God Speed: The Brian Bell Story, Part 1

 

Editor’s Note: This story is Part 1 of a two-piece project that DyeStat had undertaken with Dayton, Ohio (Dunbar) native and New Balance Nationals Indoor champion Brian Bell. On Tuesday, Bell was admitted to the hospital with pneumonia in his left lung. Over the weekend, Bell in ran in five races at the Ohio Division II state championship meet and – thinking he had merely a cold – somehow won the 800 meters title in 1:54. He also split a 48 on the 4x400 relay that placed third and helped Dunbar win the team championship. The second part of this project will be released after Bell is fully recovered.

 

By Doug Binder, DyeStat Editor

 

No matter what, Brian Bell kept holding tightly to the belief that he was special.

 

Deep in his bones he knew he possessed God-given talents that would help him rise above his circumstances, perhaps even help him find a path to stardom.

 

That is what made Bell’s New Balance Nationals experience in March so euphoric. For the first time, he was showing the world – outside his insulated bubble of Dayton, Ohio -- what he knew was inside him all along.

 

The senior from Paul Laurence Dunbar High School has been rolling ever since he anchored his sprint medley relay team to an indoor national record and then proved himself all over again the next day with the 800 meters national championship at The Armory in New York City.

“I can’t let it be a fluke and just let everyone thing I’m just ‘this Ohio guy,’” Bell said. “I’ll live with it the rest of my career if I don’t break records this spring.”

 

(Bell and his teammates are hoping for a repeat performance in the SMR at New Balance Nationals Outdoor, but only if Bell can recover and be fully healthy in time).

 

Bell’s performance at NBNI steered him from the probability of a junior college admission to NCAA Division I recruitment and official visits to Mississippi State and the University of Houston. And a sales pitch from Olympic legend Carl Lewis – a Houston assistant – helped seal the deal. Bell has signed with the Cougars.

 

It’s all pointing the right way now.

 

But it’s also been a long road – much longer than a few circuits of the track.

 

Bell was put into foster care for the first time when he was a baby. His mother was brilliant and owned a Master’s degree. But she also suffered from mental illness – manic depression and bipolar disorder. The family was living on the fringes of poverty, riding the bus for transportation and collecting donated goods at a food pantry to scrape by. Brian returned to his mother when he was four but then was then placed back in foster care when he was 8.

 

As a result, there was never a permanently safe situation growing up. Bell’s living situation became a revolving door as he bounced from foster care to relatives and back to his mother.

 

Perhaps it was realizing that his childhood wasn’t “normal” that made Bell also feel like he was intended for something great. Maybe it was merely his coping mechanism.

 

By the time he reached 13 and 14, the living conditions were becoming bleak again. Bell was surviving with a cousin in a house where the utility bills weren’t paid. There was no running water or electricity. His friends were skirting the edges of society and some of them were getting into trouble.

 

Bell was unfocused, rarely attending school in his freshman year, and the only reason he was going at all was his belief that he belonged on the track team. His mom had been a city champion in the mile when she was in high school at Fairfield and the Bell family had been close to the Moses family, including two-time Olympic hurdles champion Edwin Moses. Little Brian heard tales of Moses’ rise from Dayton and dreamed of following in his footsteps. He also knew that he had inherited his mother's middle distance talent.

 

In the spring of Bell’s sophomore year, he complained one day about being hungry within earshot of a teacher and was directed to visit school counselor Charles Haddix.

 

The conversation in Haddix’s office was brief. Bell explained that he hadn’t eaten that day and Haddix responded by buying him a couple of Egg McMuffin sandwiches.  

 

A couple of weeks later, Haddix walked into the detention room after school and noticed Bell, who was wearing the same clothes he had on during their first meeting.

 

“What are you doing here?” Haddix asked Bell.

 

“Dad, I don’t know why I’m here,” Bell replied.

 

Something in that response – the way Bell called him ‘dad’ or the tiredness of his voice – struck Haddix. There was also something about that last name: Bell.

 

Haddix decided to take an interest and delve deeper.

 

As it turned out, Haddix and Bell had met before, in the pews at the United Methodist Church.

 

Haddix had held the newborn baby Bell in his arms. He knew the Bell family from way back. He knew Shannon Bell Sr., Brian’s great grandfather, who had been one of the pillars of the African-American community in Dayton for decades as the owner of a pharmacy. The Bells that Haddix knew were educated and successful people.

 

But Brian was hungry, on the verge of desperate, and in need of new clothes and a haircut.

 

He was prepared to leave his cousin’s house and go back into a foster home when Mr. Haddix stepped in.

 

Haddix was past retirement age and worked at the school on a contract basis. It gave him something to do and a fulfilled his desire to remain useful. His wife of 40 years had recently passed and his home was empty.

 

“I want him to be healthy and have the (childhood) that he never had,” Haddix said of Brian. “I treat him like he’s my own son. I’ve never used the word ‘foster’ with him.”

 

Haddix laid down a few rules. He wanted Bell to respect his home and to be responsible.

 

“I will not tolerate nonsense,” Haddix said.

 

Inside the Haddix household, Bell has found the stability that he was lacking. He’s safe and doesn’t have to worry about how to find his next meal.

 

That comfort has also allowed him to pursue – with vigor – his two passions: The 800 meters. And poetry.

 

Bell began putting silly rhymes together and constructing raps with his friends in middle school. His ear for rhythm and a vocabulary that owes something to his mother’s advanced education made the lyrics come easily for Bell. He began to study the construction of rap lyrics and spoken word poetry.

 

He wrote and he practiced. He attended poetry slams, worked on his craft, and earned a trip to the NAACP national convention last summer in Las Vegas to participate in a poetry competition.

 

Meanwhile, his junior year on the track saw him drive his 800 meters time below 1:54. He placed second in the Ohio Division 2 championships with a season’s best 1:53.54.

 

As a senior, Bell wants even more. His rap persona, Brizzy B, has no trouble beating his chest and shouting from the rooftops. Some of that hype bleeds into Bell the track athlete, who wants to follow in the footsteps of former Dayton greats Edwin Moses and Chris Nelloms. As a poet, he has the namesake of his school, Paul Laurence Dunbar, to emulate.

 

Bell’s big moment in March came after missing out on an opportunity to get noticed. His team missed the deadline for entering the University of Kentucky Invitational in February. That was the meet Bell hoped to run a fast time and lock down a spot in the seeded fast section at indoor nationals.

 

Instead, Bell came to New York with a PR of 1:53.60 (indoors). He knew he was in better shape than that and entered The Armory as one of the meet’s biggest secrets.

 

Then in the sprint medley relay, Dunbar lined up and did something no one saw coming. The lineup of Javonta Brown, Juan Scott, Terryon Willis – and Bell – broke the high school national record with 3:24.16. It was the only time that particular lineup had run a sprint medley relay together.

 

Their coach, Sidney Booker, was on the verge of tears after the race.

 

“Not a lot of people believed, but we knew what we had,” Booker said.

 

VIDEO INTERVIEW AT NEW BALANCE NATIONALS

 

Based on Bell’s 800 split of 1:50, he was elevated to the top section of the championship 800 meters the next day. And he made the most of that opportunity, cranking past the top names in the field on the third and fourth circuits of The Armory’s banked 200-meter oval and into the lead. He won it with 1:51.08.

 

Bell’s emotions were raw. He was overjoyed.

 

“I think it was a life-changing weekend,” Bell said. “I was overwhelmed. It was a dream (being) there. It hit me that it’s really real now. I’m a role model now.”

 

From hungry and hopeless to role model – that’s the story that Bell wants to create songs about now. His spirit is lifted by telling his underdog story and by helping someone else in need latch hold of a dream.

 

Bell’s not done dreaming. He wants to keep winning and chase after the Olympics the way Edwin Moses did. He wants to make art out of words the way Paul Laurence Dunbar did. He wants to design clothes, model them, act, and follow his muse wherever it takes him.

 

 

“I want to be the next big thing out of Dayton,” Bell said.