A Great Coach

Football has started, and I am officially a happy man.

Football season always gets me thinking about coaching. Week in, week out football fans get to watch and see the results of the good, the bad, and the ugly in coaching.

A friend and I were recently talking a little college football and we ended up trying to define what it means to be a great coach. Is it just about winning? If not, what other factors should we consider.

The same week I had this conversation with my friend, my father informed me that my old high school basketball coach was being considered for induction into the Georgia Coaches' Hall of Fame. My father asked if I would write a recommendation letter for Coach Bell. Since my old high school basketball coach is the best coach I have ever played for in any sport at any level, this recommendation letter gave me the perfect opportunity to lay out my thoughts on what a great coach really is.

Gentlemen,

My name is R. Stephen Prather, and I am writing to encourage you to induct Coach Ron Bell of Marist High School into the Georgia Coaches’ Hall of Fame.

I had the extreme honor and sometime pleasure (Coach Bell didn’t like losing very much) of playing for Coach Bell from 1993 – 1997. As a freshman at Marist, I was a member of the ’94 State Championship team that went 32-0 and finished the season ranked in the top ten nationally. Coach Bell was rightly awarded the National Coach of the Year award for that ’94 perfect season.

I have played sports all of my life. My earliest memories are of sports. I was blessed to letter in both basketball and baseball at Marist and was able to earn a baseball scholarship to Vanderbilt University. Throughout the more than 25 years I have played team sports, I have had plenty of good coaches, bad coaches, and mediocre coaches. However, I have only had one great and unforgettable coach and that coach was Ron Bell.

I don’t know what specific criteria your committee uses to judge coaches, but I have always judged coaches by three distinct criteria.

1) Wins and Losses: No matter how hard we try, we can’t separate coaching from wins and losses. If you don’t win, it is hard to make the argument that you were a great coach. John Wooden was a great and faithful man and had a profound impact on the lives of those who played for him. However, would John Wooden be John Wooden if his career record wasn’t 664 wins and 162 losses? When it comes to wins and losses, I think Coach Bell passes with flying colors. Coach Bell had a career record of 616 wins and 199 losses. Of the 815 high school games Coach Bell coached in, he came out victorious more than 75% of the time. Over a 25 year career, I think it is fair to say this is record is quite remarkable.

2) Impact on his Players: Great and legendary coaches have a lifetime impact on the players that come through their program. It has been 13 years since I played for Coach Bell, but I recently found myself retelling a Coach Bell story to one of my co-workers. Coach Bell once made our entire gym class sit in the men’s restroom for the entirety of the fifty-five minute gym period because we refused to regularly flush the gym’s “commodes”. Coach Bell’s reason for this punishment was classic Ron Bell: “WINNERS FLUSH COMMODES!” To this day, I have never forgotten these words. Every time I want to take a short cut in life, give a half-cocked effort, or make an excuse for not following through on something, I remember that “WINNERS FLUSH COMMODES!” Outside of my immediate family, Coach Bell has had as much of an impact on my character development as anyone. He taught me how to be a man and how to win with grace and lose with grit and determination. I often thank God for putting Coach Bell in my path.

3) Impact on his Program: There are certain coaches that define a program. When you think of Penn State football, the name Joe Paterno comes to mind. When you think of UNC basketball, the name Dean Smith comes to mind. Well, if you ask an ’84, ’94, and ’04 Marist Alum to describe Marist basketball, I am fairly confident you would receive the same answer: Ron Bell.

Whether it was putting together a twenty page scouting report on our opponent, watching endless (and I mean endless) hours of film, or sleeping an entire week on the floor of his modest office, Coach Bell did everything he could to give us the best opportunity to succeed. We never lost a game because we weren’t prepared or because we didn’t have the proper game plan. In fact, any one that watched Marist absolutely destroy a far superior Lithonia team in the ’94 State Championship game knows that when it came to game planning, Ron Bell had no equal.

I could tell a thousand more stories and give countless additional examples of Coach Bell’s greatness, but I think you get the picture. If you wait another hundred years, I don’t believe you will find another coach more deserving of this honor than Coach Ron Bell.

Thank you for your time in reading this letter, and please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions or need any additional information.