This write up on Byron Bell will make you cry

[jtnc]

I thought it was Garry? But anyway the right side of the first string hasn't looked any better.

It was Garry, my mistake. Is Bell at LT or RT?

[KillerKat]

It was Garry, my mistake. Is Bell at LT or RT?

I thought he played guard

[jtnc]

I thought he played guard

Nope he's playing tackle.

http://www.panthers.com/team/roster.html

[KillerKat]

guess he's a utility guy cause they got him at guard on the depth chart. Still, he'll have to really impress over the next 2 games to make the team.

[ladypanther]

More.........

Bell ended training camp firmly entrenched on the Panthers' second-team line, and took reps last week at the starting right tackle spot after injuries to players in front of him. Bell missed Friday's exhibition at Miami with his own injury — a knee issue that is not considered serious.

Bell, 22, comes by his large frame naturally. Relatives on both sides of the family are plus-sized.

"We're all pretty big out there in Greenville, Texas," Bell said.

Byron Bell Sr. was a 6-3, 220-pound defensive end at Texas A&M-Commerce, a Division II school near Bell's hometown. Bell has watched game video of his father, but has few memories of a man who was 29 when he died of an undiagnosed heart condition.

After her husband's death, Sandra Bell kept her job as jailer at the Hunt County jail and took her two boys, Byron and Seth, to the doctor to make sure their hearts were OK.

She was walking through the jail one day when a woman in the female wing stopped her and asked about her family. Sandra Bell said she could not discuss her personal life with prisoners.

Bell learned the woman, doing a hitch for theft and drug convictions, was pregnant with twins. A few months later, the woman was transported to a hospital to deliver the twin boys. A couple of days after that, the prisoner's family members showed up at Sandra Bell's door with the infants.

"She told them she wanted me to have the babies," Sandra Bell said. "They literally left the babies."

Bell adopted the twins, Isaiah and Elijah, and raised all four of her boys in the church. Byron sang in the choir at New Jerusalem Missionary Baptist Church and played center for the Greenville High football team.

Bell's scholarship offers came from only Southern Methodist and New Mexico. In the summer of 2007, Bell headed off to Albuquerque.

When he returned to Greenville a few months later, he had no home to go to, and a younger brother to bury.

Staying with the team

Bell was on the travel squad for his entire freshman season, although he played only a few plays in one early game.

When other freshmen were given the opportunity to go home and skip the New Mexico Bowl, Bell had to stay and practice for the game, held in Albuquerque. The Lobos stayed in a hotel the night before the Dec. 22 game against Nevada.

Back in Greenville, Sandra Bell went to Wal-Mart after work to buy Christmas presents for the 8-year-old twins. After stopping at Taco Bell for dinner, Sandra Bell arrived home around 9:30.

She left the bags of toys and clothes in the truck and took the boys inside the family's one-story home to get ready for bed. Isaiah slept in the twins' room, while Elijah fell asleep watching TV in Seth's room.

Seth had been called in to work the night shift at McDonald's. The only other person home was Raleigh Linson, Sandra Bell's 83-year-old father, who also lived there.

Sandra Bell had not been asleep long when her father woke her up around 11.

"We all just fell asleep in three different rooms. And the next thing I knew my daddy came into my room and was telling me the house was on fire," she said. "I could hear him telling me but I couldn't process it. When I finally opened my eyes, the house was just full of smoke."

Linson told his daughter Isaiah was already out of the house. So she got Elijah out of Seth's room, grabbed her purse and went outside. When she didn't see Isaiah, she asked her dad where he was.

"He kept looking at Elijah and saying there he is," Bell said. "I kept trying to let him no, that's not Isaiah. It's Elijah. … I was thinking, 'Oh, God, my baby's going to burn up.' "

Bell put Elijah in the truck, and followed her father back into the house to find Isaiah. They didn't get far.

"It was just too much smoke. I couldn't see and I knew he couldn't," said Bell, who ran outside and called 911.

Firefighters and emergency crews couldn't save Isaiah, who died from smoke inhalation. Investigators determined an electrical problem caused the fire, Sandra Bell said.

She decided to wait until after the bowl game the following day to tell Byron about the fire. After the Lobos' 23-0 victory over Nevada — their first bowl victory in 46 years — Bell took the team bus back to the hotel.

He tried to call his mom to tell her about the game, but couldn't reach her. Finally, he reached a hometown friend, who broke the news.

Bell blamed himself for not being there to save his brother, and took out his anger on his hotel room.

He flew home the next day and went by the house, which was still standing but ruined by the smoke and water. The family's plastic Christmas tree was charred.

Bell's co-workers at the sheriff's department and their families re-wrapped the presents that were salvageable. Sandra Bell and the boys spent a sober holiday at her sister's house.

"We didn't celebrate," Byron Bell said. "We didn't do nothing. We slept on Christmas day."

New Jerusalem was packed to the balcony for Isaiah's funeral two days later. Bell saw his brother a final time at the funeral home before the small casket was closed.

Mad at everything

While the university created a fund for Bell's family, Bell could not stop thinking about how things might have been different had he been home the night of the fire. Confused and depressed, Bell considered transferring to SMU or North Texas, where he could be closer to his mom and brothers.

"He was just mad at the coaches, mad at the whole system. Football was not important at that time," Sandra Bell said. "He felt like he should have been at home, and felt if he would have been there, he could have saved the house, could have saved Isaiah."

Sandra Bell assured her son there was nothing he could have done.

But his anger lingered. Bell remained at New Mexico, but withdrew from friends and teammates. At the first team meeting in January, he sat in the corner and didn't speak to anybody.

He quit going to classes. He showed up for practices in the spring, but would leave without showering and go back to his apartment to grieve.

In one of their last conversations, Isaiah had told Bell he was signing up for football the next fall and wanted Byron to teach him to play running back.

"I don't know how to play running back. But I'm pretty sure I know enough about the game," Byron said. "But he never got to do it."

Eventually, Bell figured he owed it to his brother to get serious about football again. He started all 12 games at tackle in 2008, and received honorable mention on CollegeFootballNews.com's Freshman All-American team.

He attended counseling sessions, but still struggled to keep his emotions under control. He and a teammate were arrested in 2009 following a bar fight in Albuquerque, although the charges against Bell were later dropped.

New Mexico coach Mike Locksley said Bell was still trying to figure things out when Locksley took over the Lobos before Bell's junior year.

"He and I had plenty of one-on-one meetings where he just wanted to know why," Locksley said. "And there are no answers for things like what happened to Isaiah."

http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/FBN-PANTHERS-BELL_5853879/FBN-PANTHERS-BELL_5853879/

Interesting and tragic story. Movie material if he makes the team. Hope he makes it.

[PanthersFan8912]

Can't wait for his movie called the strong side starring denzel washington.

hahahah

but im reallly rooting for this guy his story is his drive and b/c of that he will improve and work hard:sad::sad::sad::sad:

[janosha]

I really need to put a stop on chopping these onions for my marinara sauce.