Bell, Spencer to Coach Manual Arts Football

Glenn Bell is returning to the Manual Arts High football program as a co-head coach with Rodney Spencer.

Bell, who coached and played football for the Toilers, had been working as a coach for the past four years at Camp Kilpatrick, a juvenile detention school near Malibu.

Bell, 47, returned to the inner-city position despite taking a pay cut and traveling an additional 28 miles to work from his Camarillo home.

“I felt like coming home,” Bell said. “Manual is my home. I worked with everyone else’s kids, I wanted to work with inner-city kids again.”

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Bell coached at Manual Arts from 1974-76. Later, during a three-year stint at Dorsey, he won a City Section 3-A Division championship in 1982 and was named Coach of the Year by the Southern California Coaches Assn. the same year. He received national attention as one of the first high school football coaches to enact the Rita Walters-sponsored “C average/no fail” rule at the same time he did daily attendance checks and insisted on his players having daily study hall sessions at Dorsey.

“I want higher standards; average is unacceptable,” Bell said. “As an educator I stress education first. Sports is a medium to get young mens’ attention . . . then comes the values clarification.”

Bell has also been recognized for his innovative program at Camp Kilpatrick.

Under Bell’s tutelage, the camp football team went 10-3 last season, losing to Montclair Prep in the Division X semifinals. Bell is more proud, however, of Camp Kilpatrick’s 95% non-repeat offender record.

“We had kids up for murder, kidnap, rape, arson and extortion,” Bell said. “I’d like to get to these kids before they get to Camp Kilpatrick.”

There was controversy at Manual Arts earlier in the year when new Principal Wendell Greer decided to remove the longtime varsity football head coaching team of Spencer and Charles Hollis. And Bell said he encountered some hostility upon first returning to teach physical education at Manual Arts in March.

“There was some resentment on the part of the players and teachers when I first arrived,” Bell said. “It took time for the players to come around, but that’s to be expected. Spencer and Hollis never showed any resentment toward me. They are good men.”

Manual Arts named Hollis the school’s athletic director.