Richard Bell obit

Richard Bell, who was Frank Broyles' first team captain and a long-time college coach, dies at 88

 He was not on the list.

Richard Bell, a captain on Frank Broyles’ first Arkansas football team who went on to have a long career as a college coach, died Saturday. He was 88.

Bell’s death at an assisted living facility in the Atlanta suburb of Woodstock, Ga., was confirmed by his son Murray.

“In my lifetime I would say he would be in the top three in terms of the man that he was, just his character and his beliefs and the way he lived his life was just so, so impressive,” said Tim Horton, the former Arkansas player and assistant coach who worked with Bell at the Air Force Academy from 1999-2005. “I would venture to say that every player who ever played for him would say the same thing.”

Bell’s 55-year coaching career included 45 seasons at the college level. He was a defensive coordinator for 38 seasons at West Virginia (1968-69), Texas Tech (1970-74), South Carolina (1975-81), Duke (1983-87), East Carolina (1988), Georgia (1989-93), Navy (1994) and Air Force (1995-2006).

In 1998, Bell was named national assistant coach of the year by the American Football Coaches Association when his Air Force defense allowed an average of 14.2 points per game. The Falcons finished the year 12-1 and ranked 13th following a 43-25 win over Washington at the Hawaii Bowl.

It was there that an Air Force tradition was formed.

“That week a couple of our linebackers had been out on the town and they met some Samoan guys and they taught them a Samoan war chant,” said Horton, who is now the special teams coordinator and running backs coach at Air Force. “These linebackers taught this war chant to Richard Bell. We were practicing for the bowl game and in the stretch line one day Coach Bell teaches the war chant to the team.

“We beat Washington that day and after the game the team sang [the] war chant. Today, 27 years later, when we win a game — it doesn’t matter who we’re playing — we sing that [Samoan] war chant. 

Bell was the head coach at South Carolina in 1982. He was fired after a 4-7 campaign.

“They did not have a great year,” Horton said. “The AD came in there and said, ‘Hey, we need to make some changes. I want you to change this guy and this guy and this guy.’ Coach Bell said, ‘I know that there are some changes that need to be made, but I’ll make those changes, not the AD coming in telling me who to fire after one year.’

“He just was a man of unbelievable principles.”

  The final eight years of Bell’s coaching career were spent as defensive coordinator at Prince Avenue Christian, a small private high school near Athens, Ga.

During the course of Bell’s career he was associated with some of the game’s greatest coaches. He worked under Hall of Fame coaches Broyles, Bobby Dodd, Steve Spurrier and Fisher DeBerry, and was defensive coordinator at West Virginia when the Mountaineers’ offense was coordinated by Bobby Bowden.

At Georgia, Bell's players ranged from future long-time college coach Will Muschamp to wrestling legend Bill Goldberg.

“God didn’t make a better man than Coach Bell,” Muschamp, then head coach at South Carolina, said in a 2020 article by The State newspaper in Columbia, S.C.

Though he never coached him, Bell's lasting legacy at Georgia might be as a recruiter who helped bring Kirby Smart to campus as a defensive back. Smart returned two decades later as head coach and has built his alma mater into one of the game's greatest programs.

“Coach Bell formed a relationship with me and communicated with me, and each week he would call, check in, ask about the family,” Smart said in a 2020 interview with DawgNation.com. “No other schools really recruited me that hard.”

Bell’s coaching journey began as a graduate assistant at Arkansas in 1959 when the Razorbacks won the Southwest Conference championship in Broyles’ second season. He left to coach at Walnut Ridge High School from 1960-61, then broke into the college ranks as an assistant coach at VMI from 1962-63.

He caught his big break when Dodd, who was Broyles’ college coach, hired him to coach linebackers at Georgia Tech before the 1964 season. In Atlanta, Bell met Jim Carlen and formed a relationship that would last for the next two decades.

As West Virginia’s head coach, Carlen gave Bell his first coordinator job at the age of 30, and Bell followed Carlen in subsequent stops at Texas Tech and South Carolina.

Carlen coached South Carolina to a 45-36-1 record and three bowl games as an independent, and had 1980 Heisman Trophy winner George Rogers at running back, but was fired after a 6-6 campaign in 1981.

According to the 2020 article by The State, Bell was hired as the Gamecocks’ coach after West Virginia’s Don Nehlen turned down the job. Among those who recommended Bell for the South Carolina job was Gil Brandt, the Pro Football Hall of Fame scout for the Dallas Cowboys.

Bell grew up in Little Rock and was a close friend to Brooks Robinson long before his Baseball Hall of Fame career with the Baltimore Orioles.

“I can still remember coaching at the Air Force Academy and we’re playing the Naval Academy in Annapolis one day, and on the sideline is Brooks Robinson,” Horton said. “Brooks Robinson was right in the middle of Coach Bell talking to the defense on the bench.

“Brooks Robinson and Coach Bell were best friends in high school. Coach Bell used to tell the story that Brooks Robinson graduated from Little Rock Central and the next day he caught the train to go play professional baseball. [Bell was] at the train station the next morning after graduation as they sent Brooks Robinson off to professional baseball.”

Bell was a standout player at Little Rock High School (now Central) under coach Wilson Matthews. He won three state championships as a player and as a senior was most valuable player on the Tigers’ undefeated team in 1955.

“Coach Bell’s father died while he was playing for Coach Matthews and Coach Matthews had to tell him that his dad had passed away on the practice field,” Horton said.

Matthews became an influential figure in Bell’s life. He drove Bell to Fayetteville for a recruiting visit, then helped coach him his senior season after he was hired to Broyles’ staff.

“Wilson Matthews taught us there are no born winners and no born losers,” Bell told the late Arkansas Democrat-Gazette columnist Jim Bailey in 2008. “He made us all overachievers.”

Bell played tight end and defensive end for the Razorbacks. He stood out defensively and caught 12 passes for 241 yards and 1 touchdown during his college career.

“Richard’s leadership was so strong, and he helped us just keep getting better and better as the season went on,” Broyles said when Bell was inducted to the UA Sports Hall of Honor in 2009. “He had tremendous people skills.”

Arkansas began Broyles’ first season — and Bell’s senior season — with a 0-6 record but finished 4-6. Things began to turn with a 21-8 win at Texas A&M to begin November and the highlight of the season came two weeks later when the Razorbacks won 13-6 in Fayetteville over No. 15 SMU, quarterbacked by Don Meredith.

“What I like to say is that we didn't leave a record, but we left a legacy of commitment and dedication that has gone on through this program for years and years,” Bell said in 2009. “We provided a toughness, a heart, a spirit and an ability to overcome adversity that provided a foundation.”

A graveside service for Bell will be held Dec. 29 in Little Rock. A public celebration of his life will follow in Athens, Ga., on Jan. 11.