Villanova Univeristy Athletics

A native of New Kensington, Pa. who was a standout end for Villanova and later the team’s head coach for seven seasons, Alex Bell spent 13 years in all on the Main Line as a student-athlete, assistant coach and head coach. His playing career with the Wildcats spanned from 1935-37 and he was the Villanova head coach from 1960-66. Bell graduated in 1938 and was inducted to the Varsity Club Hall of Fame in 1986.
 
During his own collegiate career Bell played one season under head coach Harry Stuhldreher and the first two years in the coaching tenure of Maurice “Clipper” Smith who would lead the Wildcats to a Bacardi Bowl appearance in his first season. All three years of Bell’s playing career were highly successful ones and Villanova compiled a 22-4-2 (.821) mark spanning the 1935 through 1937 seasons.
 
Individually, Bell was named to the Eastern Collegiate All-Star team in 1937 while helping the Wildcats go 8-0-1 and post their first unbeaten season in nine years. Villanova was scored on just once the entire 1937 season and had a 185-7 scoring margin in the nine games played. Among the notable games of the year were a 0-0 tie against Auburn at Shibe Park in a rematch of the Bacardi Bowl played in Havana, Cuba on January 1 of that year. The bowl game also ended in a tie at 7-7.
 
Bell played one season professionally as a halfback for the Detroit Lions in 1940, but a shoulder injury sidelined him and wound up launching his coaching career. His first coaching job was as an assistant coach at Loyola (Calif.) from 1940-42.
 
After that coaching stint, Bell was a World War II veteran who served his country in the U.S. Navy from 1942-45. He resumed his coaching career following the war and was hired as an assistant coach at Saint Monica Catholic High School in California for the 1946 season. Bell returned home to Pennsylvania soon after and would spend the majority of his coaching career over the next two decades in his home state. He was the head coach at Delone Catholic High School in Pennsylvania from 1947-49 and returned to California for one year in 1959 to be the head coach at St. Augustine High School.
 
It was in 1951 that Bell first returned to his alma mater. He was an assistant coach at Villanova working with the team’s line from 1951-53 during Art Raimo’s head coaching tenure. The team went 16-10-1 in those seasons while producing a trio of first team All-Americans in Joseph DeRose (1951), Nick e (1951) and Gene Filipski (1952). Following three more seasons as the head coach at Delone Catholic (1954-56) and three years as an assistant coach at Harvard (1957-59), Bell was hired as the 23^rd full-time head coach of Villanova Football prior to the 1960 season.
 
Villanova won only two games in Bell’s first season (2-8) before an impressive turnaround saw the team go 15-5 while making back-to-back bowl game appearances in 1961 and 1962. The 1961 squad went 8-2 with notable wins over Holy Cross, Massachusetts and Buffalo before posting the program’s second-ever bowl game victory over Wichita State in the Sun Bowl played in El Paso, Texas.
 
The follow-up to the 1961 campaign was just as impressive as the Wildcats knocked off Delaware, Xavier and Rutgers during a 7-3 season in 1962. That year ended with the Liberty Bowl being played in Philadelphia, Pa. against a heavily favored Oregon State team led by Heisman Trophy winner Terry Baker. Villanova was up to the challenge however and took the Beavers to the wire in a narrow 6-0 defeat.
 
Bell would go on to lead the Wildcats to winning records in three of his next four seasons as head coach. Following the 1962 season, Charlie Johnson was named a first team All-American by Williamson All-America. Al Atkinson was an ECAC First Team Offense selection for both the 1963 and 1964 seasons. Bell coached 17 players in all during his head coaching tenure who would go on to be inducted to the Varsity Club Hall of Fame.