Playing in the national tournament has almost become an annual event for the Mott Community College basketball team.
The Bears, who are ranked No.1 in the nation in this year’s Division II junior college poll, have won three national championships since 2003 while appearing in the final four seven times.
They’re a true national power.
But it wasn’t always that way. A little thing called World War II shut down the entire program and when the Bears — whose school was known back then as Flint Junior College — finally returned to the court in 1946, it took them just four years for them to put Flint
on the junior college map.
The 1949-50 Bears paved the way for the type of
success MCC enjoys today by reaching the national
tournament for the first time in school history. And that
accomplishment has earned them a spot in the Greater
Flint Area Sports Hall of Fame.
When FJC decided to put a team back on the court
after WWII ended, the first thing it needed was a coach.
So school officials dipped into the faculty pool and
persuaded chemistry instructor John Bojcun to take the job. Bojcun appealed to FJC administrators after
he turned Flint Technical High into a Class B prep
power with an 86-27 record beginning in 1940.
Success came slowly.
FJC was 5-14 during Bojcun’s first season of 1946-
47 and followed that by posting a combined record of
21-18 the next two seasons. It was after the ’48-49
campaign that assistant coach Don Jarrard decided
the Bears needed some additional help to keep surging
forward.
Taking advantage of relaxed eligibility requirements,
Jarrard dove into Flint’s talent-rich City Basketball
League and lured former Flint Northern star Don
Kelly and ex-Flint Central standout Lee Middleton into
playing for FJC.
It worked.
In 1949-50, Kelly led the Michigan Junior College
Athletic Conference in scoring at 21.9 points per game
while Middleton was second at 15.8. That helped
the Bears win the MJCAC championship with a 13-1
record in an overall mark of 14-2.
