Chiefs legend Bobby Bell always has been socially nimble, figures Willie Lanier, one of his teammates for life.
For one thing, how else could an African-American man have navigated his move from North Carolina to the University of Minnesota in 1960 and to Kansas City in 1963?
For another, he’s been that way ever since Lanier met him in 1967.
“I think Bobby has been the social glue of anywhere he has been in his entire journey,” Lanier said in a phone interview Friday, later adding, “His social skills allowed people around him to become very comfortable very quickly (and were) something he could bring to any engagement.”
Which brings us to this particular engagement: His role among former Chiefs and fellow Pro Football Hall of Famers amid the anguish of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.
We should all be so lucky to have someone as caring as him in our sphere of influence, an example we might all consider applying in this time of isolation and dread:
Make that phone call now. You never know how it might help.
That’s one way the ever-animated, ever-engaged Bell is more of a light than ever.
In between mowing the lawn three times a week and observing neighbors he didn’t know had dogs being walked by their canine friends, the man Lanier figures has thousands of phone numbers (and considers his very own “telephone directory for the rest of the world”) has been making call after call after call.
“I always try to call people and wish them Happy Birthday and stuff like that; I’ve been doing that for years and years,” Bell, who will turn 80 in June, said Friday. “But lately I’ve had to double up on doing that.”
Because of a different sort of urgency given these times and the ages and potential vulnerabilities of his brethren — including Super Bowl IV champion teammates Gloster Richardson and Goldie Sellers and Hall of Famers Willie Davis and Bobby Mitchell dying in the last few weeks. Among a number of former NFL players.
Bell tried to reach Mitchell and Davis a few times recently, he said, only to get the awful news.
After he called former Missouri and Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker Andy Russell three times the other day, he joked that he was about to call the police department before he finally got through on the next try.
“Joe Greene, Paul Krause, Paul Warfield, Emmitt Thomas, Curley Culp, you just name it,” said Bell, listing several other Hall of Famers and teammates and friends before adding, “I can just keep naming names.”
His message is always some variation of this: “ ‘Hey, man, I love you brother. Take care of yourself.’ “
