[HOME GOING COVERAGE]

We said goodbye to Coach Cy Friday. Our coach, our legend, our friend, role model and mentor.

He wasn't the only one we bid adieu to, though.

We also said goodbye to a part of our lives that we never wanted to let go. We lost a sacred part of us that we thought would always be there tomorrow, but yesterday was another grim reminder in these perilous times that our lives, like days, have sunrises and sunsets.

Like Boyz II Men harmonized, it's so hard to say goodbye to yesterday.

That literally included a connection to Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune. Cy used to chauffeur her around Daytona Beach! Eleanor Roosevelt was a passenger! Are you kidding me?

Then the athletics – three-sport conference champion. Played in the Pro Bowl, came back and coached future Pro Bowlers, who would coach Pro Bowlers. Three generation reach!

And then there's our personal connection.
 
Yeah, we're not kids anymore. We've had kids. Some of those kids have kids of their own.

But … we once were the kids who snuck into Moore Gym who Cy ran out each and every time. Now we're the ones cussing out the kids or filing out the requisition to get the floor resurfaced.

We once were the kid who dropped one pass after another in practice only to have Coach Cy come over and go "Son, you couldn't catch a cold in Alaska, butt naked, with your foot in a bucket of water, with a fan blowing on you." My Gosh, could that man turn a phrase! We either figured out a way to catch the darn ball or moved on to something else. Bottom line is that we progressed, and some of us went on to coach the sport or administrate the sport, or the business, or whatever …with a degree.

That's what makes days like Friday unique … for us, anyway. Funerals, reunions, homecomings. It's a big part of who we are. We gather. We pray. We give thanks. We light the grill. We, well the old timers, pour an, uh, unusual beverage and we'll leave it at that. We compare arthritis remedies. We delight that a certain winning streak is now nine in a row.  We get our picture taken by John Reeves. We listen to the soundtrack provided by legendary DJ "Super" Ken Moore. We marvel "Shine" Wyatt actually wore that outfit. We love being around each other, because we love each other and have loved being on the journey together.

Alas, there are days like Friday, where, as Tony Stark said in "Endgame" before taking on Thanos, part of the journey is the end.

The earthly part, anyway.

A huge part of solace after having to include "officially announce" and "gone to glory" on a tweet comes from an unshakable testimony that Cy has reunited with his beloved college sweetheart Margaret, is restored to his 1952-53 senior year at Bethune-Cookman or 1957 with the Pittsburgh Steelers prime, has already played 18 holes [Oh, who are we kidding? THIRTY-SIX!] with Tank Johnson and Dr. Gary Freeman, and … this is the exciting part … is about to make that All-Time Florida Blue Florida Classic at the Celestial Camping World Stadium a heck of a lot more interesting. Hey, Jake Gaither can only play 11 Rattlers at a time. I like our chances.

Back here on earth, we smile that on his final day on the mortal coil, he was laughing and got to see his Steelers beat the Indianapolis Colts 28-24 for one last win. It made the next few days somewhat easier.

While your clicking the like button on some of my posts/opines has been a source of satisfaction, there is so much appreciation for the writes of Ken Willis at the Daytona Beach News-Journal and the front page placement; Mike Bianchi at the Orlando Sentinel using his Sunday column to write about Cy instead of Dabo Sweeney; Andreas Butler's Daytona Times article and Lynn Thompson's "Vision Of Victory." What's been as great a source of joy is reading your heartfelt stories and responses to these contributions. As I said a few years back when longtime B-CU sportscaster "Radio" Mike Johnson passed, "Happiness shared is doubled and grief shared is halved. A good story, with the right redacting and embellishment, grows exponentially."     

A Coach Cy story? Endless possibilities. We all have one, or two, or 83. In short, everybody has a Cy McClairen story…enough of 'em to fill a book or two. Hmmm. Remind me to talk with LT about that in a couple of days…

In the past 16 months, I've eulogized a father, a wife and the greatest coach we've ever had. God forgive me for comparing the experiences, but there is one common moment. It might be graveside, or at the repast, or a day or two later, but you look up and it hits you like a Wildcat linebacker blindsiding a Rattler quarterback:

They're really gone.

We're still here.

And we're it, now. The mentor. The role model. The coach who tells the kid that they couldn't catch a cold in Alaska, butt naked, with their foot in a bucket of water, with a fan blowing on them.

Well, not that coach. Could never turn a phrase like Coach Cy, or make that much of a difference. Still…

Here's to saying hello to tomorrow, the chance to make it the better normal, and our role in it, because Coach Cy made us all better.

Goodbye, Coach Cy.