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Trust and Transformation: Long-winding journey putting Bell on success path

“I didn’t really have a family. I was on my own as a child, thrown from foster homes to child protective services my whole life."
“I didn’t really have a family. I was on my own as a child, thrown from foster homes to child protective services my whole life."


Jarrett Bell’s numbers looked good. And when numbers look good to Jordan Campbell, he wants to show people, he wants them to spread to every coach and forum in the country. He wants them to turn into offers. He wants them to be the foundation for NFL dreams.


As much as people want to believe that colleges and NFL teams look at a prospect’s heart or toughness, Campbell knows 99 out of 100 times, that’s all talk. Like him, they have charts, charts showing combine results translating to future placements -- turning a 40-yard dash time and bench press results into an SEC- or a second-round-draft-pick projection.


Heading into the summer of 2017, Bell had NFL numbers. Problem was, he didn’t have any collegiate offers; and thus, he didn’t have confidence. He didn’t think he was ready to show his skills to big programs or the decision makers of college football.


Campbell, a former USC linebacker who bounced around the NFL and now runs Winner Circle Athletics, disagreed. The numbers matched up; it was time to let others see.


“He’s 18 years old. He doesn’t understand what he has. Your God-given ability is being 6-4, 290-pounds running an (expletive) 4.9(-second 40-yard dash), bro -- and you can play center, guard and tackle,” Campbell said of Bell. “You’re an NFL center.”


Maybe. But even so, no one knew -- or perhaps no one would acknowledge it.


That summer, Bell started to rack up a few offers. All smaller schools, well below where his results pegged him. A few weeks into it, Bell participated in a nearby USC camp, taking home the camp’s MVP.


USC gave its camp MVP to a two-star recruit, and because of that, they didn’t feel comfortable offering their camp MVP.


Campbell wasn’t thrilled with his alma mater. They were recruiting based off of perception, not evaluation. He needed to bring Bell somewhere bigger, somewhere that understands numbers, trusts their evaluation and isn’t afraid to pull the trigger on an unknown offer.


“I was like, ‘So, wait, we’re going from no offers, no schools talking to me … we’re going to go straight to the No. 1 school in the nation?’” Bell, now a redshirt freshman offensive lineman at ASU, said. “And he said, ‘Yeah, you’re ready.’”


“If SC is going to be that (expletive) stupid and not offer you,” Campbell said, “I’m going to take your ass to Alabama and we’re going to put this s**t in their face.”


***


Nearly a month later, Campbell was catching a last-minute flight out of Fiji. He left his honeymoon early to get on Bell’s flight to Alabama. He needed to ensure everything ran smoothly. This wasn’t just another camp. This was Alabama. And if things went to plan, Bell’s life would change.


“I knew if they had a chance to see him, they would definitely offer him,” Campbell said. “These are the numbers you need to hit, you’re hitting those numbers. They need to solidify who you are.”


Bell and Campbell arrived in Tuscaloosa for the camp’s first day on July 17, 2017. It was like an underdog boxer with his trainer, walking passed their higher-ranked counterparts being pampered in the coach’s lounge.


Within a few hours, every camera at the camp had centered on Bell amongst the camp’s 2,000 participants. His combine numbers were as advertised. He dominated one-on-ones. During scrimmages, he excelled rifling through all five positions on the line.


“The plan was working,” Campbell said.


At the end of the day, the Crimson Tide’s coaches invited Bell back for the camp’s second day. Not to practice, just to stand there. They needed to confirm Bell was real, needed to see how he stacked up next to a confirmed five-star recruit.


So Bell went back to the field on the 18th. A few Alabama coaches gathered around, along with some of head coach Nick Saban’s trusted NFL offensive line evaluators. For a few minutes, Bell stood next to a five-star offensive lineman from Oregon for the gawking crowd.


Campbell tried his best to read their lips.


“They’re just saying, ‘Look at Jarrett’s legs. Look at his arm, his length. We want him, we don’t want the other kid,’” Campbell said.


Then a few coaches approached Bell and Campbell with seven words that early every recruit prays they’ll hear. Seven words that change the course of someone’s life. And seven words that confirmed every sacrifice Bell had ever made in his life.


Nick Saban wants to meet with you.

*****

Campbell wanted to stay around football, regardless of how his own career was faring. So every time an NFL team released him, the former Trojan linebacker trekked back to Southern California and coached in youth leagues.


A familiar face kept showing up. A familiar face who went to practice early and stayed afterwards trying to train himself. Well, “train” is a loose term.


“He didn’t know what the hell he was doing,” Campbell said.


Nonetheless, he kept popping up. Eventually, “being the pest he is,” Bell started seeking advice and tips from Campbell. But Campbell’s tips all seemed to require things that Bell didn’t have and involved workouts that Bell didn’t know.


Amidst the conversations between the middle-schooler and NFL hopeful, Campbell brought up the idea of training at Winner Circle Athletics, a $10,000-a-year private athletic school in California’s Inland Empire. There, kids spend half the day training and half the day in the classroom. Winner Circle was training middle schoolers who were consistently earning hoards of offers and, best of all, Campbell was the president.


That was great an all, but, $10,000? Bell couldn’t afford that.


Campbell could have said anything next. No. Don’t worry about it. Get the money and we’ll talk. It wouldn’t have mattered. Bell wasn’t going to go away.


“Let’s get you in here,” Campbell told Bell. “Let’s figure out really who you are and see if you are willing to help.”


Bell would do anything.


Campbell was friends with former ASU offensive lineman Adam Tello, who owned a nearby Nutrishop. So, Bell got a job holding a Nutrishop sign out in the heat. He cleaned up Winner Circle when it closed. He washed cars.


He did whatever helped him stay at Winner Circle.


“He’s doing all this as a high-school kid and it’s like, ‘Oh, dude, we need to make sure this whole thing pans out,’” Campbell said.


What Campbell quickly learned, it needed to pan out. It either panned out for Bell or he turned into the rest of his family. And he couldn’t turn into the rest of his family -- he wouldn’t.


“I didn’t really have a family,” Bell said. “I was on my own as a child, thrown from foster homes to child protective services my whole life. I had to make a change with my life and decide I wanted to be different than my family trend.”


There are some things Bell knew he couldn’t escape. Addiction and addictive personalities had taken its toll on his kin, leading them to lives of drugs and violence while throwing Bell into a childhood of confusion and uncertainty.


Without change, he was destined for a similar path. And Bell makes it sound so simple. He saw what his family had gotten involved with, he didn’t want to follow, so he decided to be a different kind of person.


In essence, he coped. He evolved.


“I changed my addiction,” he said. “Their addictions were drugs and violence so I took that and made my addiction to better things -- lifting, working hard. Everyone says, ‘Oh, you’re overtraining.’ I say, ‘I’m not overtraining, I’m saving myself from where I could go.”


Added Cohl Cabral, Bell’s teammate at ASU who trained with him at Winner Circle: “He’s always worked his ass off, that’s been his thing. That was his way of keeping himself at peace, where a lot of people like to relax and hang out. His was going to the gym at five in the morning or midnight.”


When he reached eighth grade, his aunt and uncle, whom Bell was living with in years prior, were awarded guardianship of their nephew. He finally had stability -- both at home and in the gym.


*****

Saban pressed a button and the doors behind Bell and Campbell shut. Enclosed was a dream. And it wasn’t just a dream because of the stature of Saban but rather for what it meant. Bell was good. He was Alabama good. And because he was Alabama good, he was good enough for every other program in the country.


Saban offered Bell, the only offered awarded at the camp. Less than a month later, he committed to the Crimson Tide.


For years, Bell was stubborn about making the switch from the defensive to offensive line. He wanted to be J.J. Watt. It seemed everyone was telling Bell he’d find more recruiting success on the O-line. Nope. He was gung-ho on pass rushing.


Campbell even pulled out the all-knowing numbers for three years.


“Bro, you could play defensive end at Hawaii or Nevada, but you have a 4.9(-second 40),” Campbell told Bell. “They are looking for a 4.5, 4.6-40-type of defensive end who has pop. You don’t have that.”


Bell agreed to the transition before his senior year. Finally. The Alabama offer was validation he made the right call. The extra offers that followed just made the situation sweeter. And the offers did indeed come -- heck, they flowed.


In a very short amount of time, Bell went from holding fear over a lack of offers to being overwhelmed with an abundance of them. That’s the Alabama effect. Campbell knew all about it -- before there was the Alabama effect, there was the USC effect.


“Going to USC, which was the No. 1 school in the country, and showing up and Pete Carroll offering me a scholarship,” Campbell said. “By the time I got home, I had 50 other ones. If Pete or Nick Saban puts a stamp on you, everyone else is going to jump on board.”




Bell admitted the biggest factor in his recruiting was trust, an aspect ASU did very well with.
Bell admitted the biggest factor in his recruiting was trust, an aspect ASU did very well with.
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*****


Just weeks after the hiring of Herm Edwards on December 2017, newly-minted offensive coordinator Rob Likens sat near Cabral on a bus in El Paso on the way to one of the Devils’ Sun Bowl practices.


“He was like, ‘Hey, we need your guy’s help recruiting guys because we haven’t been looking for your guys,’” Cabral said of his conversation with Likens. “And I gave him Jarrett’s name there.”


“He’s a California guy -- an Inland Empire guy,” Likens said of Bell. “You always try and talk to your kids. We use that tremendously recruiting over there in California.


Three days later, Bell had an offer from ASU.


Bell was back on the recruiting market about two months earlier, following a decommitment from Alabama, a decision he now says was made off of the Crimson Tide’s “hype.” Regardless, ASU wasn’t on Bell’s radar three months before Signing Day. Things needed to change.


Three weeks following ASU’s 21-point to N.C. State in the Sun Bowl, Bell took an official visit to Tempe. Given their more-than-half-decade history, Cabral hosted Bell, becoming the one tasked with giving the four-star recruit from Norco High School the low-down on ASU’s new staff.


Cabral invited Bell to his house. For three hours, they talked.


“I sat down with him having a brotherly conversation, just the two of us,” Cabral said. “We had a heart-to-heart, man-to-man talk. Being able to explain what it sounds like is here isn’t really here. (The ASU stereotype) is not really what happens. There’s something bigger than just what the school is said to be.”


Bell admitted the biggest factor in his recruiting was trust. Bell is always seeking trust. Perhaps because during his childhood, he didn’t have much of it. He was often left in the dark, never given the full description of his situation.


Even now, it’s hard to acquire Bell’s trust. But Cabral earned it -- earned it by, of all things, telling the truth. He gave Bell insight on the coaches -- how they acted what they expected, how they thought about Bell’s future in Tempe.


“To notice that coach was the exact same with me as what Cohl said really put the picture together and really helped,” Bell said.


During the campus visit, Bell was at lunch with Cabral and offensive line coach Dave Christensen. Cabral got up to go to the bathroom. Christensen followed.


“He stopped Cohl and was like, ‘What do we need to do to get him?’” Bell recalled. “And (Cohl) was like, ‘Get him a sit down with the strength coach.’”


Strength and conditioning allow Bell to free his mind. He’s addicted to it, and because of that, he has forged a path away from the rest of his family, a path of betterment and success. Of course, he needed to meet the person guiding that journey for the foreseeable future.


So a meeting was set up between Bell and ASU strength coach. Joe Connolly. Bell was sold, committing to the Sun Devils on National Signing Day with an epic video montage of him training at Winner Circle before pulling a van and exposing his black, Arizona State shirt.


Bell doesn’t like looking back on the past. He knows it’s not ideal, but he also doesn't want to spin things. There’s no reason to turn his childhood into something good. It wasn’t. Additionally, that’s not helping his future.


The only time he brings up his past is when it can help others.


When he arrived at Arizona State, he talked with the Sun Devils’ academic counselors. They were curious about Bell’s academic history, asking about what he did in elementary school, middle school and high school. Eventually, nuggets about his family were brought up.


“They asked if I’d be OK to speak (in front of local schools and share my story),” Bell said. ‘And I said, ‘Yeah, I’d love to, but I would only want to speak to a group of kids that want to listen,’”


It was set up. Since then, Bell has spoken to numerous schools in the Valley, including Cesar Chavez High School, a school that largely educates kids on the lower end of the socio-economic scale in Phoenix.


After hearing Bell’s speech, a handful of kids reached out to the Arizona State offensive linemen, many of whom still stay in touch with Bell.


On the football field, Bell has yet to earn playing time, redshirting in 2018. He entered his redshirt sophomore season as the backup center to Cabral. Following the absence of left tackle Zach Robertson, Cabral was moved over and Bell stepped in as the starting center.


During fall camp, Bell suffered an injury. In his departure from the practice field, senior Cade Cote supplanted him as the first-team center, forcing Bell to compete with senior Roy Hemsley for the starting right guard spot.


“He just has to get better technically, and he will,” Likens said of Bell. “But the biggest thing is his aggressiveness has allowed him to be where he’s at right now.”


Just three years after switching to the offensive line, Bell is slated to be a Division I starter at right guard. Hearing of this, Campbell isn’t surprised. Of course, Bell is outworking everyone. Of course, his versatility is leading to playing time. And of course, he’s going to succeed.


“Did it again, kid,” Campbell said,


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