\u201cHome is where the heart is\u201d has been the mantra for 2005 Branford Sports Hall of Fame inductee James Bell in the athletic, academic and professional fields.<\/p>\n
A scholar-athlete at Branford High School from 1982 to 1985, Jim was a two sport athlete in football and basketball. In his sophomore season, he was a defensive and offensive tackle on the football squad which went 8-2 under then first year head coach Doug Morrell.\u00a0 Over the next two seasons, Jim was an instrumental part of Branford\u2019s back to back 7-3 records. In his senior year, he was a team captain and selected to the All-Housatonic League First Team and All-State First Team (Defensive Tackle).<\/p>\n
As a four-year member on the Hornet basketball team, Jim was a varsity letter winner at center for three years, including captain in his senior season.\u00a0 He was selected to the All-Housatonic League team, the All\u2014Tournament First Team and the Most Valuable Player in the Branford Holiday Festival Basketball Tournament.<\/p>\n
Following high school, Jim attended Harvard University from 1985 to 1989. He played on the freshman football team in 1985 as the Ivy League did not allow freshman to play varsity sports at that time.\u00a0 Jim was a three year starting defensive tackle from 1986 to 1988 and a member of the Ivy League championship squad in 1987. In his senior year, tonight\u2019s inductee was named to the All-Ivy League First Team as a Defensive Tackle and All-New England First Team. Jim was the only Ivy League player selected to the team that year.<\/p>\n
After graduation from Harvard, Jim\u2019s travels sent him to Barcelona, Spain, where he played, (as a Defensive Tackle) and coached (as a Defensive Coordinator) for the Barcelona Boxers from 1989 to 1992. The team won the Spanish equivalent of the Spanish National American Football Championship, known as \u201cSuper Copa\u201d in 1990.<\/p>\n
While in Spain working as a translator, Jim caught his big breakthrough for NBC-TV as a sports producer and in particular Coordinating Producer of\u00a0 NBC\u2019s Olympics coverage before being named Executive Producer of the \u201cToday\u201d Show.<\/p>\n
Now residing in Greenwich, Connecticut, Jim is married to his wife, Angelique, and is the father to four boys:\u00a0 Jimmy, Lucas, Emmett and Nicky.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":643,"template":"","acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/branfordsportshalloffame.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/inductee\/642"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/branfordsportshalloffame.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/inductee"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/branfordsportshalloffame.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/inductee"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/branfordsportshalloffame.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/branfordsportshalloffame.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}