Jack 'Cy' McClairen, Bethune-Cookman legend as athlete and coach, dies at 89

• McClairen's B-CU association touched parts of eight decades.
• His 1952 touchdown catch against rival Florida A&M was a career highlight.
• His second tenure as football coach began when he took a bathroom break.

Jack “Cy” McClairen, widely regarded as Bethune-Cookman University’s greatest athlete and coach, died Monday morning at age 89.

“Everybody loved Coach Cy. He was the perfect ambassador to Bethune-Cookman University and college sports,” said Lynn Thompson, the school’s vice president for intercollegiate athletics.

McClairen had been in and out of good health for several months. As recently as two weeks ago, though, he visited the Daytona Beach school’s athletic offices on International Speedway Boulevard.

More:Cy McClairen recounted his career upon retirement in 2016.

“Whenever he could, he would come by and hang out with us,” Thompson said. “Cy had been in declining health for the past year, but he was out and around. His daughter Robin has been taking care of him; she would bring him to games and other events.”

McClairen was often credited with having four different careers at B-CU, three of them official: He was first an outstanding athlete, later he was a coach and administrator. Along the way, he served as a universally popular representative for his alma mater.

“Whenever you mention Cy’s name to someone, first thing, that person would laugh, recalling a joke or something funny Cy had said,” Thompson said. “But after that, you would see the love in their eyes. He was something else. I’ve lost one of the father figures of my life; I am who I am right now because of Cy McClairen.”

Jack Forsyth McClairen left his native Panama City for Daytona Beach and Bethune-Cookman in 1949.

His nickname — Cy — was already part of the package, a shortened version of his middle name.

He soon became a three-sport standout — an end in football, a forward in basketball, and discus hurler in track and field.

He left Bethune-Cookman in 1953 and spent two years in the U.S. Army before beginning a six-year career with the NFL’s Pittsburgh Steelers.

As a receiver, his best season was 1957, when he caught 46 passes (third-highest in the league) and made the Pro Bowl.

Knee injuries ended McClairen’s playing career. In 1961, he returned to Daytona Beach and never left. He coached the men’s basketball team from 1961-93, coached the football team twice (from 1961-72 and 1994-96), and was also the longtime athletic director.

During his first 12-year run as football coach, the most accomplished player to come through the program was Larry Little, who would go on to build a Hall of Fame career with the Miami Dolphins during the 1970s. 

“He was my mentor," Little said Monday. "I’ll never forget the day he and (assistant coach) Tank Johnson came to recruit me at Booker T. Washington High School in Miami. I didn’t know at the time I’d be playing for a legend. Playing for Coach Cy prepared me well for my NFL career." 

After his coaching career finally wound down, McClairen remained as an associate athletic director, and a living museum piece on the Daytona Beach campus, before officially retiring in 2017. Along the way, he also served as the assistant coach for B-CU's women's golf team. 

His second stint as football coach came as the school was scrambling to replace a coach whose tenure ended abruptly. McClairen was part of a small search committee.

At one meeting, to go over potential candidates, he excused himself to visit the restroom. Thompson, the athletic department leader and a member of the committee, said he had to strike fast.

“When Cy went to the bathroom, I looked at the others and they agreed with me. Let’s give this thing to Cy and let him stabilize it. We thought we had enough quality coaches on staff to eventually find the next head coach while Cy stabilized the program. After three years, we had Alvin Wyatt.

“Cy got back to the table that day and said, ‘Wait a minute. I get up to go to the bathroom and when I come back I’m the head football coach?’ True story.”

It was a continuation of service to the school that began decades earlier.

As a 6-foot-4 athlete, McClairen dominated the inside game and led Bethune-Cookman’s basketball team to a 1952 conference championship, but his biggest moment as a Wildcat came several months earlier during his senior football season.

It was Homecoming 1952 and the Wildcats, who had never beaten cross-state rival Florida A&M, beat the Rattlers, 8-7, with McClairen’s late-game 38-yard touchdown reception serving as the winning score.

He caught the pass at the 18-yard line and fought off a wave of would-be tacklers on his way to the end zone.

“It seemed like every time someone hit me and I thought I was going to fall, somebody would hit me and lift me back up,” he once explained. “All this ducking, diving and getting hit, ricocheting off and all this kind of stuff made it more spectacular.”

Along with his playing abilities, McClairen often found himself behind the wheel of the team bus out of necessity. The assigned bus driver would be out of sorts, and the head football and basketball coach McClairen would eventually replace — Bunky Matthews — wouldn’t be any better, as McClairen once explained.

“Our bus driver would get drunk. Bunky would also have a few drinks. We’re gonna leave at 7 in the morning the day after the game. Both of them would be looking funny. So the bus driver ain’t ready to drive, and Bunky ain’t ready. I’d tell them to let me drive for a while.

“My uncle had five pulp-wood trucks when I was a kid. I used to drive one in the summertime. My daddy got me a driver’s license when I was 14 so I could drive them trucks.”

Back on campus, he occasionally served as chauffeur to school founder Dr. Mary McLeon Bethune. He was, literally and figuratively, a big man on campus.

"Cy was a magnificent man, a Bethune-Cookman institution," said John Chaney, McClairen's college basketball teammate, a future coaching legend at Temple, and Hall of Famer. "He was one of the most disciplined athletes I have ever played with. His basketball and football skills were the greatest."

Later, as the school's basketball coach, McClairen led the Wildcats to three conference championships and three berths in the NCAA Division II national tournament.

The Wildcats would eventually move to Division I in basketball. Their schedule usually included several “sacrificial” early-season contests against national contenders in an effort to help the Wildcats’ finances — that partly explains his career record of 396-436 as basketball coach.

His two stints as football coach resulted in a 71-60-3 record.

In 1988, McClairen was inducted into the Florida Sports Hall of Fame. He was an inaugural member of the Bethune-Cookman Athletic Hall of Fame in 2000, as well as an inductee in two different conferences’ Halls of Fame — the Mideast Athletic and Southern Intercollegiate conferences.

McClairen was preceded in death by his wife and college sweetheart, Margaret, and is survived by his children Robin, Michelle and Dwayne.

Thompson said the school will announce some form of celebration of McClairen’s life as soon as details can be arranged.