James Bell: A happy ending

Sometimes stories do have happy endings.

This is one about a football player who gets injured, remembered, then…

I actually didn’t know how it ended.

That injury was just the first chapter in a story that would continue when I moved to Edmonton in the Fall of 1987 to go to university, right into the present day.

Then, after more than 35 years I found out how it ended.

Tragedy strikes
It all started in the 1986 Canadian Football League season, Sept. 19 to be exact, when I was watching the Edmonton Eskimos play the B.C. Lions in Vancouver. Edmonton was on their way to another Grey Cup appearance and had re-tooled their defence.

They had this defensive back named Jamed Bell. He went to make a tackle and hit the ball carrier awkwardly. He crumpled to the turf, and was down on the field for a long time. It did not look good at the time at all.

Those games were always late starts at like 8 p.m. or 8:30 p.m. so the game did not actually end until close to midnight.

It turned out that, in tackling Lion Jan Carnici, James Bell had damaged his vertebrae and essentially suffered a broken neck.

He never played football again, and was told he would most likely be a quadriplegic, paralyzed for life.

Sticker shock
I went to Edmonton in the Fall of 1987 to attend the University of Alberta. I met some guys in the student residence I lived in, who were huge football fans. My best friend of the time Chris Vining and I went with them to the West Division Semi-Final on November 15, 1987 at Commonwealth Stadium.

The game did not turn out as we had hoped. Our beloved Calgary Stampeders lost to Edmonton, who would go on to beat B.C. in the West Division Final then win the Grey Cup, defeating Toronto in a thriller at B.C Place in Vancouver.

However, what I do remember fondly was what happened at the outset of the West Division Semi-Final.

As we entered the stadium, we were given stickers. They were in the shape of a golden bell, with the number “17”. They were to commemorate James Bell and raise funds to offset his medical expenses.

To be honest, that seemed so long ago, I had almost forgotten, but recalled instantly when they mentioned it on the loudspeaker.

After that, I never found out what ever became of James Bell.

The rest of the story
That was until I was leafing through the weekend Toronto Globe and Mail, something I did religiously for a long time. It was the October 20, 2015 issue where I found out the rest of the story.

James Bell was rushed to a hospital in Vancouver with no feeling in his neck, and there was too much swelling to operate. He was transported to hospital in Edmonton and began physical therapy.

A few months after the hit, some feeling returned to Bell’s feet. Then he was holding on to hand rails, and taking his first steps.

Meanwhile, the people of Edmonton got behind James Bell. That fundraising campaign helped defray his medical costs. Eskimo players made a music video to raise funds, and the team gave him a Grey Cup ring for the championship they won at B.C. Place.

He stuck around Edmonton, but eventually had to go back to the United States to find work. He fell on hard times, and had to sell that 1987 Grey Cup ring for $5,704.

Eventually he found himself in Port Arthur, Texas where his girlfriend was from. He got a job at a car dealership. His manager at the dealership noticed Bell walked with a limp and had some trouble shaking hands because he couldn’t quite turn his wrist. He later found out Belll's story.

He contacted the Eskimos to see if they could all work together to bring Bell back to Edmonton. Bell still had two daughters there, so it would be two reunions, not just one.

So James Bell, returned to Edmonton in October of 2015 where, miraculously, he walked back out onto the field to thank the team and the city one more time.

Parting thoughts
Alan Maki wrote that article for the Globe and Mail, and one of the themes is that Bell and his story faded into the past, and he was all but forgotten.

I have to admit, I hadn’t thought of him in years.

Yet, when I saw his name in the headline when I was skimming the newspaper, I wondered if it was the same James Bell. Then I thought, I never found out what ever happened to him.

I never read that article though. I wanted to save it for when I finally wrote a blog post about James Bell.

Well, I was reminded again of Jams Bell, when I was cleaning out my Mom’s basement and I found the Bell-shaped sticker.

So, as I wrote this post, I read Alan Maki’s article.

Now I know what ever happened to James Bell.

And the story has a happy ending.