For our inaugural Mary Memories, or #MaryMemories, we take a look back at founder Mary McLeod Bethune's role in the earliest days of the football program.

Dr. Bethune loved her football team when she was President of Bethune-Cookman. She was often seen roaming the sidelines with her cane on game days, extolling her Wildcats.

The long-held belief is Dr. Bethune herself bestowed the name upon the team when it first started in 1923. After watching a practice, she was impressed with the team's intensity during the drills.

“You are ferocious,” she is said to have told the team. “I dub thee the Wildcats.”

Dr. Bethune appears in the photo above with the 1924 Bethune-Cookman Wildcats squad.

MONDAY: #MaryMemories
Each Monday BCUathletics.com will reveal an archived photo of our founder, Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune, along with a little-known fact relating Dr. Bethune to the Wildcats football program. Fans are also encouraged to tweet their own facts about Dr. Bethune as they relate to B-CU football.

Please use the hashtag #MaryMemories when tweeting photos, and/or sharing your facts to Twitter. We'll add the photo and facts to Facebook as well.

Be sure to interact with us on all social media channels. Fans are encouraged to follow @BCUathletics on Twitter, @BCUathletics on Instagram, and “Like” BCUathletics on Facebook to enter their daily submissions for participation. Fans should also follow BCUathletics on Pinterest for that special tailgating recipe yet to be discovered by the rest of the world.

In addition, Bethune-Cookman recently announced the official social media directory for the department of athletics. CLICK HERE FOR SOCIAL MEDIA DIRECTORY. All 17 sports teams at Bethune-Cookman have a unique twitter handle, and fans are encouraged to follow the student-athletes and coaches of those teams as each will have special tweets, photos and information unique to that program.

Bethune-Cookman is #NeverSatisfied.

-www.BCUathletics.com-