[Jack "Cy" McClairen Scholarship Fund]

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – When a member of the Super Bowl Champion 1972 Miami Dolphins and Pro Football Hall of Famer mentions you in the same breath as his mother and Don Shula, that's high praise.

Larry Little spared none when lauding his Bethune-Cookman Head Coach Jack "Cy" McClairen at McClairen's home going service Friday afternoon at Daytona Memorial Park.

McClairen, a Wildcat legend whose contribution to his beloved alma mater spanned over seven decades, passed away last week at the age of 89.

"I thought my mom was never going to go away, I thought Coach Shula was never going to go away and I thought Coach Cy would never go away,"said Little, who played for McClairen before embarking on his professional career. "But they have and it's taught me that when the Lord calls me, I'll be ready."

Like every former student-athlete, coach or anyone connected with Bethune-Cookman, Little has a story, or several. The ones he shared included an on-campus incident best left to oral storytelling and the day in 1993 when Little was enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

"That was a proud day for me, but I looked into the crowd and saw Coach Cy and I could see it in his eyes – the pride. `He's one of ours.'

"He prepared me for the NFL," Little added. "He was running that offense [at Bethune-Cookman that] the Pittsburgh Steelers did when he played in his day. "I'm known as a pulling guard from my time with the Dolphins, but I was a pulling guard at Bethune-Cookman first. We were a football team with two coaches – Cy and ``Tank" Johnson, and they did one amazing job."

Also speaking Friday were Percy Williamson, who led the basketball team to a 1977 Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference championship before serving as Director of Leisure Services for the City of Daytona Beach; Harold Lucas, a football teammate of McClairen and friend since 1949, and B-CU Vice President of Intercollegiate Athletics Lynn W. Thompson.

Williamson noted that that 1977 team recently sat down with McClairen to tell him what he meant to them.

"We loved him, he loved us and he knew it," Williamson said. "Today was gravy. He's one of the most influential men in my life and I have no reservation in proclaiming that. He was a renaissance man – a comedian, a task masker … he could recognize talent like no one I ever knew and get the most out of that talent."
   
 Williamson also thanked McClairen's children, Robin, Michelle and Dwayne, for their sharing their father with everyone.

"Growing up in Daytona Beach, I know that they had to share Coach Cy with teams, students and the community," Williamson said.

 Lucas, who also coached with Cy, said that McClairen had "ran his race."

"He's done his thing and now he's moved on," Lucas said. "We should all feel good about this."

Thompson's remarks included the characteristics of great coaches that McClairen displayed. 

"Great coaches have an ability to bring out the God given talent in us," Thompson said. They also have an innate ability when pressure rises and stakes are high to reach in our hearts and lead us to victory in the most precarious moments of our lives. We were full of fear and finished full of faith. When we believed we were chumps, Coach Cy convinced us that we were champs.

"Also, great coaches do their finest work in the last two minutes," Thompson added. "We would work on two minute drills, conscience of the clock and the situation. Coach had a strategy that if we believed in him, ourselves and God, we would prevail."

 As several generations of former Wildcat basketball and football players gathered at the grave site for the celebration of their beloved coach, Thompson said that only a great coach like McClairen could develop a game plan and assemble a roster of all-time great Wildcats for such a time as this.

"And he taught us, it's not about me, it's about we," Thompson added. "And to save a time out – also for you and your family off the court. Don't use up all your energy. In the final couple minutes of Cy's life, he assembled a great team and we must understand we're all a part of it today, because through us his legacy will never die."

Friday's services also included full military honors and both Episcopalian and Omega Psi Phi fraternity rites.