Theo Bell, 52; Earned 2 Super Bowl Rings as Receiver With Steelers

Theo Bell, 52, a former NFL receiver who won two Super Bowl rings with the Pittsburgh Steelers before finishing his career with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, died Wednesday at a hospital in Tampa, Fla., after a long battle with kidney disease and scleroderma. Scleroderma is a chronic disease that causes skin thickening and tightening and can cause damage to internal organs.

Born Theopolis Bell on Dec. 21, 1953, in Bakersfield, he starred for the University of Arizona before the Wildcats left the Western Athletic Conference to join the Pacific 10 Conference.

A fourth-round draft pick of the Steelers in 1976, he played nine seasons in the NFL, the last five with the Buccaneers. He was with Pittsburgh when the Steelers won the Super Bowl after the 1978 and 1979 seasons.

After retiring from football, Bell worked with a program called GEARUP -- Gaining Early Awareness Readiness of Undergraduate Programs -- that tracked middle school students and encouraged them to finish high school.