Kerwin Bell
Kerwin Douglas Bell is an American football coach and former player who has been the head coach of the Western Carolina Catamounts football team since 2021. He played professionally as a quarterback for 14 seasons in the Canadian Football League, World League of American Football, and the National Football League from the late 1980s until 2002. He then went into coaching, first at the high school level before moving to the collegiate ranks in 2007.
Bell was born in the rural North Central Florida town of Live Oak and was a star high school football quarterback at Lafayette County High School. Though he led the Lafayette Hornets to their only state championship, he did not attract the attention of top college football programs while playing at the small high school. He enrolled at the University of Florida, made their Florida Gators team as a walk-on, and was redshirted during his freshman season of 1983.
Injuries to more experienced players just before the 1984 season pushed Bell into a starting role for the Gators' season opening game against the defending national champion Miami Hurricanes in what was one of the first prime time college football broadcasts on ESPN. He played well in his first collegiate appearance, throwing a go-ahead touchdown pass with under a minute remaining. Though Miami responded and scored the winning touchdown with seven seconds left, Bell's performance under difficult circumstances cemented his position as the team's starting quarterback. Even as head coach Charley Pell was fired mid-season due to NCAA rules violations, Bell and interim coach Galen Hall led the Gators to a conference-best 9–1–1 record, and he was named the Southeastern Conference player of the year. Bell played at Florida for four seasons and was named to several more All-SEC and All-American lists, before graduating in 1987.
Though he started dozens of games in the WLAF and the CFL, he never started an NFL contest and threw only five regular season passes in his NFL career. However, he completed all five of those passes for 75 yards and a touchdown, leaving him with the highest career passer rating in league history, albeit in a very small sample size.
After retiring as a player, Bell returned to Florida and became a high school football coach, leading Trinity High School in Ocala to their first state football championship in 2005. He became the head coach at NCAA Division I Jacksonville University in 2007 and led the Dolphins to their first three conference championships during his nine seasons at the school. Bell moved to Valdosta State University in 2016, and in 2018, he led the Blazers to their first undefeated season and the NCAA D-II national championship on the strength of the highest scoring offense in college football. Bell accepted the position of offensive coordinator for the South Florida Bulls under head coach Charlie Strong in 2019 but was dismissed along with the entire staff when Strong was fired after the season.
Bell became the head football coach at Western Carolina in 2021. The Catamounts had not won more than three games for several seasons until Bell led them to their first winning record in six years in 2022.
Early life
Bell was born in Live Oak, Florida in North Central Florida to Doyle and Zelda Bell and grew up in nearby Mayo, Florida, population 800. His parents were tobacco farmers, and Kerwin helped with various farming tasks throughout his youth. Bell attended Lafayette County High School, where he was the president of the student council and a multi-sport athlete, playing shortstop on the baseball team, leading the basketball team in scoring as a starting guard, and starting at quarterback on the football team. In 1981, he led the Lafayette Hornets to their only state football championship, earning the nickname "The Throwin' Mayoan."College career
Despite his prep success, Bell was lightly recruited during his senior year with no athletic scholarship offers from major football programs, as his rural high school had competed in the lowest division of Florida high school football and coaches were unsure if he could succeed against top collegiate talent. Instead of attending a smaller college, Bell decided to walk-on at the University of Florida in nearby Gainesville and join the Florida Gators football team without an athletic scholarship. He was eighth on the Gators' quarterback depth chart during his freshman season of 1983 under head coach Galen Hall and was redshirted without playing in a game.Bell was the Gators' backup quarterback coming into the 1984 season due to his consistent performance on the practice field and the fact that several quarterbacks ahead of him on the depth chart had graduated, transferred, or were injured. When senior starter Dale Dorminey suffered a serious knee injury four days before the Gators' first game, Bell was suddenly thrust into the starting role. The Gators opened the 1984 season against the defending national champion Miami Hurricanes in Tampa Stadium in one of the first college football games to be nationally televised by ESPN. In his first collegiate start, Bell threw a touchdown pass with under a minute remaining to give the Gators the lead, only to have Miami quarterback Bernie Kosar lead the Hurricanes to a winning score with seven seconds remaining.
The Gators would not lose another game during Bell's redshirt freshman season. Behind an outstanding offensive line, memorably dubbed "The Great Wall of Florida," and which included Phil Bromley, Lomas Brown, Billy Hinson, Crawford Ker and Jeff Zimmerman, and supported by fullback John L. Williams, halfback Neal Anderson and wide receiver Ricky Nattiel, Bell led the Gators to a 9–1–1 record, an SEC championship, and a top-5 national ranking.
However, due to NCAA infractions committed under coach Charley Pell, the Gators' were ineligible for bowl consideration, and their SEC championship was vacated months after the 1984 season ended. In 1985, now with a full scholarship, Bell led the Gators to a second consecutive 9–1–1 record. Though ineligible for the conference championship, the Gators finished with best-in-the-conference records of 5–0–1 and 5–1 in 1984 and 1985 and briefly held their first ever No. 1 ranking in the AP poll during the 1985 season.
Due to the effects of ongoing NCAA penalties, the Gators' record slipped to 6–5 in 1986 and 6–6 in 1987, Bell's junior and senior seasons. A highlight of those campaigns was Florida's upset of the No. 5 and undefeated Auburn Tigers in November 1986. Bell had injured his knee a month prior and did not start the game. But with the Gators trailing 17–0 in the fourth quarter, he entered the contest wearing a large knee brace and led his team to a dramatic 18–17 comeback win, capped with a last-minute touchdown pass to Nattiel followed by Bell himself "hobbling" into the endzone for a successful two-point conversion.
Bell was the Southeastern Conference Player of the Year in 1984, an honorable mention All-American in 1985 and 1986, a first-team All-SEC selection in 1985, and the recipient of the Gators' Fergie Ferguson Award and a team captain in 1987. He finished his four-year college career with 549 completions on 949 passing attempts, for 7,585 yards and fifty-six touchdowns.
Bell graduated from Florida with a bachelor's degree in psychology in 1987, and was inducted into the University of Florida Athletic Hall of Fame as a "Gator Great" in 1997. Among the top 100 Gators of the first 100 years of Florida football, the sportswriters of The Gainesville Sun ranked him the No. 26 greatest Gator of all time in 2006.