Arthur Bell is Aquidneck Island football and its programs are proof.
Middletown was blessed to have Bell as head coach for nine years and led the Islanders to a pair of undefeated seasons. Portsmouth had him on its staff and Rogers saw Bell as a budding star who won three consecutive Class A championships during the John Toppa years.
Bell made coaching stops at Portsmouth Abbey and Salve Regina as his influence grew on the island over 35 years spent on the sidelines.
He was diagnosed with a rare liver cancer, cholangiocarcinoma, in 2019. It forced him to step away from those sidelines — but he’d still check in on the Islanders — as he began treatment. Bell died Sunday after battling the cancer for five years. He was 63 years old.
“He has touched every one of these programs and in a positive way,” Portsmouth coach Keith MacDonald said. “And there's not a team on this island that has not been influenced by Art.”
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Only four years separated MacDonald and Bell in age. But that hasn’t stopped the Patriots’ leader from adopting traits that the Islanders’ coach showcased throughout his career, especially the 2011-2019 stretch when Middletown went 51-27.
“He was the type of coach that would go to bat for you, and he would never leave any of his kids hanging,” MacDonald said. “A lot of the characteristics I say [about Bell], are the characteristics I like to call myself, and I think I've learned those from him.”
There was a three-year stretch (2012-14) during which Middletown lost only three games, sandwiching a playoff appearance between two championships in Division III.
“Middletown is not exactly a big school, but thanks to Art Bell they punched way above their weight,” former managing editor of the Newport Daily News, Scott Barrett, said. “He had those kids always ready to play. Very few coaches could have done more with less.
“He was just a great person. And I can even remember, when he was first diagnosed, he always had an upbeat attitude.”
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Current Middletown coach, Matt Kestler, played under Bell at Salve and then assumed the head coaching role when his predecessor stepped away. He was also on the staff in 2014 when the Islanders topped East Greenwich in the championship.
“He had the biggest impact on my coaching,” Kestler said. “When I reflect on it daily at practice, there's probably something coming out of my mouth, something I'm going to say some way, or something I'm going to do, that’s a direct quote from Art.”
Middletown appeared in the last two D-III championships, winning last season for the first time since the 2014 banner-hanging year.
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“Going into the Super Bowl two years ago, he sent me a big, long text,” Kestler said. “Which was very calming to me, because that was my first Super Bowl as head coach. He's just always been there passively as a mentor when I was under him.”
Bell always found a way to weave in Ozzy Osbourne’s “Crazy Train” — it was a personal anthem — at practice or at the annual end-of-summer party at Gooseberry Beach. But he was most known for being a hard-nosed coach, formed under the playing years with Toppa, that blended his player-coach relationships perfectly.
“He was the perfect guy to get them fired up,” current Rogers’ coach, John Horsman, who coached with Bell at both Salve and Middletown, said. “They loved playing for him.”
“He influenced a lot of people,” MacDonald said. “A lot of coaches, a lot of players, and we are all for the better. We are better by being touched by him.”
The 2012 championship game ball, which was Bell’s first Super Bowl as a coach, resides with Horsman. Bell, the elder of the two by eight years, honored his assistant postgame and the memento is stored away safely.
“I was just so fortunate to be able to work with him for all those years and so closely with him,” Horsman said. “Most head guys, especially when I first started out, when wouldn't give a young guy like myself as much influence and as much input as I had. He was always secure, and he let me do my thing. And if I messed up, he'd tell me, and he'd help me fix it. It's just a huge part of my life.”
When Kestler took over at Middletown, Bell kept his eyes on the Islanders. He didn’t want to leave Middletown, or coaching, but COVID and chemotherapy pushed him into retirement. He was named Division II-B coach of the year in his last season after steering the Islanders to a runner-up finish.
“I miss coaching, just being with the kids and coaches and having fun out there,” Bell told the Newport Daily News in 2021, after being inducted into the Rogers Hall of Fame.
Fittingly, Middletown opens against Rogers this season, a 6 p.m. start time at Gaudet Middle School on Sept. 13. Middletown plans on honoring its longtime leader.
“Just his footprint on this community, there's not many that are going to rival what his legacy is here locally,” Kestler said. “He was well respected by everybody. I don't know that I've ever heard anybody say a bad word about the guy. He had that kind of infectious personality that you knew when he came in the room.”
The wake will be held Wednesday from 4-7 p.m. at the O’Neill-Hayes Funeral Home, 465 Spring St., Newport, according to his obituary. Burial will be private on Thursday.
jrousseau@providencejournal.com
On X: @ByJacobRousseau
This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Legendary Aquidneck Island football coach Arthur Bell dies at 63 after long cancer battle
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