PLAYER #117 - BILL BELL (1945-47)

When it comes to winning championships, Bill Bell batted .1000. Three Grey Cups in three years. Not a bad average, eh!

"I went up to Pinball (Clemons) a little while ago at a golf tournament in Barrie," said Bell. "When he heard I was on three Grey Cup teams, he (leaned up against me and) said: 'I'm going to rub on you, man'."

Clemons is hoping for a bit of the luck and sense of team spirit that the post-World War II teams contained, in the belief it will lead to a Grey Cup win again this year. Judging by the scrappy effort exhibited by the Argos in their final regular season home game against B.C., it seems that team solidarity is not going to be a worry.

Bell witnessed that game from a private box as a guest of the team, as did other Argos from the 1946 squad, which was being honoured on the 50th anniversary of their Grey Cup victory. The camaraderie that existed 50 years ago was still evident. Bell recalled an incident at the Queen's Hotel after a game in Montreal in 1946 that showcased this team solidarity.

"We had a table set up for a banquet, but the maitre d' said to me: 'Sir, you can't come into the dining hall because you don't have a jacket'," said Bell, who wore a shirt and tie, but no jacket. The maitre d' wouldn't budge, so the Argo general manager at the time gave each of the players $5 to go out somewhere else and have dinner. "If one of our players can't go in, we all won't go in," was the general reaction according to Bell, and this sense of togetherness carried over onto the field.

But there were some humorous moments, when the tight grip on the team spirit loosened up into a big roar.

"Back then, there were rules that (stipulated) you couldn't substitute during certain times," recalled Bell, who played safety on defence, and alternated at flanker, running back and quarterback on offence. While quarterbacking a series during a 1946 game at Varsity Stadium, Bell said "my pants ripped right down the seam, so they sent out for a new pair of pants, and the team huddle around me while I changed. But the buggers were threatening to break the huddle when I got down to my jockstrap."

His teammates didn't break the huddle, but the opposition did break Bell's leg and almost broke his back, and the injuries forced him to retire from the Argos after the 1947 season. Bell decided to go back to school at Queen's University, where he studied arts and phys. ed. and also put on the pads for one last time.

After finishing up at Queen's in 1951, Bell moved north to Lively, Ontario, a small town just west of Sudbury, where he spent the next 30 years as a phys. ed. teacher at Lively High School. He and his wife Logia raised their two sons Tom and Mike there, and the couple now has four granddaughters as well, two from each son. Having retired 13 years ago, Bell now lives in Markdale, Ontario, a small town near Collingwood, where "I golf all summer and ski all winter. It's a great life."