Never too late: 74-year-old football Hall of Famer earns college degree

Former Kansas City Chiefs linebacker/defensive end Bobby Bell had a professional resume that anyone who likes football would envy.

He was a two-time All-American and national champion in college. He was a six-time All-Pro and Super Bowl champion in the NFL. Bell was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He did it all on the field. He was successful off of it as well, opening a chain of restaurants in retirement.

Yet the 74-year-old was bothered by something he didn’t do. He left home for the University of Minnesota in 1959 and he never got his degree. For decades he was 13 credits short. He rectified that.

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Bell will walk across the stage as a graduate of Minnesota’s College of Education and Human Development on Thursday. A fantastic story from the Minnesota Star-Tribune’s Joe Christensen detailed Bell’s journey to finish his degree, almost 56 years after he left Shelby, N.C. for college.

“I’ve got all kinds of stuff on the wall,” Bell told the Star-Tribune. “But that [degree] is one thing I did not have, and I promised my dad I would get it.”

The Star-Tribune said Bell had to track down a “pencil-written transcript,” and then in the last year he took three classes to fulfill his graduation requirements for his degree in recreation, park and leisure studies. His three children and four grandchildren will attend the ceremony. What a great example he has set for them, and everyone really. It’s a great reminder that it’s never too late in life to achieve.

“He promised his dad that he’d get his education,” Minnesota football coach Jerry Kill told Yahoo Sports’ Eric Adelson. “That’s the driving force. He’s been a winner all his life. And I think this is the final missing piece.”

The Star-Tribune details Bell’s life, and notes how hard he studied when he got to college (“I didn’t want to go back to North Carolina with my head down,” he said). It talks about how, when he returned to college, he had to become proficient in computers, which is a little more challenging for a man in his 70s than other students more than 50 years younger. But he did it. The story said Bell took two classes in the fall. He made the dean’s list.

“It’s something I think is a tremendous example,” Kill said. “It doesn’t matter how long it takes, it’s whether you accomplished that goal.”

Both of Bell’s parents are dead, but he said his father would be proud.