NFL Columnist Jarrett Bell To Speak to ODU Sport Management Students
February 19, 2015
It is said frequently that National Football League season never stops.
With NFL Network providing bench press-to-40-yard-dash coverage of the Scouting Combine this weekend from Indianapolis, the statement certainly rings true. It must be a fascinating time to be a journalist covering the NFL.
Sport management students at Old Dominion University will get a glimpse of that unique insight when Jarrett Bell, NFL columnist for USA Today, will visit campus on Tuesday, Feb. 24. Bell's discussion will be at 7 p.m. in Room 200 of the Physics and Oceanography Building. All sport management students are encouraged to attend, and the talk is open to the campus community on a limited space basis.
Bell has covered the NFL for USA Today since 1993.
In addition to winning dozens of in-house awards, he received writing awards from the Pro Football Writers of America in 2001 and 2009.
Bell joined ESPN as an NFL contributor in May 2013, primarily serving as a panelist on its "NFL Insiders" show. He has been a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame selection committee since 1997, and in each year during that span has also served on the media panel that selects the Super Bowl MVP.
Since 2001, he has been featured on an "Around the NFL" segment that airs as part of the Baltimore Ravens pre-game radio show on WBAL. Among hundreds of radio and TV interviews, he has appeared on national programming for CBS' Face the Nation, CNBC, ESPN, CNN, The NFL Network, ESPN Radio and Sirius Satellite Radio, in addition to the Gannett-owned Washington, D.C. affiliate, WUSA-TV.
Bell, 54, previously covered the San Francisco 49ers for the Marin (County) Independent Journal for three years (1990-1992) and served as editor of The Dallas Cowboys Weekly. He began a nine-year association with the Cowboys in 1981, shortly after graduating from Michigan State University with a bachelor's degree in Human Communication.
In college, he worked as a student assistant in the Michigan State University Sports Information Office, a news reporter for WVIC-AM and as a teaching assistant for the Department of Communication. He also studied abroad as an exchange student at The University of London during the summer of 1979.
A Detroit native, Bell began in sports as a teenager at Olympia Stadium -- working as an equipment manager for the Detroit Jr. Wings and as an aide in the PR Department for the NHL's Detroit Red Wings.
Bell resides in Northern Virginia with wife Jackie and two children.
As the sport industry continues to expand, qualified leaders with sport business knowledge and skills are needed to plan, organize, direct, and evaluate sport programs and organizations.
Old Dominion University offers undergraduate, graduate and doctoral degrees in sport management, administered under the Darden College of Education. Among its graduates are administrators and executives for professional teams, national sport organizations and media companies.