A few loaves of Johnnie Bread and a quick glance at win-loss records helped keep Rick Bell from being a Gopher or a Tommie.
The running back from Rocori High School went on to become one of the greatest players in Saint John's football history. But the story came very close to playing out differently.
"I had signed a tender to go to the University of Minnesota to play baseball until I played in the (1979 Lions) state all-star series after my senior year in high school and I didn't do as well as I wanted to," Bell recalls.
"Then, I was fortunate enough to get to play in the all-star football game (that July) and I was elected captain. A new football coach (Joe Salem) had just taken over at the U and he talked to me on the field afterward. I remember (legendary SJU head coach) John (Gagliardi) was there and so was (DuWayne) Deitz, the head coach at St. Thomas at the time."
Bell, playing for the North squad, caught a screen pass for a touchdown in that game, played before a crowd of over 8,000 at Parade Stadium in Minneapolis.
"After that game, I went home to Cold Spring and I can remember telling my Dad that I just wasn't ready to give football up," Bell recalls. "The next morning was a Saturday and our doorbell rang at 9 a.m. It was John and he'd brought a few loaves of Johnnie Bread with him. That was pretty impressive.
"I was still considering St. Thomas at the time too. Deitz had come up to Cold Spring to recruit me. Then John pulled out the win-loss record when we talked, and the rest was history."
That it was. Bell received the rare honor of being asked to report to camp with the team's veteran players that August, and broke into the starting lineup midway through his freshman season that fall – rushing for 136 yards and two touchdowns in 42-0 thrashing of Macalester in Collegeville.
He went on to rush for 2,630 yards in his four-year collegiate career, a total that still ranks fifth in program history. His 30 career rushing touchdowns ties him for eighth place on the school's all-time list.
Bell earned All-MIAC honors as a junior in 1981 when he led the Johnnies in both rushing (120 carries, 704 yards, six touchdowns) and receiving (30 catches, 402 yards, six touchdowns). Then, as a senior, he earned All-MIAC and All-American honors after rushing for 903 yards and 14 touchdowns and leading SJU to a 9-1 record and a berth in the NAIA playoffs.
"I knew it was a big deal for Saint John's when I heard Rick was coming," said Dennis Schleper, who played baseball against Bell when he was a high school athlete at St. Cloud Cathedral and went on to join him in the backfield as the Johnnies' starting quarterback in 1981 and '82.
"He was an incredible athlete. But beyond his athletic ability, he had a great mind for football. We called a lot of our own plays in those days, and there were so many times he'd come back to the huddle and suggest this play or that one. He had a knack for knowing what would work."
One of the biggest games of Bell's career came against St. Cloud State in the opening game of the 1982 season. He carried the ball 25 times for 149 yards and two touchdowns while making 14 catches for 226 yards and another TD in a 45-35 victory in Collegeville.
The Johnnies won the MIAC title that season, but fell 33-28 on the road to top-ranked Northwestern (Iowa) in the first round of the NAIA Division II playoffs.
"That was such a talented team," said Bell, who also played four years of baseball at SJU. "It was unfortunate we didn't go further than we did. But we made some mistakes in that game that cost us."
Still, Bell finished his lone postseason contest with 142 yards of total offense and two touchdowns (one rushing, one receiving).
"If you look at the running backs who have succeeded here over the years, they've always been guys who could run, catch and block," said current SJU head coach
Gary Fasching, who was a teammate of Bell's during his days as a player for the Johnnies. "Rick might have been the best of all of them. We threw a ton of screen passes to him and he made things happen.
"He was big, strong and fast. He had everything you'd want in a running back."
Which is why he managed to catch the attention of NFL scouts. The Cincinnati Bengals sent one of their top scouts to Collegeville to work him out at Warner Palaestra and indicated they might select him in that year's NFL Draft.
That didn't come to pass, but Bell signed a free agent contract with the Minnesota Vikings three weeks before the start of training camp and quickly turned heads in the preseason.
That included playing almost the entire second half of a 28-10 win over the St. Louis Cardinals played at London's Wembley Stadium – the first NFL game ever played in Europe.
"That was one of the first times I'd ever been on an airplane," Bell said. "I'd gone to Jamaica with some of my buddies on a trip during my junior year at Saint John's. But I'd never really been abroad to any place like that. So here's Rick from Cold Spring, Minnesota – population 5,000 – out amongst all these people in London. Then playing in a stadium more full than anywhere I'd ever played before. That was an incredible experience."
Bell's play that preseason earned him a spot on the team's final 49-man roster – for a few hours, that is. Then, because of injuries in the tight end corps, the Vikings picked up rookie (and future NFL head coach) Mike Mularkey on waivers that same day and Bell was let go.
But head coach Bud Grant told him to stay in shape because he might be back. Two weeks into the regular season, that call came.
"I was back in Cold Spring working at the lumber yard," said Bell, who had also spent the time playing amateur baseball for the Cold Spring Springers.
"I was on a break that morning and they told me I had a call, so I went to the back and answered the phone. It was Mike Lynn asking me if I wanted a job. I said 'When do you want me there?' He said 'Can you make the 1 p.m. meeting?' So I went back and told the guys I was quitting to go play for the Vikings and I was (at the team's facility) that afternoon."
Bell remained with the team for the season's final 14 games, seeing action mainly on special teams. The highlight of the season came in a game against Chicago that December in the Metrodome when he blocked a punt by Bear's punter Ray Stachowicz.
That came a week after he returned a kickoff 14 yards on Monday Night Football in Detroit.
"Much like what it means to have (SJU graduate and current San Francisco 49ers offensive lineman) Ben Bartch playing now, to see a guy I played with getting the chance to show what he could do at that level was really incredible," Fasching said. "It was a big thing for the program and it was a big thing for him. It meant he was playing with the best of the best."
Bell was back in training camp the following season, but legendary coach Bud Grant (who had two sons play at SJU) had retired and first-year head coach Les Steckel made Bell one of his final cuts.
He got one more chance when Grant returned in 1985, but was also cut in training camp and Bell moved on.
He settled into a career in insurance and is now in his 38th year as a State Farm agent in Chatfield, Minn. His wife Ann – a 1983 College of Saint Benedict graduate - has longed worked as a nurse at the Mayo Clinic in nearby Rochester.
His two daughters have also gone into nursing while his two sons have gone into the plumbing business and insurance, respectively.
"It's been a good life," he said. "(Chatfield) is a great community. It's about the size of Cold Spring and I love it here. The community has been really good to me and my family."
But Bell still follows the Johnnies and remembers his time at SJU fondly.
"I played with some great teammates and we made a lot of great memories together," he said. "It was a special time and place. I'm just so grateful to Saint John's and John Gagliardi. I wouldn't be where I am today if it wasn't for them."
