August 5, 2010
Former Georgia and Air Force Defensive Coordinator Joins Prince Avenue Staff
“Once a football coach, always a football coach,” says former Air Force Academy Defensive Coordinator Richard Bell, who returns to the gridiron as part of the Prince Avenue Christian School football staff this fall.
Bell will join Wolverine Head Coach Mark Farriba’s staff when he returns from coaching all star games in Australia in July.
Coach Bell returns to the Athens area, where he served as Defensive Coordinator of the Georgia Bulldogs under Ray Goff from 1989-1993. “This is what the Lord has called me to do,” says Bell. “This is an opportunity to impact the lives of young men. Wins and losses come and go, but relationships continue forever. And the Athens area is such a special place to return to.”
Bell last coached at the high school level in Arkansas in the early 1960s, he says. Most of his career has been at the collegiate coaching level, including stops as defensive coordinator or West Virginia, Texas Tech, University of South Carolina, Duke, East Carolina, and the United States naval Academy. At Air Force, he was selected as the Division 1A National Assistant Coach of the Year in 1998, and was nominated for the Broyles Award the same year. He was inducted into the University of Arkansas Sports Hall of Honor in 2009.
Bell earned undergraduate and master’s degrees in Physical Education from Arkansas, where he played three years for the Razorbacks, and was co-captain of Frank Broyles first team.
“To have the opportunity to coach with Richard Bell and to have our young men coached by Coach Bell is almost too good to be true. Coach Bell has been highly regarded among his peers at the college level for his coaching expertise as well as his tremendous personal integrity. I don’t know if excited is a strong enough word to describe how I feel about having Coach Bell join our staff at Prince Avenue Christian School,” says Coach Farriba.
Coach Bell will teach Middle School and High School Physical Education at Prince.