Earlier this week on the brink of the US Olympic Trials, legendary track coach Sam Bell at Oregon State in 1961 his harrier squad won NCAA Cross Country Championships while at Indiana, Bell coached an incredible 90 NCAA All Americans along with a number of Olympians including the likes of Terry Brahm, Jim Spivey, Sunder Nix, Bob Kennedy and Mark Deady. He also was a coach on the 1976 U.S. Olympic team. This is a real loss for the track and field community.
(Indiana Athletics)
He coached at Indiana University during one of its greatest era’s. This was era when IU had the ever so infamous Bob Knight in basketball, Jerry Yeagley in soccer, Hobie Billingsley in diving, and Doc Counsilman in swimming. Bell, along with the other coaching staff helped turn Indianapolis into a center for Olympic sports and Olympic developed athletes.
Coach Bell grew up in a very humble setting where hard was well earned with your own two hands. In rural Nebraska, he was the son of a tenant farmer. Growing up in a rural setting, football and basketball game natural as he played six-man football and earned all-conference honors in basketball. In his high school track career, he ran the mile and every single field event.
His first coaching job for a high school in Wymore, Nebraska. After this career there he went on to coach in Cottage Grove, Oregon where he would then coach one of the University of Oregon’s elites. Coaching the young Dyrol Burleson was his big break as Burleson lowered the national high school record in the mile on two occasions and landed himself one of the first ever scholarships to the University of Oregon.
With his success coaching Burleson, Coach Bell went to Oregon State and led the men into winning the 1961 NCAA cross-country championship and in 1963 he coached the world record setting 4x880 relay team at the California Relays. After so, Bell coached four years at California before taking over a very successful program at the University of Indiana. While coaching the Hoosiers he produced teams that won 23 men's and 4 women's Big Ten titles from 1970 to 1998.
With his coaching experience virtually impeccable, he was a great person to serve the role as the president of the Division I Track Coaches Association from 1979-80 and then becoming the president of the United States Track Coaches Association from 1997-2002.
Not only was he the United States’ men’s distance coach at the 1976 Olympics, but he also coached the 1979 U.S. World Cup team and 1987 U.S. Junior Pan-American team.
Coach Bell was inducted into the National Track and Field Hall of Fame in 1992 and the U.S. Track and Field Coaches Hall of Fame in 2000. He passed away on June 27, 2016 at the age of 88.
