-l] The "Big Dance" (basketball tournament) - 1975

[Peter Reitan]

Former Marquette basketball coach, Al McGuire, is widely credited with coining and popularizing the expression, "The Big Dance," to refer to the NCAA basketball tournament.  He is said to have coined it when Marquette won the National Championship in 1977 and popularized it as a commentator beginning in 1978.


http://www.stilettosetsports.com/the-big-dance-origin/


It appears in print on newspapers.com in 1981 and frequently beginning in 1982.


But an article about the 1976 Florida high school state tournament and plans to move the tournament to a different venue the following season used the same expression:


"Perhaps it was befitting that the 1976 tournament was not such a great one.  It might have been fitting that the attendance was poor.  For indeed, it was good old Jacksonville’s last year for the big dance.  It was coming to an end."


The Tampa Tribune, March 16, 1976, page 25.






------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org