'Guarantee' games provide B-CU revenue, visibility, memories

DAYTONA BEACH, Florida -- The ball was inbounded, and three seconds later the buzzer sounded. After players and coaches consulted, the three-second drill was repeated.

Bethune-Cookman's men's basketball team ended Monday morning's practice by working on buzzer-beater scenarios. It was the Wildcats' final session at their home gym before embarking Tuesday on a 10-day, 6,000-mile odyssey that will take the team from Daytona Beach to Texas to California to Las Vegas.

It doesn't seem likely that drill will come in handy any time soon. The Wildcats meet Baylor at 7 tonight in Waco, Texas. The Bears not only have this year's Heisman Trophy winner in Robert Griffin III, they also possess the sixth-ranked men's basketball team in The Associated Press Top 25 poll. Last year in Waco, the Bears trampled the Wildcats, 83-39.

From Waco, it's on to the San Francisco area...

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B-CU playing, coaching legend Cy McClairen reflects on turning 80

Jack "Cy" McClairen is "The Living Legend" at Bethune-Cookman University.

He's done it all for the Wildcats and then some.

The Living Legend turned 80 Wednesday and he still looks like he could post up and put the ball in the basket like he did as a center for the Wildcats in the early 1950s. (That is, when teammate John Chaney -- yes, that John Chaney who is in the Basketball Hall of Fame -- wasn't shooting the ball.)

Whether it was scoring the Wildcats' only touchdown in Bethune-Cookman's first win over rival Florida A&M in 1952; becoming the first Wildcat to get drafted into the NFL in 1953; or driving a Lincoln Continental for college founder Mary McLeod Bethune and guests like First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and the first female ambassador of India, Madame Pandit; McClairen has been a part of or witness to some of the biggest events in school history.

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