So you write your "Death Of A Race Horse" ....

And you don't feel a damn thing, except for the fact you and your colleagues buried a Coach/Legend/Father Figure.

Every one says you crushed it, and you know it's the best thing -- maybe top three -- you ever wrote or you're ever going to write. And yet ... nada.

I need some help here, good members of this board.

Here's the link:
Goodbye To Cy, Hello To Tomorrow - Bethune-Cookman University Athletics

I'll listen.

 

Awesome piece, Dan. Really got a feel for what McClairen was like, what he meant to Bethune-Cookman and what he meant to the people around him.

Writing an elegy is always difficult, because you're trying to balance the tone between serious without being overly somber. I think your's was perfect, particularly when writing about someone you knew personally and as a father figure.

Sometimes you can feel like you're written too much or not enough. In this case, the length seemed exactly right.

Well done, sir.

 

Well, I certainly felt something. So I'd say that, whatever your goal in writing the eulogy, you achieved it.

The last two paragraphs almost choked me up, and I wouldn't have known Coach Cy if I'd been the one about whom he'd said, "You couldn't catch a cold if..."

The whole thing was understated in tone, but that only made the qualities you tried to show about Coach Cy and his impact come through all the more clearly and strongly. The reader gets a sense of the impact that Coach Cy had on people in life, making it so that his death was anything but too overly sentimental or maudlin.

You said you didn't feel anything after writing this piece. Perhaps you're still in shock or otherwise can't believe and/or accept the coach's death yet. Because you should feel pride and strength, especially knowing that both were probably developed, at least in part, by Coach Cy.

Just a nice job all around.