When March Went MadWhen March Went Mad

Traces the pivotal ways in which the careers of Magic Johnson and Larry Bird positively influenced the NCAA and the NBA, chronicling the dramatic 1979 NCAA finals and the epic rivalry that rendered college basketball a multi-billion-dollar event. 75,000 first printing.
Traces the pivotal ways in which the careers of Magic Johnson and Larry Bird positively influenced the NCAA and the NBA, chronicling the dramatic 1979 NCAA finals and the rivalry that rendered college basketball a multi-billion-dollar event.
Thirty years ago, college basketball was not the sport we know today. Few games were televised nationally and the NCAA tournament had just expanded from thirty-two to forty teams. Into this world came two exceptional players: Earvin "Magic" Johnson and Larry Bird. Though they played each other only once, in the 1979 NCAA finals, that meeting launched an epic rivalry, transformed the NCAA tournament into a multibillion-dollar enterprise, and laid the groundwork for the resurgence of the NBA. To this day, it remains the most watched basketball game, college or pro, in the history of television.
In When March Went Mad, Seth Davis recounts the dramatic story of the season leading up to that game, as Johnson's Michigan State Spartans and Bird's Indiana State Sycamores overcame long odds and great doubts to reach the game's grandest stage. Davis also tells the stories of their remarkable coaches. Jud Heathcote and Bill Hodges - who were new to their schools but who set their own paths to build great teams - and he shows how tensions over race and class heightened the drama of the competition.
Davis combed through several years' worth of newspaper and magazine coverage, interviewed nearly one hundred people, and watched dozens of games to reconstruct the colorful, historic, and improbable narrative of how Larry Bird and Magic Johnson came to play each other for the NCAA championship in Salt Lake City on March 26, 1979. When March Went Mad is, at its heart, a coming-of-age story. Magic and Bird entered college as boys and they left as young men. Thirty years have passed since that first meeting, and the Final Four, the NBA, and the game of basketball have never been the same.

The dramatic story of how two legendary players burst on the scene in an NCAA championship that gave birth to modern basketball

Thirty years ago, college basketball was not the sport we know today. Few games were televised nationally and the NCAA tournament had just expanded from thirty-two to forty teams. Into this world came two exceptional players: Earvin "Magic" Johnson and Larry Bird. Though they played each other only once, in the 1979 NCAA finals, that meeting launched an epic rivalry, transformed the NCAA tournament into the multibillion-dollar event it is today, and laid the groundwork for the resurgence of the NBA.

In When March Went Mad, Seth Davis recounts the dramatic story of the season leading up to that game, as Johnson’s Michigan State Spartans and Bird’s Indiana State Sycamores overcame long odds and great doubts that their unheralded teams could compete at the highest level. Davis also tells the stories of their remarkable coaches, Jud Heathcote and Bill Hodges—who were new to their schools but who set their own paths to build great teams—and he shows how tensions over race and class heightened the drama of the competition. When Magic and Bird squared off in Salt Lake City on March 26, 1979, the world took notice—to this day it remains the most watched basketball game in the history of television—and the sport we now know was born.