Ever notice that in some of the best sports movies, the main character/team loses at the end?

Think about it. The Bad News Bears lost when Kelly Leak was tagged at home for the final out. Coach Carter's Richmond High School team lost on a buzzer beater to St. Francis. Rocky Balboa dropped split decisions to Apollo Creed and Mason Dixon in the first and sixth installment of that franchise.

Are we just showing off our vast sports movie trivia knowledge? Well, yeah. We're also saying that our 2017 baseball team's run would make great cinema. A young Walter Matthau could have played Jason Beverlin…nah, that's pushing it.

So, we agree that the 2017 @BCUDiamondCats season would make a good movie, but does it belong on the historic and legendary shelf of Bethune-Cookman Athletics? Of course. And what else is on that shelf?

2005 SOFTBALL GAINESVILLE REGIONAL

Just like 2017 BCU Baseball, the 2005 BCU Softball team beat USF and Florida in Gainesville. Only there was one difference. Laura Watten's team won the regional. First was the surprising at-large bid the Wildcats received after dropping the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) to that team in Tallahassee. Then Bethune-Cookman opened the NCAA Tournament with its second win of the season over the Gators (Florida came to Sunnyland Park and the Wildcats stunned them with a 5-0 shutout in February). Next was an 8-4 victory over USF.  Florida went two-and-out with a loss to UCF, then USF knocked out UCF. In the final, Rachel Kilbert's two-run single helped the Wildcats take a 3-0 first inning lead, followed by Lauren McCoy getting out of a seventh-inning jam to preserve a 5-2 victory that sent the Wildcats to the Super Regionals against Texas.

RONNIE ASH'S 2009 NCAA CHAMPIONSHIPS

Bethune-Cookman's bright track moments came in 2009 when Ronnie Ash won the 60-meter hurdle championship at the NCAA Indoor meet in February, then followed that with the 110-meter hurdle title at the outdoor championships in June. Ash, a sophomore at the time, clocked a 13.27 to outdistance South Carolina's Jason Richardson. Ash finished his collegiate career at Oklahoma and was a finalist at the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio De Janeiro. Ironically, B-CU's other national competitor that year, Joel Redhead, would become the first Wildcat Olympian when he ran for his native Grenada in 2012 at London.

1952 FOOTBALL vs. FLORIDA A&M

All the other events listed here are post-season accomplishments. So why is a regular season football game included? Because this is a Bethune-Cookman list and must include at least one gridiron triumph over the Rattlers. It's in the handbook. Okay. Seriously. With all due to respect to the six bowl game winning teams, the FCS playoff teams, no football victory defined any Wildcats program more than that 1952, 8-7 homecoming victory over Jake Gaither's national champion squad. You know (or should know) the story: With Branch Rickey – the guy who paved the way for Jackie Robinson to integrate baseball and who Harrison Ford played in "42" – watching alongside Dr. Bethune, the legendary "Cy" McClairen catches a 38-yard touchdown from Mike Ardis in the third quarter to give the Wildcats the lead, as they held on for the upset that shocked the Black College football world.
 
1953 MEN'S BASKETBALL NIBT CHAMPIONSHIP GAME

One of the many reasons McClairen is a legend in these parts is how he followed up that football season during basketball.

The historical picture: The NAIA was the first to "integrate" college basketball by inviting one team to its national tournament. That team would come from a "district" – heck, it was all the HBCUs at the time -- after its own eight-team tournament. For all practical purposes, it was the Black College national championship and called the NIBT, in addition to its NAIA designation.
 
Bethune-Cookman, whose roster included McClairen and John Chaney – who would go to become the legendary coach at Temple University, was invited to the eight-team affair. The Wildcats downed Philander Smith and Florida A&M, but fell 85-73 to Tennessee State in the championship.

The season did have a better ending. The Wildcats won their first Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SIAC) Tournament championship with a 72-61 win over Xavier. McClairen dropped 26 points in the championship game.

1981 WOMEN'S AIAW  STATE CHAMPIONSHIP/REGIONAL VICTORY

An all but forgotten tidbit is the early success of the Lady Wildcats basketball program after its 1976 re-instatement. In just its second season, Bethune-Cookman won the AIAW Florida State championship, but did not compete in the regional tournament due to funding. In 1980, the team was state runner-up and made the tournament, but lost its regional game to West Georgia.
 
In 1981, everything came together. Under Head Coach Alvin Wyatt, Sr. – yes, the football coach – the Lady Wildcats could run and rebound just like the guys. Behind Erma Jones, the program's all-time leading scorer, Seabreeze High product Brenda Brown, B-CU Hall of Famer Linda Banks and Cynthia Luke, the Lady Wildcats downed Stetson 78-65 in Moore Gymnasium  to win the state championship and an automatic berth in the AIAW Regionals, where they won the first post-season game for any Wildcats women's team with an 84-63 decision over Rust. Tuskegee, whose coach at the time was "Tiny" Laster, a legendary HBCU women's coach, ended the season with a 77-64 decision.

Two years later, the team moved up to Division I and was an immediate force in the MEAC, playing in the 1983 tournament championship and winning it the following year.

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