By STEVE KRAH
Baseball at Columbia City (Ind.) High School is in need of someone to guide it.
Rob Bell has decided to step down to devote more time to his full-time job and his loved ones.
“Serving as the head baseball coach and assistant principal at the high school just became too much,” says Bell, who became diamond boss for the 2018 season. “I had a lot of things happen last year in my personal life that made me step back and re-evaluate if I could continue to justify the time I was devoting to my jobs, and not spending with my family and friends.”
Rob is a husband to Lori Bell and father of sons Dalton Bell (Columbia City Class of 2019) and Brady Bell (Columbia City Class of 2022).
The Eagles program came a long way under Bell’s tutelage. The two seasons prior to his arrival saw Columbia City post marks of 2-19, and 1-20 record respectively.
The 2018 team went 6-21, followed by 7-18 in 2019, a season without baseball in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, 11-17 in 2021, 14-12 in 2022 and 19-9 in 2023. The latter is the third-best record in school history.
“I’m really proud of where we were able to take the program,” says Bell. “There has always been a lot of pride and tradition buried deep in the program and we just had to find a way to re-establish it in our guys … I think we were able to get that done.”
Bell, who was named the Indiana High School Baseball Coaches Association District I Coach of the year this past season, finishes his coaching career with a 57-77 overall win-loss record and a 9-26 ledger in the Northeast Eight Conference.
His 57 wins places him fifth on the all-time list of coaching victories at Columbia City. The top four are Dan Dorman (138), Jason Smith (92), Tom Wood (90) and Roger Tuggle (71).
While Bell’s Eagle teams and players have made their mark on the school record boards, Bell is most proud of where the program has grown in terms of respect earned both in the community and across the region and state.
The educator points to the past three consecutive years where the Eagles were honored as an American Baseball Coaches Association National Academic Excellence team for their outstanding team grade-point average.
Combine that with three IHSBCA Academic All-State award winners, four IHSBCA All-State players, 15 all-NE8 selections and an IHSBCA North All-Star in Sam Gladd in 2022 and Bell beams with pride.
“That’s what coaching at the high school level is all about, helping young men reach their potential and chase their dreams as student-athletes,” says Bell. “While each of those individual accomplishments are outstanding, I’m even more proud of the teams that we were able to build which allowed those guys to be recognized for their accomplishments.”
Bell was an assistant to Indiana Basketball Hall of Famer Wayne Kreiger for Columbia City’s girls basketball program and served on the Eagles boys basketball staff of Chris Benedict and coached middle school basketball and football at Columbia City.
There have also been stints as girls basketball head coach at Whitko and girls basketball freshman coach at Angola as well as football and softball assistant jobs at Garrett, the school Bell graduated from in 1991.
Bell, 50, is in his 23rd year at Columbia City for 23 years. He was first a science teacher then dean of students and now assistant principal. Along the way, he was convinced that he was the man to help Eagles baseball.
An Eagle Scout while he was in high school, Bell brought in the Boy Scout Law (A scout is: Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind, Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty, Brave, Clean and Reverent) as a code of conduct in his first head coaching job with Whitko girls basketballers.
With Columbia City baseball, he’s added Discipline to the list.
Bell played baseball his first two years at Garrett then switched to track. He went to Butler University to study pharmacy and play football. Along the way, he gave up the grid and switched to education. He finished college at Indiana Purdue-Fort Wayne.
After 30 years in coaching, Bell hesitates to say that he’s retired from it, but he’s not sure yet what’s next for him in the arena. He does know that it will be some time down the road if it comes again.
“I stepped away because of the time I need to spend with those that I love, and that’s hard to say because I love each and every one of my guys and my loyal assistant coaches, but right now they don’t need me as much as others do,” says Bell. “My staff and I were hired to rebuild the pride in the Eagle Baseball program and to mentor the young coaches so that they could hopefully be ready to take over when the time was right.
“I believe we’ve done that and I believe the time is right to hand over the program.” Bell pointed to the fact that there were 118 future Eagles in the team’s summer camp this past year and 47 players in the high school program, not to mention the myriad of local travel teams that are building future Eagles.
He also acknowledged the former players and coaches from decades ago who reached out to share their pride and excitement with what the Eagles were building.
“There’s excitement and pride in being associated with Columbia City Eagle Baseball again,” says Bell. “I’m so proud of our guys for building that back up, it really gives me a lot of pride.
“You just always hope that you did enough to show them how much you truly love and care about them, I hope they know they’ll always be my boys and I’ll do anything for them.”
The search for Bell’s replacement began in early September.
The Eagles are slated to open the 2024 season at Central Noble on Monday, March 25.
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